File #233: "Interview 2 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)"

Title

Interview 2 with Junifer Hall (Congresswoman Katie Hall)

Subject

Description

Junifer Hall, the daughter of Representative Katie Hall, shares how her mother attended Mississippi Vocational College despite struggling economic circumstances, enrolling in college with $5 from her mother.

***Transcript***

Junifer Hall: And her mother, Mrs. Bessie May Hooper Green, told her, “I can only spare five dollars. This is all I have to enroll you in college,” so my mother said, “Let’s go. We’re going to go over to the newly formed college,” Mississippi Vocational College, as it was called at that time. It was founded in 1950, so five years later, in 1955, she and her mother went to Mound—to Mississippi Valley, and during those days, you didn’t need an appointment to talk to the college president or any of the officials, so my mother and her mom went to President White’s office. James Herbert White was the newly founded president, and they said, “I only have five dollars,” my grandmother told him, “my daughter really wants to go to college. Would you take the five dollars, and I can pay on a payment plan?” And he said, “of course.” And she could enroll,

Carrie Vachon: Wow.

Junifer Hall: and my mother often even likened herself to Mary McClay [McLeod] Bethune who started Bethune College [Bethune-Cookman University in Dayton Beach, Florida] in Florida with only one dollar and fifty cents.