[Music] Our grandma was always and we all called her Grandma uhm Grandma was always kindhearted.

She was always a giving person, uh she wasn't stingy with her caring or love, she wasn't stingy with stuff that she had.

My brother puts it her she her backpack of life, she kept it light uhm and she did not like to dwell on nega- negativity or the negative things that had happened.

She was never changing, uh very independent woman, even in her 80's and 90's so I love spending time with her very clear about what her expectations were and uh it was always a great time uh spending time with henr She is kind of like, well, if God comes and gets me tonight, you know, don't worry.

Almost like that's what she wanted.

It's incredible to just know her story and understand that you know, it speaks to the fact that anybody can achieve if they set their mind to it and are determined and have a will to and the right attitude.

She had to have a great attitude to do that.

And just that impact that she left of of positivity, optimism, perseverance, really in the face of a lot of adversity.

I don't know if I would not have just said that's it, I I I'd love to believe that I would have, but I don't know.

In 1937, Clara Belle Williams became the first African American student to graduate from the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

This accomplishment came with burdens, misfortunes, and difficulties, but we see how the spirit of an individual can overcome the obstacles placed before them.

This achievement was only the beginning of her and her family's success, and it started in Plum, Texas.

Clara Bele Drisdale was born in Texas on October 29, 1885.

In 1901 she went to Prairie View College, which is now Prairie View A and M University.

She was the school's valedictorian in 1905.

Very brilliant woman.

To have the maturity and self-assuredness to do that, go away with a goal in mind and comeback with a two-year college degree.

But yes, it took a tremendous amount of fortitude for her to leave home at such a young age and go forth in the world.

She worked there for several years and their in their ugh sewing department and during that time, she and Jasper first met.

It's kind of an unusual story.

They didn't marry for 10 years and were corresponding throughout that time and I think, I believe he was the oldest in his family and there were several children and they wanted to help get their siblings through college.

So education was very important to to both of them and they eventually uh married and they were in El Paso first.

It wasn't that long after the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves in that whole era was was a nightmare for black people and then of course subsequently Jim Crow as result of the emancipation of slaves and people opposing that That Emancipation in the freedom of the slaves.

So there were laws enacted which made it illegal for black people to read and illegal us to just live back in the day.

It was a very difficult, extremely difficult time for African Americans in this country.

Even now it's difficult, but it was a whole lot more difficult.

He had a drugstore in El Paso.

They had their three sons there, Jasper, James, who's my dad and Charles and eventually there was a mysterious fire that destroyed the drugstore.

They believed it was related to him standing up to a Caucasian Insurance agent who I think was trying to force him to buy a policy or something.

The family decided that they could not take any chances, especially with the the youngest son Charles was an infant at that time.

They could not take chances and they made it the decision to leave.

And schools that were closing and businesses that were closing at that time.

And I know that because she never gives up, it came to pass that soon she was starting another business, so she was teaching other children or she would allow people to move into her home who could help take care of her own while she went and taught others.

She was one that just never gave up and during that time it was very difficult and she was on the move.

And at one point, Jasper got a job with the customs, with the Border Patrol.

That did not last very long.

He was by all stories a very, very proud man, and there was only so much he could take of anything and his coworker, his white coworkers were decided that he was there for their use in doing things such as cleaning out the spittoon So he did not last long, he ended up walking out on that.

That kind of temper served him several different times during his life.

Segregated schools were the law of the land in New Mexico.

until 1965.

They came in 1924.

He taught in in the school district in Vado, both he and Clara Belle for one year.

Clara Belle Williams worked at Phillips Chapel as which was a school, it was a church, it was a soup kitchen, counseling center, it was sometimes a homeless shelter, and it served all things for all black people in this area.

And that's where she taught.

Her husband was the principal of the school.

That's one where his temper got into him into trouble again when he decided he was going to give his students President Lincoln's birthday off.

The school board told him no, and he did it anyway.

The end result of that was he not only lost his job but he was blackballed from teaching anywhere in New Mexico He then purchased a a homestead.

And many African Americans were taking advantage of homesteading.

So there was about a group of about 40 African Americans outside the Las Cruces area who had taken advantage of the 640 Stock Raising Homestead Act.

Jasper Williams would eventually become the secretary of the Negro Homestead Organization which kind of combined those homesteaders and fought against discrimination they were facing trying to get patents for their homestead.

But Clara Belle Williams continued to teach which gave him an economic foundation because you did have to improve your homestead land, you did have to spend the equivalent of $1.25 an acre in improvements which doesn't sound like much now, In 1926 as we're heading into the depression it was quite a bit of money.

Jasper and Clara Belle were recruited as teachers because now you needed teachers for the black kids and they came to Las Cruces.

I guess that's what impresses me about her and her husband, and they were like that in very different ways.

But here they were highly educated, you know, being defined.

I mean, he's being defined as a a troublemaker.

He's being defined as being feebleminded and superstitious and having to just see past that.

He wanted his 640 acres to have a national Negro hospital, that's what he wanted built on his homestead and he had actually spoken with physicians.

Albuquerque already had two physicians, both of whom were homesteaders.

New Mexico was a huge state, but the African American population was small, and it was very connected.

She was both an educator and a student.

In 1928, she enrolled at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, now New Mexico State University.

Most, not all, but most of Williams professors did not allow her inside the classroom because she was black.

That didn't stop her, though, she had to take her notes, attend her classes standing outside the classroom.

There were, as I hear, lots of people that discouraged her from doing that but there were also people that encouraged her to do that, and once she found her own motivation, that was there was no turning back.

The one thing I would like to point out is that there were faculty members here who stood up for her and said this is not right.

There is no reason why this young woman should be forced to stand outside when she's paying the same amount of tuition as everybody else, she's coming to class like everybody else.

There's no reason the color of her skin should not, should not matter, and she should be allowed to attend classes and sit in the classroom.

There were faculty members who stood up for her.

Her sons told me that, and that should also be known.

It is always striking to me, Hispanics, and blacks, it's like they didn't internalize it.

I mean, I guess some people did, but generally it was that, you know, people were resilient and were fighting and weren't going to go for it.

I'm sure she would have never imagined the impact that moment, like what kind of impact that it was going to have um historically for her family, for me, for every person that she touched directly and indirectly.

While I do think that I am a strong woman, I don't think that that's something that I could have ever gone through personally.

I'm happy to have grown up in a time where I didn't have to face adversities like that, you know, not to say that I haven't faced any due to how I look, but I have immense respect for Clara Belle for continuing on despite all that was in front of her.

She, you know, she plowed her way through and that is such an amazing thing.

I really hope that I would have had once again fortitude is the the strong word I think of to sit outside a classroom and and listen to the class and not worry about what the ramifications of that meant, just worry about the education she was getting in the classroom They didn't have a graduation the year that she graduated because in her words, nobody wanted to March in front of or in or behind a Negro, which is of course, was the term that was used for African Americans at the time.

Despite the odds that were against her in 1937, At the age of 51, Clara Belle Williams became the first African American student to graduate from New Mexico State Universty After graduating, she taught at Booker T. Washington Elementary School was a segregated school in Las Cruces school system that school still stands today.

She taught there for 27 years.

You know, years later, students grown with grandchildren of their own were still uh very, very much very fond of her and send her, you know, birthday cards.

He's on his homestead one time and then a Thistle goes into his eye and blinds him and that really affects his ability to work on the homestead, you know, as he gets older and then he has a stroke and literally for 2 1/2 years, Clara Belle is taking care of a man who is unconscious and so he passes away.

She eventually goes and works with her sons in the clinic in Chicago.

And it was actually my father and his two brothers that started the clinic, Williams Clinic.

ugh It was in predominantly a black neighborhood.

It was the first black-owned operated clinic not only in Chicago but in the country and so we had a wide referral all not only neighborhood people went there, but all the black people in the Chicago area.

It was a well-known clinic, a multispecialty in terms of medicine and surgery and orthopedic surgery and other branches of medicine as well.

I think at one point there were 14 to 16 physicians working out of the clinic.

The Williams Clinic was extremely prominent on the South Side of Chicago.

I knew many, many patients on through my through my mom and through other other neighbors who were able to go and receive services at the Williams Clinic.

And sometimes I do know there's that some people did not have money to to pay their bill, that the Williams Clinic never turned these people away.

He provided them with quality opportunity to come for healthcare services in this beautiful space on the South side of Chicago.

So we grew up, it was kind of unusual at Thanksgiving dinner, the brothers might be talking about somebody's gallbladder or somebody's having a baby.

My dad's oldest brother was an obstetrician gynecologist.

My dad was a ugh general surgeon.

Uncle Charles was an internist.

So they kind of had all the bases covered.

Grandmother worked in the laboratory when people would come to get a blood test when they wanted to get married.

She was the receptionist and would give her advice on how to have a good marriage and a good family whether whether they wanted it or not.

But she worked there gosh into her 90s.

She was part of the finances for that and bought the pop machine that was back by the labratory.

Little bottles bottles of pop used to be a quater.

I rember asking my parents for a quater everytime we'd go to the clinc .

At the end of every month she would get all the proceeds from the pop machine and she would buy pop for the next month and the rest of it was income.

Well, she went to a credit union and started a fund in every single one of her grandchildren's names, an education fund with quarters from the pop machine She would take approximately $15 per family, split it up amongst the number of kids.

In my family there were two kids, so that was $7.50 a month.

But you can only use that money for education.

If you wanted a car for college, she wouldn't give it to you.

Books, tuition, room, and board.

So when I went to start medical school, I asked grandma, I said grandma, I'm going to medical school.

Can I get the money?

at the credit union.

There was $5000 from the pop machine and that too is kind of the foresight that she had, that putting a little money away compounded interest over 22 years.

It helped me pay for more than it actually a year of of medical school at that time.

She had an account set for all of us.

We never knew it, and I probably bought into that because I had to have the Orange Crush coming out of that soda machine at the Williams Clinic.

That was one of the things that I had to have but she was so thoughtful and she knew that we were going to have a need for that for our education.

That was a priority for her.

[Pop top being opened] I miss having her insight, her leadership.

Uh I think every family needs that person who um can kind of steer in the family and making sure that their values and goals are kept alive.

And so I miss her and my my grandfather.

Over the years, Clara Belle Williams received numerous awards and accolades from multiple organizations that honored her career, from having a street named after her on the NMSU campus to being inducted into the New Mexico Education Association Hall of fame.

Her greatest achievement was receiving her honorary doctorate degree in 1980.

I do remember her making a comment in the spring of 1980 when she received her honorary doctoral.

She kind of with a little twinkle in her eye because that was the first time that she got to March a college graduation ceremony.

And she made the comment, I wonder where those people that wouldn't work with me, I wonder where they are now.

And she even teased a little bit that, you know, maybe they couldn't walk as straight as she could at this point and she was 94 years old at that time.

The bright side of all of this is that it brought to attention the wrongs and the racism of of decades past and it has, they've tried to rectify some of that, they apologized to her.

They named a building after her.

They've done some things to show that what happened to her was not right.

I was absolutely overjoyed to learn that the school did say we made some mistakes, we are honoring you now because you honored us by continuing to come continuing Well, you know the connection really is um, is is so unique and and and exciting for me as I reflect on on my relationship with Dr. Jasper Williams.

um Dr. Williams actually was a a doctor in Chicago and you know he delivered babies and and actually delivered my sister which is so amazingly ironic for us, you know, coming back full circle.

My mother had reached out to a really good friend, she knew that he had a connection with Tuskegee University, um a school that I wasn't all that excited about going to.

He came by our home one day, I'll never forget this, and had invited me to go to Tuskegee with him for a weekend.

It was actually Founders Weekend in 19 uh 78.

I recall this vividly because Dr. William's invitation included me being able to ride in his private plane.

And to this point in my life, I've never been on a plane in my entire life.

So when I heard this, I was like, count me in, what can I do to to, you know, how can we expedite this opportunity.

I remember also, um you know, graduating from Tuskegee and going on to Graduate School and even then Dr. Williams stayed in touch with me.

Yeah, he would invite me places, we would go out together and uhm and I recall one particular Friday, I was extremely, you know, just working hard at in Illinois where I was going to school and Urbana Champaign.

And I recall just needing to hear Dr. William's voice, needing the uplifted, uplifting voice in my head and I reached out to his office to speak with him and they'd indicated that I had just missed him.

He was actually gone for the weekend with his wife, his son and his son's fiancé on a weekend away and they and um they said, listen, on Monday morning, we'll get Dr. Williams a message and you'll be able to talk to him sometime before the day expires.

And I, you know, went about my business for the weekend and and on Monday, I did in fact receive a phone call from his office and the phone call was devastating.

It indicated that Dr. Williams had actually um crashed um his, his, his plane, the engine had failed at some point getting closer to the airport.

And um he and his son and his son's fiancé, the three that were in the plane, had all perished.

His wife became a little ill during the flight and they had landed somewhere in Florida and she had taken a commercial flight and at that point back to Chicago.

She was spared this horrific accident but I remember just feeling a sense of loss immediately.

Dr. Williams was such an important part of my life and I remember, you know, also being so young and never really experiencing or grieving at this point, not even knowing what loss was like or what it all meant.

And she was kind of like, well, if God comes and gets me tonight, you know, don't worry.

Almost like that's what she wanted, which you can imagine, you know, thats that whole thing you're not supposed to bury your children We actually kept the clinic running until I finished training in about 1994.

Ugh shortly thereafter, the practice was sold and the building was sold.

But certainly that was a cornerstone, the mainstay of medical care in Chicago for years from 1960 to 1994.

Clara Belle Drisdale Williams passed away on July 3rd, 1994, at the age of 108 in Chicago, Illinois.

Her legacy lives on the campus of New Mexico State University as shown on February 13th of 2005, when the English building was officially named Clara Belle Williams Hall in her honor.

On the count of three, 1, 2, 3.

[Yeah, Clapping] All right, get over here.

[Clapping] It is neat for us that the university has recognized Clara Belle, but we also feel a special kinship to New Mexico State University ugh as a completion of the bond.

I get the letters from the student that get the um Clara Belle scholarship and it's its there always very moving and inspiring and I know my grandmother would be very you know feel very good about that that she's able to continue that inspiration and and helping students get an education.

Although she lived from 1885 till 1994, her legacy lives on and that's a very important thing for the United States, it's a very important thing for the state of New Mexico, for the city of Las Cruces, and a very important thing for our family as well.

She had three sons, all three became physicians and she watched four grandsons become physicians.

I'm actually the 7th physician in the family.

I think I have a niece that is in medical school or out of medical school and my son just got into a program at the University of Minnesota so there are more coming.

There's nothing that can't be accomplished if you set your mind to it and so Clara Belle Williams, she didn't realize what she was doing at the time.

She was just trying to get an education, trying to raise her family but look at all of the motivation and inspiration she has brought to people like me, um who came behind her.

There's no limitations.

The limitations are only what you put on yourself.

Very strong feeling of hers that she passed on to all of us.

I remember her saying to me, you can get nice clothes you wear the clothes out or you can lose them, you get a nice car, somebody can take the car or you can crash the car.

You get a nice house, you can burn the house down or ugh not be able to make payments but once you get education, nobody can ever take that from you and you take it everywhere that you go.

There are heroes out there and hopefully we don't forget all of them.

What I would want people to take away from Clara Belle's story is just don't give up, you know, We all are going to face hard times but she, she pushed through and she just did such great work And I think we're all capable of doing similar, similar work, you know, in our community, making it better for everybody else.

I can't count the number of people I taught, Where I tried to teach everyone that came in contact with me If I saw something good, they need to be taught.

Even now I catch myself trying to teach [music] [music] [music]