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Biography

Thanks to the integration of the Little Rock Schools, Ms Teague’s parents gifted Iowa with Deborah. Worried about her health and education, they sent her from Arkansas to live with an aunt in Davenport, Iowa. Deborah had gone to schools for blacks only with black teachers, then to integrated Davenport (now Central) High in where she had only white teachers. With the bedrock of her family, especially her grandmother, her education, her church, and her faith, she became a teacher and is now an administrator at that same Central High School. Through her church and civic involvement, she is dedicated to empowering those in her community-both her church community and Davenport as a whole.

Transcript

Date of interview: August 11, 2009

Zakiya: Hi! I am Zakiya. Today is August 11, 2009 and I am interviewing Ms. Deborah Teague. On our team today are
Adreanna and Mathew our equipment managers, Elexis with the camera and Destiny who is on the camcorders. Ms. Deborah Teague, would you please say and spell your name for me?

Deborah Teague: Deborah A. Teague. D-E-B-O-R-A-H, middle initial A. T-E-A-G-U-E. Deborah A. Teague.

Zakiya: Thank you. Now to begin our interview, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you. Where were you born?

Deborah Teague: I was born in Arkansas, a little place called Paraloma.

Zakiya: What town do you live in now?

Deborah Teague: I live in Davenport, Iowa.

Zakiya: How long have you lived in Iowa?

Deborah Teague: Forty-one years.

Zakiya: What brought you to Iowa?

Deborah Teague: Well, it was during the ’50s and early ’60s. And we were going through forced integration. And my high school was going to be integrated and there’d been a lot of racial tension and trouble with the Little Rock integration, where eleven students had integrated that school. And so my parents thought that perhaps there might be a lot of trouble; they didn’t want me injured. So they thought I should come to Iowa. I would have a better chance of getting a better education.

Zakiya: OK. Where did you go to school?

Deborah Teague: I went to, well, when I was in Arkansas I went to a school called Towlete, Arkansas. Then when I came to Davenport I went to Central. Central High! Central High!

Zakiya: Was your school any different than it is today?

Deborah Teague: Yes. We, I went to an all black school. As I said, things were segregated which means whites and black were not allowed in the same school, to live in the same community, ride the same buses, they couldn’t drink in the same water fountain. We had to go to the back of the door if you wanted to purchase something at a store. It was rough, rough, rough times. Now of course, things are integrated.

Zakiya: What did you do for entertainment when you were younger?

Deborah Teague: We played a lot. We made up imaginary games. We didn’t have a lot of money to purchase things, so we made up games. We played Duck, Duck, Goose and Red Light, Green Light. We chased a lot of bugs and chased a lot of animals. We rode horses and moo’d cows. Good ole country livin’.

Zakiya: Ok. Did segregation affect what you choose to do?

Deborah Teague: No. I wanted to be a nurse, because I felt that was a very honorable profession. But obviously, God had a different thing for my life and I ended up going to college to be a teacher. So I would say, because we were taught you could be anything you wanted to be, no matter the circumstances. That made a difference and our parents told us that education was the way to do that.

Zakiya: Can you tell us the role of the African American Church in your community?

Deborah Teague: I’ve gone to Gospel Mission Temple. My Bishop is Bishop, Dr. Bishop Junior Horton. And God is the center of my life and so I live a life of servanthood. The church, within the black family, is the number one focus. There really isn’t any quality of life, without church and Christ being the center of that church. Gospel Mission Temple is one of the most noted churches in Iowa, and really, all over the world. It is known for stewardship, for love, for hospitality, holiness and it’s just wonderful, a little piece of heaven.

Zakiya: How did the Civil Rights Movement affect you?
Deborah Teague: Well, because I went through the time of segregation. The Civil Rights Movement opened a lot of doors for integration, so that we could go to public schools with white children and other children, that we could have more access to a higher education, that we could work at jobs that had been closed off to us. I remember Dr. Martin Luther King very well. I was a student at Central High School when he was murdered and it just had a very long lasting effect. So without civil rights, you know, things would be a lot different. A lot of people died, so that you and I sitting here having this interview today.
Zakiya: Have you been involved in any Civil Rights Organizations?

Deborah Teague: NAACP, I’m a member and have been for quite some time. There was a group called SCORE that I was involved in. When I was at St. Ambrose University, we had a multi-culture group called the Black Student Culture Group, and I was involved in that. Let’s see, United Neighbors, The Friendly House, just so many community organizations that really work toward helping people, help empower people.

Zakiya: What was your saddest moment concerning segregation?

Deborah Teague: Growing up in the south, blacks and whites were separated. And there was one white family, must have been a very, very poor white family and they were an outcast in the community. So they lived right next to black folks in terms of being an outcast. And this little girl and I somehow met up in a mutual field. And we were playing together. She lived on the outskirts of the black community. We were playing together as children do and really not even noticing the differences. She went home first and so I walked her to her home, not even thinking about the separation. And I was thirsty and wanted a glass of water. So she went in the house, she asked her mother for a glass of water. Her mother, not realizing it was a black child, came outside and got to screaming and caring on, and using the “N” word toward me. Scared both myself and the little girl half to death, for a moment I thought she’d lost her mind. And so I ran home and I told my mom what had happened. And she just said, “You know that’s ignorance. That’s ignorance and you just have to forgive that lady. She’s just a very ignorant person.”

Zakiya: How did the election of President Barack Obama affect you?

Deborah Teague: Well I tell you, truly that was God ordained because the scripture says, “That the Lord places leaders where they are.” We know well enough the history of this country, that had God not ordained it, it wouldn’t have happened. It just goes to show our young people especially, that they can be anything they choose to be. By getting an education and doing the right things and being people of character. We are praying for Mr., President to come into the full favor of the Lord in terms of what the Lord stands for. It’s just been major. It also has helped white children to understand that black people are not inferior. We were talking about it in class the other day. And I asked, “Why would the President care about the education of his children?” We are talking about the nation’s children. They came up with wonderful answers. That he cares about us. He knows education is the answer. He knows that it’ll open many doors. He knows that those rules that are on the books, we can use them when we are educated. We can’t say, you know, I’m denied this job and I don’t have the education but when you have the education, then you can say I was denied this job because of other reasons.

Zakiya: Did you believe you would live to see an African American president?

Deborah Teague: Never in a million years. No, the Lord has perfect timing and he’s just a right now God. He knows when. No, I did not think I would be alive to see that day. It’s just a wonderful blessing.

Zakiya: That is all my questions. Does anyone from my team have any questions? Mat?

Mat: In your child life did you look up to somebody? Did you want to be just like them?

Deborah Teague: Yes, I did. I looked up to my grandparents, my grandmother especially. She was a good, loving, Christian woman and I just admired her greatly. Of course, I fell in love with Jesus at a young age, I was about 13 and I wanted to be like Jesus. But the human person was my grandmother; I have great respect and admiration for my own mother. However, my grandmother was very pivotal in my upbringing and in my relationship with Christ. The other person was Florence Nightingale. I wanted to be a nurse like Florence Nightingale. I’d read about her in a book and I was just thrilled with how she sacrificed herself to give to others.

Adreanna: I have a question, two, actually. Who is your hero, like today?

Deborah Teague: My hero today, of course second to Christ, is Bishop, Dr. Bishop Junior R. Horton, a man who loves God and had scarified so much. Bishop Horton and his wife, Lady Michelle, I admire them a great deal, because of their love of Christ and their sacrifice and their love for their sheep, their church family and for their community. My mother I admire greatly, she has overcome so many obstacles. She’s such a beautiful, precious, sweetheart of a woman. I could go on and on, so many saints in the house of the Lord, but especially Bishop and Lady Michelle and my own mother.

Adreanna: Also, I just want to know like, who supports you in your decisions today? Like, when you decide to do certain things, who do you know that you know that they support you?

Deborah Teague: Well, I have a very loving family. My mother is very, very supportive. She knows that I’m a woman of God. And she respects that and she’s a woman of God. So she’s very supportive. I have a wonderful mother. My grandchildren, they’re just awesome. I have twelve. The two oldest, I’ve spent a great deal of time with; they’re just dear to my heart. I have many saints within Gospel Mission Temple. Also too, Evangelist Tammy Trice, she someone whose in, and then of course my precious niece/daughter. My niece/daughter, she’s actually my biological niece, but I have raised her as my daughter and she’s just been so supportive. And also, I have great admiration for her because she’s just been such a very, very strong support for me. Then there is Sister Felicia and Sister Marilyn. I could go on and on and on.

Destiny: I have a question. How did you feel about the segregation of people? Like how did you feel? Do you think it was right when others, when the whites got to do more than? How did you feel about that?

Deborah Teague: Well, it wasn’t right. It certainly wasn’t right and it certainly wasn’t God’s Way. It was very uncomfortable as a child. We would be on a school buses riding for hours to get to our little rundown school. We’d pass these beautiful schools and any times white children would be out heckling and calling us names and throwing things at the bus. It was just ugly. And I remember the books that we got. They had terrible names written in them, things like the “N” word and other derogatory names and go back to Africa. There were entire sections torn out of the textbooks. I remember saying to the teacher, “You know this entire section is torn out of the text book. What are we going to do?” She said “We gonna learn the parts that are there. We are not going to worry about what’s not there.” I like that.

Zakiya: I have two questions. The first one being, do you think that anything good came out of you being moved from one place to the other because of segregation?

Deborah Teague: Yes, there were some good things and there were some negative things. Having grown up in a segregated environment, all of my teachers were black. My teachers were also my Sunday School teachers. So you saw them at church; you saw them at school. They taught us a mission, a sense of belief in that through God you could do anything: all things are possible. With education, no matter how horrible it is you could make it. They taught us to believe in who we were and to feel good about our black skin, to feel good about our hair, to feel good about who we were. That was awesome. When things went to integration, that was taken away, because at the time there weren’t any, very few black teachers at all that went through the integration process. So black children were taken and put in white schools where they were really weren’t’ wanted. Truly, they were just ignored. So that was tough. That was horrendous. We felt like non-people. Thank goodness we had a sense of who we were and community. So that we believed in ourselves when no one else did. So there were good and bad things, we had better books, bigger classrooms, even more educated teachers. But the teachers that weren’t as educated gave us what they had, they gave us a sense of love and a belief in ourselves and truly that is lacking in so many classrooms today.

Zakiya: My second question is: When you moved out here, how did you get from where you were to Iowa?

Deborah Teague: I rode on a train. And back then it was a train for colored people only. And that’s what we were called back in those days. So there was a train that said, “For Colored People Only”. So I had to sit on that car, separated from the “For Whites Only”. On my why up here there was a white lady who befriended me, which was kind of frightening, because I didn’t whether to, I don’t know whether she was going to harm me if she was really going to befriend me. But she was a good woman. And she looked after me and made sure I got to Davenport, Iowa. And that helped me to see a lot concerning white people in that, and I was not raised to dislike white people. I just didn’t know any who were kind. That taught me a lot. So racism never really took root in its ugly form in my heart.

Zakiya: All right then. Thank you for your time and for your stories, Ms. Deborah Teague.

Elexis: I also have a question.

Deborah Teague: Ok.

Elexis: I was wondering if you could tell us more about your childhood, and your Christ, and what it was like in church services.

Deborah Teague: Well, I would love to. And Miss Zakiya I have just enjoyed this so much. We went to a little country church where the preacher came around every month or so. And when I was thirteen, I remember the preacher asking if the children or anyone else wanted to give their life to Christ. I just felt something supernatural happening to me. I just wanted to know Jesus and belong to him. I remember raising my little hand saying, “Yes, I wanted to go with Christ if I died.” I grew up in the Methodist church. So they took us all down to the river which was really muddy. After the first person went in and got baptized ,it was pretty muddy. But they let the adults go in first and then they took the children in. Truly it did something for me. I’m positive that I fell in love with the Jesus at a very early age. My grandmother loved him; I fell in love with the Jesus that she loved. When I went down in that muddy water, I came up and I just knew something was different. And so then it was a journey to come to fullness in Christ and for the Lord to bring me to Gospel Mission Temple under the loving, tender care of Bishop, Dr. Bishop J. R. Horton and his most precious wife, Lady Michelle. It’s been a marvelous adventure and I wouldn’t take nothing for my salvation.

Elexis: I also have another question.

Deborah Teague: Yes, Ma’am.

Elexis: I was wondering what your grandmother was like?

Deborah Teague: My grandmother’s name was Hattie Fountain. She was a precious, precious woman who loved the Lord. She sang about the Lord; she spoke of the Lord. She was the head missionary at the church and I was with her all the time, being her favorite grandchild. So I was with her all the time, so I went with her when she went to take care of the sick and when she washed clothes for the elderly. She was just a missionary; she was a servant. And so I was with her, so I would help her clean someone’s house, if they were sick, wash their clothes. We washed them in a big wash pot. I would be in the kitchen and she taught me how to cook. So I fell deeply in love with Grandmother and the God that she served. And so, it was just a wonderful journey. I never thought of work as being hard. It was a pleasure; it was enjoyable. It was doing what Jesus wanted you to do. So working hard has never been an issue for me. That was a way of loving Christ, was working hard for His people and doing His will. And my grandmother taught me that. I know she was saved. I know she was sanctified. I believe she’s in Heaven; I know she’s in Heaven. I fell in love with her Christ first and then he became real for me.

Elexis: Thank you. No further questions.

Zakiya: So is that how you are became how you are today?

Deborah-I think so. I think my grandmother had a huge impact on my life. My mother was going through some things at the time, being a young mother. So my grandmother stood in the gap. And I just, I loved who she was in Christ. ’Cause everything was Christ; everything was Jesus. She would sing songs and we’d be out of food and Jesus would make a way. She would sing, “Jesus will make a way somehow, down beneath the cross I bow.” She would sing and I’d be singing right there with her. Oral Roberts would come on the TV. She would say, “Put your hand on the TV and pray.” We’d put our hands on the TV and we’d pray. Then he’d say, “Touch the person in the room.” And we’d touch each other; we’d pray. He’d say “You healed in the name of Jesus!” and say, “Healed in the name of Jesus!” So, it was just a natural that the Lord brought me to Gospel Mission Temple.

Elexis: I have another question.

Deborah Teague: Yes ma’am.

Zakiya: Do you try to treat your grandchildren how your grandmother treated you?

Deborah Teague: Absolutely. Absolutely. I tell you what. What Grandmother did for me, I. Yes. Yes. Yes, ma’am.

Adreanna: Like during the time when your, like your grandma was alive, like did she ever, like, not like discipline you, but like tell you different things that you tell your grandchildren now, but you like, I don’t know if I can abbreviate it or something ’cause, since I’m one of your grandchildren. I’ve noticed like sometimes you stop mid-sentence like you’re trying to remember something. And now that I’m hearing about this, and I’m thinking that your grandmother must have been the one who told you and you’re trying to remember it word for word. Then you say it in your own words.

Deborah Teague: Yes, I would say that’s so. I had such a close relationship with my Grandmother. I can hear her voice. I can think in terms of what would she say; what would she do? Am I being too harsh? You know am I going to knock this child out and then pray over them. Or am I going to pray over them and then maybe not knock them out? So, yes, I think my grandmother was a very wise woman, just full of wisdom. And her biggest thing was treat people the way you wanted to be treated. Discipline is love. If you love someone you discipline them. If you don’t discipline them then you hate them. Love is tough. So those are some of the things that I remember specifically. So yes, I do many times revert back to what my grandmother said.

Elexis: I have one more question.

Deborah: Yes ma’am.

Elexis: What are your grandchildren like?

Deborah Teague: Well, they are precious little cocoons. They are jewels; they are honeys. They are the most wonderful grandchildren anyone could have. They love their grandmother; they take very good care of their grandmother. But most of all they love Jesus. They love Jesus with a passion. They know how to pray, they know when to pray; they know how long to pray. And they love being in the house of the Lord. When they were little babies they were called “Praise Babies” because they have praised the Lord from the time that they were infants. So I am a blessed woman.

Elexis: I am sure from that description, I know what your grandchildren are like very well.

Zakiya: Thank you for your time and your story.

Mat: Uh.

Deborah Teague: It’s OK; we have one more question.

Mat: I would like to know when you’re at the church and you, like, see kids, are you, like, friendly? Or are you like, I don’t know, like, which one, treating them like they’re not even there?

Deborah Teague: OK, well, I love children. I was a loved child, that was beloved very much by grown-ups. I spent a lot of time with the elderly, because I hung around my grandmother. So I spent my time with the wisest people in the community which was the elderly people. And they were always very loving and kind toward children. So I love children, and I love being around children. And so I would like to think, and I hope the children would agree, that I’m very loving and kind toward them and I try very hard to make them feel special and to notice them.

Zakiya: Thank you for your time, Ms. Deborah Teague.

Deborah Teague: You are welcome and thank you.

Zakiya: for answering our questions

Deborah Teague: Thank you Miss Zakiya.