Soul to Soul

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Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Fantastic.

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This is Soul to Soul, universal ideas for a brighter tomorrow. This show is a free for all of positive energy that includes book discussions, music, politics, books, food, COVID-19, oral interviews, books, and Las Vegas history. Today my guest is Judy Ann Young. Judy Ann Young migrated in a way that most black Americans don't. She migrated to Alaska, and that's what we're going to talk about today. Judy Ann, how are you? I'm absolutely fabulous. Top of the day to you too, Clayton. Thank you so much. So Judy Ann, let's just start at the beginning. How did this happen? How did you and your mom get to Alaska? Well, before I tell you that, I have to tell you in the beginning, my mother and father were both married before and they went to Alaska in 1952 and their adventure to Alaska was to wait out the year for their divorces. They didn't know each other and they met in Alaska. So then they stayed a year and they both came back to California and story has it that they ran into each other at Sir Francis Drake Hotel in downtown San Francisco at a dance and they remembered each other and they started dancing, dating. Well when they started dating, they dated for a few months and they got married. My dad had me, my mother had my sister and they said we're going to take our girls and go to mother and my sister up. Well excuse me, he called her and said, babe I can't come back. We're working 14-15 hours a day. I'll be back next summer when work slows down and my mother said, no the girls and I will come to you. So my mother packed up her car, took my sister and I, put us on the backseat, and she only took what she could put in the car. Well the Green Book was out, but it did not include travel to Alaska in 1954. So what ended up happening was my mother talked to other black people that had been to Alaska and they told her all the do's and don'ts and where she could stay. So they told her if you have a pistol, they will confiscate your pistol at the border going into Canada. And my mother said, no, they won't take my pistol. So she thought and thought and she came up with an idea that she would take her pistol and put it in the bottom of the purple box with the flower on it. This was a box of sanitary napkins. So my mother wrapped this pistol in sanitary napkins, tucked it in the bottom of this box, and sat it on the back seat. She told my sister and I, whatever you do, don't you look at that purple box and don't you dare touch it. They had warned her that the Mountie police will stop you at the border and ask if you have any weapons. My mother, being a smart woman she drove during the day and eventually we got to the Canadian border and sure enough the Mounted Police looked in the car and said why ma'am where are you heading? She said to Alaska to join my husband. Just you and these two babies? Why officer I travel with the Lord in my Bible. He glanced in the back seat and my sister and I were staring straight ahead. We could see him looking at the purple box and we dared not look over. My mother didn't turn around but I could feel her eyes on us and he said oh okay and we drove into Canada. As soon as we got away from that Canadian border my mother turned around unpacked her pistol out of that purple box and she stuck it under the pages in the middle of her Bible on the front seat and we drove. It took us eight days and my mother later said when they asked Bertha how did you get to Alaska she said honey I had a tattered cookbook my Bible and my pistol if the Bible didn't stop him the Lord didn't get him that Smith and Wesson would and that's how we got to Alaska eight days from where San Francisco city in Alaska? Anchorage, Alaska. Okay. And we arrived and my daddy was never so glad to see us as he was when we finally arrived in Anchorage and it was quite the experience. So tell me what kind of work your father was doing. My dad was a cement mason and my mother was not formally So she worked as a housekeeper and a cook. So that old cookbook she took with her of all of her special recipes allowed her to go to work right away. And that's what she had done when she lived in Alaska and met my dad the first time around. And my mother took on clients where she cleaned her house one day a week. And my dad continued to work construction until he went to work for the borough. We didn't have a county there, we had a borough as a sanitation engineer. Back then, he was a garbage man. Wonderful. So tell me, what was it like for you and your sister? Tell me about the weather, tell me about going to school, what were the changes? Well because I had no prior school experience, it was all I knew. And there were very few black children. I remember my first grade teacher Mrs. Drummond and there was a little black boy in my class, I didn't have a lot of experience of any sort. So it was the only thing I knew was to be that lone black face in a sea of whiteness. And that continued on for all of my school life. Even though there were blacks in the city, by the time I was a teenager my mother had moved outside of the city limits and I went to a brand new high school and I was the first black in my graduating class and it was a very lonely existence to look around and see no one that looks like you and there was the bigotry there white people moved to Alaska and they took their biases and their racism and sexism, they took their culture and it lived on. That's just like Las Vegas. So who was migrating to Alaska. But when we had a reunion here a couple of weeks ago and one of the things that I noticed was this common thread. Most of our parents came to Alaska seeking greater opportunity and to get away from the racism of the South and even the They were looking for opportunities for their children that they didn't have. And at this reunion, most of us were somewhere between our mid-50s and our mid-70s, and we had a very shared story. Our parents often came up in carloads with other black people. One would come up, and they would write home or call home and say, this is an opportunity. And then other family members would migrate to Alaska. And then there became this thriving black community. And we had a microcosm of the macrocosm. We had the black churches and black businesses and black nightclubs and cleaners and restaurants. We had all of the things that they had in what we call the lower 48. Only growing up there I thought I was missing something. So your story sounds just like the migration of blacks from small towns in the South coming to Las Vegas. Exactly what happened. Now we always thought they had something to do the oil fields? Am I right? That was many years later. Oh. Now remember my parents went to Alaska before it was the state. It was a US territory. It didn't become a state until 1959. So we were there when it was a territory. So this and living in this territory owned by the United States and there was no oil industry. The first drop of oil came down the transatlantic pipeline June 21st 1977. The reason I know that, that was the year that and the date that I hired that happened. So you finished high school at some point? I finished high school in Anchorage and I got married, moved to Montana for a year, came back home. My ex-husband was in the military and we were stationed there and I came home pregnant and ready to get out of this Then I moved to California for a few years. And I came back at the beginning of the pipeline in the early 70s. And I just filled out applications. And I got hired with BP in their computer department as a key punch operator. And I worked there for three years. And I was bored, stiff. I could barely make a livable wage as I was a single mother at this point. And one day I saw a posting for a job, a trainee position. I read this vague description and said, oh, I think I can do that. And it was working on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in one of their facilities. Starting wage was $11.06 an hour. I was only getting $7.85. I could do the math and I was like oh my god. I interviewed for the job and I got it and it took them months before they notified me. Well it seemed like months it probably was six weeks and I went to Transalaska Pipeline in one of their facilities in May of 1982. 1980, I take it back, May of 1980. Nothing prepared me for what I was going to experience. Nothing prepared me for the winter element. I've been in Anchorage all my life so I was used to the cold but they said ooh it's a different kind of cold. I went to the Navy Army surplus store and bought some Navy dress blues with the 13 buttons across the front because they were wool. I put on a pair of leotards and my best And when they opened the back door of that plane on the tarmac at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, I said, Oh, I think I've made a mistake. It was a minus 35 degrees and the wind was blowing. So the chill factor was about a minus 48 degrees. And they put us on a bus and they drove us to the main camp. And I got off and they assigned me a room. I would be there for a whole week. And they said, well, HR will take you to your new job site. And I said, okay. And I had safety boots and safety hat and glasses. And I still had no idea. No one told me that I was integrating the oil field. No one said you will be the first black woman to ever work in one of BFE's oil field facilities. No one told me that they did not want me there. No one told me that there were maybe three or four other women. There was an Asian woman and two white females. No one told me I would be the only black around for miles. And I arrived at this job site and I could just feel the disdain and the resentment. And I smiled my prettiest smile and I was thinking I think this is going to be a tough ride. And it was the initiation of being a female, of being a black female. And honey, if you know anything about me, not being small, quiet, and passive, I realized I had to adopt and adapt new ways of being. So it soon dawned on me that men are pack animals and they will do what the pack does. So I had to revert to basic street psychology. I had to pick them off one at a time. And my way of picking them off was when we'd get a quiet moment and we'd be out in the unit checking pumps and compressors and tanks. I would ask them about their wives and their children and I got to know them on a personal level and one by one they would say, now I'm going to show you this but don't you tell anybody I told you. So my training became a big secret. I learned from some of the best who said please don't tell anyone I told you this. And I knew that complaining would only make it harder because they would band together to protect their own interests. And I always knew that I was different, but as they say, every dog has his day and a good dog has two. One day I was in the control room and we had to calculate the number of barrels using a 10 key adding machine. And I had a German supervisor by the name of Fritz Wiese. And he came in and I was sitting there calculating these barrels on this 10 key adding machine and I wasn't looking at the keys. And he said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm calculating the barrels. He said, but you're not looking at the keys. And I said, no, I said I came out of the computer department I know how to operate these keys. He said all shortly thereafter They computerized the oil industry and I was the only one with a computer background and my apparently they had a supervisor's meeting to discuss who would they train to train the other technicians to operate this computerized system. And Fritz we say I have the perfect girl for my job. She came out of the computer department and that launched me into training. foot. It was my wheelhouse and I had to really check my ego to not do to them what they had done to me. And sometimes revenge is really sweet especially if you're humble with it. I was patient and kind and I would repeat myself over and over again until they understood not to fear the keyboard. And from there I went into the training department because OSHA, I was training them to operate the system and OSHA came out with new guidelines and they tasked me with training, creating new training systems and and brought technicians in and I went from a hard hat to a desk and a computer and that was the rest of my career there. Tell me about the other women, how did they fare? The other women did okay. It was unique in that there were three processing facilities and we all So we would only see each other in passing. And they were all in survival mode also. There was one Asian girl who did well. And there were three white females. Well, I was different. As someone said, I was more like a unicorn. What I realized is white men knew how to deal with white women because they had wives. They weren't prepared for me. They weren't prepared for a black woman. And I only realized this when a gentleman by the name of Jack Pugh said to me one day, he looked up as if he was seeing me for the first time. And he said, you know, I never talked to a black woman until I met you. And I said, well, what do you think? He said, you all are basically the same. I said, well, yeah, yeah, that's life. People are pretty much the same. So I need to talk just a little more about the weather. So that minus 40 degree weather. Yes. Was that the norm when you were up in that area working? It could be the norm during the winter. See the trans-Alaska pipeline is above the Arctic Circle. Oh God. You're up there the Arctic Ocean it is cold it's extremely dry it is so the water molecules are frozen so it's so dry you It's like sand. And we would have whiteouts and this white snow would blow and you couldn't see the highway. And you had these big floodlights on the side of your heavy duty pickup trucks that you would shine so you could see the reflectors along the roadway. And then they had big snow movers, graders that would come and move the snow. And oftentimes we would have to drive in this whiteout to get back to the base camp where we lived. And it was a harrowing experience. Once I got caught in a whiteout and I had a two-way radio and they said whatever you do don't get out of the truck. The truck had stalled and died and everything I had in me was fear-driven and they said where are you and I couldn't tell them because I couldn't see any of the landmarks on the side of the road. But I did tell them if you don't find me soon it won't be hard. I was a smoker at the time. I will ignite this truck. No no no don't do that. Stay in the truck we'll find you. And sure enough they sent a grader out and they found me. And I was never so grateful to be found in this this whiteout and to realize that many times I was at the edge but I had to believe that something was going to happen to save me and it always did. So it was usual to get stuck in a weather situation where you had to stay at the you and you couldn't get back. So we always had canned goods, we had cots and blankets and we would sleep and work there. So tell me about the other parts of life. I want to know about the spiritual life and I want to know about entertainment, what you did for recreation. So start with the spiritual life? I grew up in a black church, Shiloh Baptist Church, when I was a little girl. It was downtown in Anchorage on 8th Avenue and the city bought it out to expand the courthouse. And then my mother and father went to another black church and that became a treat every week to go to church. You would have a totally black experience but I thought I was missing something because I didn't have anything to compare it to. It was the same white Jesus hanging up in the church and the same baptismal pool, the same threat that if you don't do good God is gonna punish you and I was questioning well how am I gonna have a relationship with a God that's waiting on me to do wrong so he can punish me that doesn't sound very good it just didn't work for me and I began to ask questions well what's the difference between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and God and it was just too many players in this game so I was like oh. One day I went to a church with someone that I had met and I went in and they were singing this song. How could anyone ever tell you you're anything less than beautiful? How could anyone ever tell you that your loving isn't a miracle? And I said yes I like this. It was life-affirming, it was supportive, it gave me a relationship with God that said you know what life is aligned for your And I was like, Oh, this is my kind of God. I like this guy. Sign me up. And that was my spiritual growth. But I had taken a few workshops and I had met Louise Hay who had come to Alaska. And I was like, Oh, there are other options. And as they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And then I read a book called The Game of Life and How to Play It. And it opened my eyes. And it was many years later that I learned the origin of the book. So so the way I met Judy Ann tell me about entertainment, about recreation because we most of us think of Alaska as a very stark place. Oh no. Okay good. Change our minds. I grew up there were black nightclubs, there was the Club were all of these nightclubs that were owned by blacks and my parents went to these clubs and when I became of age or close to age, Alaska was wide open. The clubs didn't close. They closed at 5 in the morning only to clean clean them and open back up. There were very, there were no restrictions. There were ladies of the evening, there were bands, Quincy Jones came there, a number of, Etta James came there, a number of entertainers came to Alaska because they were curious. So we had entertainment, we had MC Hammer even came to Alaska. We had entertainment, we had nightclubs, they had party houses and after-hour joints where people would go and sit and indulge in some illegal activities, but there was a thriving nightlife. There were restaurants and one time my mother had a restaurant called the Little Savoy. There There was a cleaner. There was a newspaper. There was an infrastructure that supported who we are. We brought all of our creativity with us. Ms. Dickerson, the first black female to be licensed to practice law in the state of Alaska, was one of our neighbors. And there was a black dentist. There were blacks that were doing things. The difference is our community was so small. We weren't separated by classes, the professional blacks and the unprofessional. We had to stick together and we became extended family to each other because a lot of We had nightlife. Growing up, I rode snow machines. I was just talking to a girlfriend of mine. We had two of the first Ski-Dos that they sold in Alaska, and you could get on it and had the skis on the bottom, and we could ride forever, all day long. And then they came out with mini bikes, and we were riding mini bikes during the summer, snow machines during the winter, we were ice skating. We did all of these outdoor activities and then we did crafts because when it was cold in the winter, my mother was a seamstress, she did crafts. So we couldn't just run to the grocery store, we put up vegetables during the summer. So I learned to can vegetables and cook because I never saw McDonald's until I was an adult and I moved out of Alaska. You're very smart. So we're going to finish by telling me about this oral history project that you'd like to do. Well what happened is like And it was also the renewal of wedding vows and the bride was late. So I had to entertain them. And I began to tell these stories. Well some of the Alaskan natives, their spouses had never heard the stories and they said you should record these stories. And a star was born. Wonderful! Oh my goodness! And we have to stop right there. So this is Soul to Soul with ideas for a brighter tomorrow. So this show is a free So this is Soul to Soul with ideas for a brighter tomorrow. So this show is a free for all of positive energy. Thank you for joining me.

Transcribed with Cockatoo