Oral History Interview with Doug Seiters

Title

Oral History Interview with Doug Seiters

Interviewee

Doug Seiters

Interviewer

Eloise Bradford

Description

Doug Seiters is a retired Professor Emeritus of Classical Languages from The University of the South. Mr. Seiters was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1943. He grew up and attended school in Chattanooga, then attended Sewanee: The University of the South for his undergraduate education. There, he received his Bachelor of Arts. Along with this, he was the Chair of the College for his graduating class. After this, he attended Florida State University and received his Master of Arts degree. He then moved back to Sewanee, Tennessee, where he taught at the University of the South. During his time teaching, Mr. Seiters hosted and co-operated the Sewanee Summer Scholars program. This was a program designed by the school to bring in underprivileged students of color and provide them with the opportunity to achieve higher education. Mr. Seiters is now retired, living with his wife right in the heart of the Sewanee campus.

Transcript

Eloise Bradford (00:00):
This is Eloise Bradford from the University of the South Sewanee. It is February 13th on a Tuesday at 2 41, and I am here with Doug Seiters. All right. So I think I'm just going to start with some general questions just to kind get things going. So where are you originally from?

Doug Seiters (00:21):
Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Eloise Bradford (00:23):
Did you like growing up there? Did you like growing up there?

Doug Seiters (00:27):
Yes, very much. I grew up on a mountain outside of Chattanooga. Signal Mountain was very, very comfortable place to grow up. Yeah.

Eloise Bradford (00:37):
And how would you say that where you currently live is different from where you were raised, especially being in Tennessee again?

Doug Seiters (00:43):
You're going to have to slow down for me a little bit.

Eloise Bradford (00:46):
And would you say that living in Suwanee has been different than living in Chattanooga, especially staying in Tennessee?

Doug Seiters (00:53):
Well, it certainly would be today, but back then Chattanooga was a smaller town and really Signal Mountain was a separate area outside of town and very much like Sewanee, a mountaintop one school, one grammar school, no high school, you have to go down to Chattanooga for that. So anyway, it's fairly similar. Very safe community to grow up. Yeah.

Eloise Bradford (01:23):
Um, and where would you say that you found a sense of community as a child in Chattanooga? Where would you say that you found a sense of community as a child in Chattanooga?

Doug Seiters (01:35):
Well, in the neighborhood, I grew up with a group of people in my brother's age and my age or close friends. We could be out at night sitting on the curb talking. We didn't get into any trouble. We didn't have any trouble that we could get into. Very, very close community, easy to get to know people from school, from church, or just being around in the neighborhood. Yeah.

Eloise Bradford (02:09):
Where would you say that you find a sense of community today in Sewanee?

Doug Seiters (02:13):
Oh gosh. Well, I've been here since 1961, just about and left for graduate school for four or five years. The church, teaching at the school, I mean very close to the faculty. I had both teaching and administrative jobs that gave me a lot of access to fellow faculty members. And being here that long, you get to know the children, you get to know the wives, you get to know the husbands, you get to know the family.

Eloise Bradford (02:50):
For sure. And then is there any kind of traveling that you've done in your life that you would say has been super special to you or has an effect on your life?

Doug Seiters (03:03):
Well, it had a very interesting sabbatical where I picked up all my family. We went to and lived in Rome for half a year, spent some time in Greece and on violin of Creek Creed. And I was a very naive young traveler and had these people that I was responsible for. It was exciting. The person who was supposed to have our living accommodations did not come through. We had to scramble around and we stayed in pen's for maybe a month, month and a half. And finally did rent an apartment at a ridiculous price for the rest of the year. One bedroom apartment for a family of five.

(04:00):
Oh wow.

(04:01):
Three children and my wife.

Eloise Bradford (04:03):
So it's pretty tight.

Doug Seiters (04:04):
They were very small, but they had the bedroom. We had the living room. Yeah, it worked out.

Eloise Bradford (04:10):
That's so funny. So I'll move on to just some of the Black Lives Matter interview questions. Now, just kind of to start off, do you find yourself using a lot of social media to get news? Or do you just tend to read the newspaper or watch tv?

Doug Seiters (04:29):
Well, in today's world, you're bombarded. I wish I could get away from the news. We have a regular routine of listening to PBS at night. In the evening, it may be one other news station, and we often in the morning listen a little bit to the morning news, mainly from the television, but I also check it during the day, check my cell phone during the day, see what other news is breaking. I'm retired. I've got plenty of time.

Eloise Bradford (05:12):
And then so when the - kind of - uprise of the Black Lives Matter movement came up in 2020, do you remember how you received that news at first or how it impacted you at all?

Doug Seiters (05:23):
Well, I've been involved in a series of programs that have led to, I guess have led to Black Lives Matter. The Sewanee Summer Scholars Program was the first of those, and it was purely a summer program for inner city kids from Chattanooga and Winchester kids, all people of color. We had university students as counselors, and we recruited the best teaching staff from high school that you could possibly imagine from Chattanooga and one or two from Winchester. And they came and lived here in the summer. A good deal for them. They got paid, they lived in a beautiful place and they knew a lot of the students. They came largely from schools that the students came from.

(06:34):
It was a wonderful experience to be with them. That program lasted, it was designed to last for five years, for three classes. And I guess there was hope that we might possibly find someone who had donated a couple of million dollars to keep it going, but that wasn't really expected. And even though we tried, it did happen. And other programs that had started a little bit before the Summer Scholars Program, like the Bridge program took up where we left off. The big difference was we were in the Summer Scholars Program. We were really just trying to serve students who didn't have equal opportunities in their communities to try and bring them up to speed with the students who had more opportunities for education than they did. Particularly I grew up in Chattanooga and I was well aware of the difference between Howard High School and the rest of the schools that all the white students went to. I went to Baylor School, which was a private school, one of two or three private schools back then.

(08:03):
But we were really on the one hand, tried to make a statement in behalf of Sewanee, that we care and we want to serve this community. And we haven't done much in the past along those lines of this, we're going to really try with this program. And for me personally, having grown up in a Chattanooga where on Signal Mountain, there were no black people, there were no people of color. The only people that I met, people of color that I met were the maids who had come up on the bus and take care of the families. And people like Theo, my person that watched over my brother and I when we were growing up live that life of being treated pretty much as secondary citizens. And you go downtown and you go to Loveman's or Miller's and they have separate bathrooms for the whites and the people of color that separate drinking fountains.

(09:15):
I mean, I, I grew up in the time that there's all this discrimination. So I was at a point in my life where I really was anxious to be able to do something to sit level the table here a little bit. And what I learned almost immediately was you give these the people a chance and they can do anything you can do. They just have an opportunity. That was what we weren't really trying to recruit students for Sewanee. I mean, the purpose of the program was to give this opportunity to a group of students in the area. We were a college, we had something to offer and we wanted to offer it to them.

(10:05):
After that, an equally good program, but with a slightly different purpose. The Bridge program and programs like it were pretty much designed towards giving these people a chance, but really trying hard to recruit 'em to get 'em to come to Swanee because we didn't have any, we were not diversified back in those days at all. So I'm losing a little bit my train of thought. That was where we fit into the scheme of things. And I think it was sad that we couldn't continue the program, but we also had made our statement. And for me personally, I had a hundred people of color here who were my children and I loved, and that was something I needed. I mean, I was very suspicious and protective prior to that experience.

Eloise Bradford (11:09):
So do you think that growing up in Chattanooga, especially in the time where there was so much segregation, do you think that that kind of had any effect on your desire to work on that program?

Doug Seiters (11:20):
No question. Absolutely no question. My family was not rich, but we - we had privileges that the black population did not have. Which were obvious is, and to be perfectly honest, growing up I was not even aware that there was any, this is just the way life is. And my parents, who were very good people, wonderful people, that was pretty much the way they had been brought up. And I think they were very civil and interested in all people, but there was this definite dividing line that was obvious that to anyone who took a minute to look at it trying to understand.

Eloise Bradford (12:24):
So especially after participating in that program and kind of getting your hands wet in that kind of area, do you think that that had an effect on your original opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement?

Doug Seiters (12:38):
In terms of the general racial issues, all you really need is to spend time with people to be able to appreciate. And I lived with them for a month. I lived here, but I was with them almost half my time for the month that they were here. And we did classes together, played together, partied together, whatever. And it was great for them to be away from home and to be in a place like this that really did accept them. And it had a profound effect on me. And I think I was primed and ready for it. But the actual living it out, they really were. They were the ages of my children and I learned to think of them that way. And I think they looked to me as a father figure. So yeah, it was life changing.

Eloise Bradford (13:56):
Yeah, I'm sure that was really special.

Doug Seiters (13:59):
And we have a Sewanee Summer Scholars Group on Facebook. There's still, we had a hundred students in the program there, 93 are still on it.

Eloise Bradford (14:12):
That's great.

Doug Seiters (14:15):
We don't communicate it quite as much, but there is networking

Eloise Bradford (14:19):
Still going on. At least there's something That's awesome. And then being in Sewanee, did you kind of get a feel for what the community's reaction was for the Black Lives Matter movement, especially after being able to know what you knew?

Doug Seiters (14:36):
Yeah, the understanding that when you say Black Lives Matter, I'm giving my reaction from the point of view of Sewanee Summer Scholars Program, which is the first of those types of programs. I think it was widely accepted. I mean, we pushed it a little bit on the community. I remember we used to invite the parents up for a weekend each year, and one of the parties that we had or picnics that we had with, and when you invite families from the inner city, you get the families. I mean, they all come uncles, acquaintances. I mean, we had a huge crowd who came here for our less than a hundred students. And we had a picnic over in front of the SAE house. And some of our people kind of wander up, sat on their steps and so forth. And as a former dean of students who was responsible for the fraternity system and do the ins and outs and the ups and downs and the goods and the bads, that was a wonderful experience. I wish that they had all been there to experience the joy and the happiness and the sharing that.

Eloise Bradford (16:10):
And then would you say that your experience with the Sewanee Summer Scholars kind of changed how you interact with people of other races?

Doug Seiters (16:20):
What people of others?

Eloise Bradford (16:22):
Would you say that your experience with the Sewanee Summer Scholars Program changed how you interact with people of other races?

Doug Seiters (16:30):
Sure. I mean, like I said, once you spend time with people and really acknowledge them and they acknowledge you and you have living together experiences that you learn that all people are good, all people are the same. Yeah, it's just a matter of getting to know one another.

Eloise Bradford (16:58):
And then would you say that you think that the Sewanee Summer Scholars Program in general succeeded, especially looking at it from where you are now?

Doug Seiters (17:14):
There were disappointments, but very few. And these were kids who really, really had to scrap for opportunities and chances. And maybe I should explain, Eric and I decided the way we would try to recruit each class, we would try to recruit five persons of color who were good students, recognized as good students. The rest of the students - we wanted people who had potential but who weren't realizing that potential. And we went more heavily on recommendations than we did on numerical grades. And when they came here, the five in each class were the leaders and we promoted that. And the other people would gradually join them as leaders, but they would learn about work ethic. They would learn about habits that produce successful students. Small classes. Again, the best - we really did have the best teachers from Chattanooga, from the School of Arts and Sciences primarily. But they were just a fabulous group and they knew some of the students. Their interaction with them was very important. But all these students definitely, I mean, I've got a book here where they talk about all the, each year they gave me a book of appreciation. They write their thoughts and every one of them, it boils down to thanks so much for this opportunity. It's made a difference in my life, kind of thing.

(19:25):
Just looking back over and remembering some of their names. There's so many success stories When we have doctors, we have a Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, at University of Tennessee Chattanooga, who's a graduate here, the person in charge of, what do they call it? Diversity Engagement at Vanderbilt is from our program, one of the graduates from Summer Scholars. We did not recruit 'em, but we sure didn't tell 'em they couldn't come. It was the won the Sullivan Award, which is the highest award given to senior graduates. Another one was president of the Choir at Sewanee and many other lesser but important honors. So I think they really did enjoyed, enjoy the program and learn how to interact with society in a way that we were learning to interact with society. And I'm sure it improved their lives, they say. So. Yeah.

Eloise Bradford (20:50):
That's great. So do you have all of the books? Yeah, I'm sure that's a kind of fun souvenir to keep.

Doug Seiters (20:56):
Yeah, that records what they were already thinking as they finished, they wrote those statements in their last year. But on the Summer Scholars Program, you see all of 'em. They're at big banks, they're teachers, they're lawyers. They've, for the most part done well. There are a few people who didn't, and I don't want to emphasize this too much, but the biggest challenge our students had came from the students who were from local, who were from Winchester. And Winchester was a small town, and divisions seemed to be more sharply drawn than in a larger town. And it was very, very hard, no matter how good these folks were, to break out of the expectations that the privilege in their communities had for them, which was not to leave and not to do much. And even their families didn't particularly want them to leave the family and advance too much, although they definitely supported them in making some improvements. And we had one or two of those kids who just didn't make it, had one who, the one tragic case was the kid that we all loved. James Murray, who's from Winchester. His father was a priest down there.

(22:39):
He just couldn't, he wanted more for himself than that community to allow him to have. And through a series of disappointments, he came up here on the mountain and sat down at the cross and shot himself.

Eloise Bradford (22:53):
Really?

Doug Seiters (22:54):
Yeah. That encapsulates what those kids were trying to overcome and the sadness of it. But the other 99 students who all mourned him, but they did well, they were able to overcome. I just always, I tried to get James a job here on the campus when he was struggling in Winchester, and he'd gotten in trouble a little bit, and they wouldn't hire him. Say, "Good try Seiters. We can't help him". So we were wonderfully successful, I think. But there's that you got to remember the James Murray's and how difficulty it is for minorities sometimes to pull themselves up, particularly I think in the South.

Eloise Bradford (23:50):
For sure. Yeah. So it sounds like it was a very tight knit community between both the teachers and the students then?

Doug Seiters (23:57):
Very much.

Eloise Bradford (24:00):
And then do you think that after being in that program and having, especially from what you knew growing up and seeing that change by going through that program, did you get any strong feelings in the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in early 2020 with the death of George Floyd and things like that, especially seeing that on media?

Doug Seiters (24:24):
Well, I was absolutely sold on the Sewanee doing everything it could and programs like that. Plus Eric and I had twisted each other's arms to do, and he continued here as the main person and all of the efforts for people of color, and I remained his friends. So I was involved in that and went, I did other jobs. I didn't just teach Latin and Greek. I was a provost and then Dean of the college and had some interaction with the faculty in the community where I could promote things too. Not that I think after Eric had been here for a certain amount of time after the Summer Scholars Program, Brown Patterson, who was Dean during those years, he's still around at 92 or 93, and he still tells me that was the best program. I just enjoyed seeing those students here in the summer.

Eloise Bradford (25:41):
So it definitely had a lasting impact. Yeah, that's great.

Doug Seiters (25:45):
And because we are such a tight knit - knit community in the college, people talked and word spread, that was a tremendous help in Sewanee being ready to become more diversified like we are now.

Eloise Bradford (26:03):
Yeah. And then do you have any thoughts or even an opinion on what you think the future of the Black Lives Matter movement will be? Either just in America in general or in Sewanee specifically?

Doug Seiters (26:19):
I wish I knew more specifically what parts of the programs that I do know that Black Lives Matter, and I think just what it says is key. Those lives do matter. They matter as much as anybody's lives. Get to know 'em, get to work with them. In a world where we are becoming more contentious and or quicker to the draw lines and sort out our differences along the lines of warfare, we need that. I mean, it is important to love your neighbor and they're our neighbors and should be, and we should value them. I hope that's - I'm sure it is being promoted. I hope it's being received by communities like Sewanee and the way that I saw the change to a more diversified community being accepted. I still hear voices from the past. I go back to the times when segregation was just accepted. I mean, Sewanee was still thought of as a Confederate school, and our roots into that were pretty deep.

(27:58):
But I've seen those people change and I think that we're at a place where we need to be.Um just, I could give many examples, but the Sewanee Inn. That was Clara's Inn, wonderful lady who ran the Inn, had meals. Students went there. Everybody loved Ms. Clara. She was a racist. And when we accepted black students, she refused and she moved her place out to the bluff area where our natural bridge is. She had a place there where people would go and eat and someone else ran the Sewanee Inn. There was a time when a number of people left the School of Theology and number of the teachers left School of Theology and protest when they were not going to accept any black students. So that was all before Sewanee Summer Scholars. That was back in our first was aware of Sewanee. We came from all that.

(29:16):
So we had a lot of baggage we had to overcome. My good friend Woody Register and Houston Roberson who were behind this whole movement that to understand our past, accept our past, put it out there and apologize, and try to change our attitudes. That was pretty much received by everybody. Some of those guys from 61 and before were, "It was not my fault. I wasn't here, it was my parents". So those discussions have gone on. We've kind of worked through 'em now, and I think Sewanee is, that's no longer an issue with people who are genuinely involved at the college. I don't know how far I wandered from what you asked me about.

Eloise Bradford (30:19):
No worries. No worries at all. And then do you have any kind of hopes for Sewanee in the future doing other programs, kind of like what you were involved in or just anything even with the Office of Diversity and Equity Inclusion?

Doug Seiters (30:34):
Well, my biggest hope is that we don't need any special programs and that the Black Lives Matter attitudes and promotions are a part of who we are. And I do kind of feel like that's happening. I wish we had some real powerful personalities, which we may have. But in my day, Marielle Gentry, who was Dean of Students and from Shelbyville, Tennessee, was one of our employees for the Summer Scholars Program, as well as a fabulous student here, an African-American student. Loved by everybody, was my son's big brother, had took him down to Shelbyville and introduced him to his church there and his style of music and whatever. And really, we learned so much from people like Marielle and Eric and so forth. I think that, I hope that those personalities are part of us now. You don't have to push it anymore. It's just part of who we are and we accept it.

Eloise Bradford (32:00):
Yeah. Those are all the questions I have for you as of right now. Is there anything else that you want to say, o?

Doug Seiters (32:10):
What do you see in terms of the Sewanee community now? Are there any issues about...

Eloise Bradford (32:18):
I really have not.

Doug Seiters (32:19):
The diversification people accepted.

Eloise Bradford (32:22):
Anything. I mean, we definitely had just kind of the basic overview coming in for orientation, but everyone has been like, so so accepting. And I think that the history department as well has done a great job of taking classes or putting out classes like the class that I'm taking right now and making it, I know that there's a lot of classes similar to the ones that I'm taking that are now required for a general education requirement. So kind of making it a part of the education at Sewanee I think has been really important as well, just because the more you know, the better off you are to handle situations like that. And I think that in learning more about the whole situation, especially even if it's just African-American history, it kind of shifts your outlook just for the future. And especially coming from Colorado where the kind of whole deep South racism definitely isn't as deeply rooted in our history or just in culture in general. Been, I definitely was kind of, I don't want to say nervous, but I think I was kind of expecting a shift or to be put in some sort of uncomfortable situation coming to school in the South. But Sewanee's been so great, and everyone has just been so accepting and kind, so.

Doug Seiters (33:53):
Well, we do, there is a backlash that is felt more in the South, but it's felt everywhere. And being interested in ancient history, maybe it's not surprising, but I hope that our graduate, John Meacham is right, and our better souls will rise to the surface and stay there. But there is a movement in say, Florida, where they don't allow certain history courses to be taught. It's scary that the truth can't be spoken of, and I don't think that's going to take hold nationwide. But there is a, I try not to say anything that's political. I have some obvious, to me anyway, leanings as far as political parties and so forth.

(35:15):
When the privileged are challenged, the typical reaction is resistance. And at some point in time, even the possibility of major resistance, not warfare, we hope, and we're seeing a little bit of that. Folks who are bettering themselves and should be able to better themselves are beginning to rival the privileged. And in some places, that's not a good thing. And some places they might say, let's get rid of all the people who have immigrated and you immigrated. I immigrated in my family. Let's be real, and let's just learn to love one another and not create all these tensions and so forth. It's nice to be in a place where the church has not a very overpowering but a real presence for sure. And we can live amongst those people who are telling us to be good to one another and a community that basically is pretty good to one another. Yeah. So yeah, I like Swanee.

Eloise Bradford (36:41):
Me too.

Doug Seiters (36:44):
Good. Good.

Eloise Bradford (36:44):
Well, I mean, I think that's all I have for you. Good. Thank you so much for talking to me.

Doug Seiters (36:49):
Sure. Happy to do it.