Emmet Jay Williams

“That the group of guys, they came up in that era, we all wanted to become somebody. We all kept feeling, you know, we grew up in this black is beautiful, black is proud, you know, see a lot of black and I'm proud, we grew up in that time. So, we knew we could do it. We did not think that somehow people could hold us back. So, every one of them, they all went on to be judges, architects, one guy to become a zoologist.”

“We had the best darn teachers. Who cared about us. They were black teachers; they cared about us and push us to excel. They were from our community and a part of the community. And I think the strength of all of us came from those teachers. They cared about pushed us, wanted to see us excel, they were brilliant teaches.”

“We had role models, Brownsville was full of role models, we knew that we could be somebody because we had black somebodies in our neighborhood.”

“It was like a huge extended family Brownsville was, that's what Brownsville was. It was a huge extended family that we all looked out for each other. Um, I am proud to be from Brownsville to, as we called it way back then it was called Brown Sub.”