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Biography

Grady Bluford stands strong for his beliefs and his people. He strongly believes that with freedom comes responsibility and that above all he must seek to raise standards, never to lower them. As a child, his father called him “Little Old Man” because of his serious, thoughtful approach to life. A member of fifteen boards, a vice president of Goodwill Industries, and an award winning citizen, Grady Bluford has seen gatherings of the KKK twice, fought for Civil Rights next to Thurgood Marshall, has lived a life filled with pain, determination, and pride in many jobs done very well. He has three Master’s Degrees and a Doctorate in Theology.

Transcript

Date of Interview: July 28, 2009

Trenton Lee: I’m Trenton Lee. T-R-E-N-T-O-N, L-E-E.

Dr. Grady Bluford: And I’m Dr. Grady L. Bluford. G-R-A-D-Y, B-L-U-F-O-R-D. Middle name is the same as General Robert E. Lee.

Trenton Lee: And today is July 28, 2009. First of all I would like to thank you for coming to do this interview on segregation and integration in Iowa.

Dr. Grady Bluford: My privilege.

Trenton Lee: So, let’s get started. First of all why do you think you got involved in this interview?

Dr. Grady Bluford: I was asked by the letter from the African American Museum of Iowa, if I would be interested in participating. And I don’t do much doing yes right off the bat. If you ask me for a special favor or something, you’re not going to get a special answer out of me right off the bat. I want to know what I’m doing. OK? That was the reason, and after talking with my daughter, my daughter said this would be a good thing. Not everybody knows what the black man, the black woman, the black family has gone through in their early years. Therefore, I said I would get involved.

Trenton Lee: Have you done something like this before?

Dr. Grady Bluford: My first time doing something like this with students asking me questions, yes this is my first time. You’re young and I’m 79.

Trenton Lee: You’re still young. Still young.

Dr. Grady Bluford: I’m still young, yes.

Trenton Lee: See. Can you describe some of the things that happened that you would like to talk about?

Dr. Grady Bluford: Well, to go back to some of the things I have to go back to the time of moving to Iowa. I don’t remember a great deal of it. I was born in Flint, Michigan. And father and mother came to Iowa as a result of the Depression. My father was a Foreman, a supervisor actually in the General Motors spark plug division. When the bottom fell out he came to Iowa. He had a brother here, working in the Cudahy Packing Plant. Cudahy is no longer here. In his job he was assigned and was taught how to become a butcher and he worked at that trade for several years. And then one of the fellows in the tank room got sick. And they put him in the tank room for one day. That one day turned out to be for twenty-five years. He didn’t have a choice. You either go and do it or you’re out. It was that simple. Secondly, in my youth, when I was seven years old my father was taking us around to see how the rich white decorated during Christmastime. And that’s when we’re going out to Country Club because Country Club was the epitome in Sioux City at that time. Now you have Morningside added to it. But, in traveling, we had made the rounds; we were on our route back and we came by the back side of Briar Cliff College, and there was a rally going on of about twenty-five to thirty. I couldn’t get a full count because my father, when he saw what was happening just sped up. He broke every speed law in the book. And then it was frightening to me because I had never seen my father break out in sweat. There was just running like somebody just poured a bucket of water on him. So when we got home I asked him, I said, “Daddy, why, why did you break the law and speed so?” And he said this to me, “Little old man, if you ever see this again, get away as quick as you can, if you can or if you don’t it means death to you.” And so that was my first experience with seeing my father real fearful. We went until about the time I was eleven, about four years later; my father thought it would be safe to go out into the Morningside area. And we went out into the Morningside area and when journeying out there, there was another big rally. But this was over seventy-five people, with the hoods, the crosses burning ,and the whOld gamut. And again my father broke the speed levels. And again the sweat rolled off of him like beads of water. Yes, I remember very clearly those days.

Trenton Lee: Do you remember exactly maybe how you felt from that, having to go through that?

Dr. Grady Bluford: I felt frightened because my father was frightened. I had never seen my father frightened. My father was a man, a strong Christian man, he and my mother; Christian people, they were very grounded. I always looked at them as I got older as not being very bright. But it wasn’t that at all. They had an eighth grade education both of them and for them at that time that was good. My mother was offered a job in teaching, but she said no because she wanted to get married. And then they moved to Flint, Michigan. My father ended up in Flint, Michigan simply because, my father ran into segregation. His older brother would not get off of the sidewalk, for a white woman in the South. He grew up on a plantation on Texarkana, Oklahoma. And in that they wouldn’t get off, the police were after them, as my father tells me. They left; they went into Michigan. Then when they got to Michigan, the older brother went into Canada. One of my dad’s brothers went into Lansing, Michigan, the other went to Battle Creek, and my father went to Flint. They vowed never to contact the older brother. To this day, I do not know what my dad’s older brother’s name is. But that’s a part of what happens to us when you have come out of segregation. I’ve been to the plantation my father grew up on. I didn’t like it. Because having grown up in the north, I was comforted by what I called a nice home. Floors in the house knothOlds where I could see the hogs and the chicken and the ducks and the geese that were being raised, I could look through the floor and see them running around under the house. And that to me was very disturbing. Yeah. It has left a print on me and I vowed I would never be like that or in that boat if I could help it.

Second video begins
Trenton Lee: What do you think was your biggest accomplishment?

Dr. Grady Bluford: Oh my biggest accomplishment. Let me give you some other history. That was my elementary, my high school, I played football, basketball and track. In fact I had never seen a basketball. My coach in my sophomore year said to me, “Bluford, I want you to be a point guard.” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “A point guard, Bluford.” “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, “Just a minute.” He went into the locker room come out with a basketball. He threw it at me very hard. I caught it out in front ’cause I didn’t want, it was coming so fast, I didn’t want to get hurt by it. I only weighted 120 pounds and so I was protecting myself. He said, “Those are the hands I need. So you will be my point guard” and from that point. I played football at 120 pounds. Now our line averaged 230 pounds. The oddity of my growing up was that when the team traveled, if we were in town, I traveled on the bus with them. If we had to travel outside of South Sioux City, then I was taken in a private car, with a family that was going to a game. Played football, but I was separate from the rest of the football team, myself, Al Haze who became an attorney, Jackie Hall who went into the military, got hit in the head with a latrine shovel and split his head open, he’s never been the same since, and my brother and I. When we were victorious, we didn’t eat with the football team or the basketball team. We were taken to a little café and fed separate. This always, that’s haunted me all my life. My mind goes back to those days and I’m thankful that they’re not quite as bad today. In high school class, my American Literature class was where I took a stand. The teacher had called on me to read one of the stories about niggers. And I said, “I will not do it. Every time somebody wants to read about the black man, you take and call on me to read it. I will not do it anymore. It hurts.” The teacher says, “Do you realize that you will go from an A minus because you’ve been insubordinate you will go to a D?” And I said, “I can’t help it, this is the way I feel and this is what I’m not going to do.” So I didn’t and I got the D; the principal couldn’t do anything about it because they classified me as being insubordinate. Yes, getting out of high school the N-word was always there. And by grade school it was “Little Black Sambo.” I graduated to the high school into the nigger. And so, yes I remember very vividly. And your question to me now after I’ve given you all that detail, is how do I feel? I still feel strange, because though we have laws on the books and I’ve been active in the NAACP up until they took on the position of the sexual orientation should be protected as we who are people of color. And I disagree with that. I disagree with it on two principals. The national office at first starting would not approve of it later on they decided to go with it. Secondly, because as an ordained minister I said no because if the Bible calls it abomination, then the people used to say to me, “Bluford this is only in the Old Testament.” And I said, “No, it’s in the New as well.” And so for that reason I took a stand on it. Even to the point of confronting the city council when they were pushing to get it adopted. After I listened to all the people talking about it, I then took a stand and simply said, I asked a question of the council and I’m not ashamed of it. I asked them how many of you are claiming to be Christian? And they all raised their hands, all of them. Then how can you sit here in front of me and tell me that sexual orientation, which is an abomination in the sight of God only decorated with fancy words? And they said, “This is the time; this is the law.” I said, “I cannot go along with it.” As a pastor I have to stand where the Bible stands. Even though that’s caused me some threats on my life, I still stand there. I will not sway from it, if it takes me to my grave and that is what I told the people that threatened me. If it takes me to my grave I will go there, rather than justify a sin which is an abomination in the sight of God.

Trenton Lee: A lot of interesting stuff right there. What would you change if you could about the outcome of the segregation and integration policy?

Dr. Grady Bluford: That’s hard to answer because though we thought when we were being trained, some of the NAACP leaders were being trained and we were trained in Davenport, Iowa because Sioux City was known for its viOldnce. I remember of a gentleman who was an attorney who came to us on a Thursday night when we met back in the….oh that would have been in the late ’50s. And he said to us, ”You need to know that I have been threatened, if I take a stand with you, that I am subject to be hung.” This was a Thursday night. And on a Saturday morning his body was found hanging down along the Missouri River in the trees. See that riverfront used to be a line of trees. You all don’t see that today. It’s all riverfront. You’ve got boats and all these kinds of things along the riverfront, but it used to be a line of trees from way up to the west all the way down around to the, as you head toward Omaha. And it’s been cleared out, but in among those trees he was found hung, because he took a stand.
What is different with the laws today….Thurgood Marshall, I’m acquainted with him because he taught classes on what we needed to be mindful of as a black man. He, Roy Wilkins, both, and Samuel T. Jones, came to Iowa to train us in what to expect when a policeman hit us across the shoulder blades because that’s one of the locations, across our shoulder blades, it leaves no scars, across the middle of the kidney area and the lower back they do not leave any major traces of beatings. And so we went through that kind of training to prepare us for it. And then people sitting as close as you and I are, spitting in one another’s face. Yep, that’s what it was like. Today, we have the laws on the books that everybody’s free. A question I asked back of Thurgood Marshall was, “What kind of can of worms are we going to open up on society when we get freedom for us?” His answer to me was, “That’s not your worry.” I said, “But, Mr. Marshall along with freedom comes responsibility.” He said, “Buford that’s not your worry.” I said, “Then whose is it?” I’m finding out as I’ve gotten older, whose it is. It’s ours still. It’s all of society’s still. You think the playing field is still level, don’t you?

Third video begins
Dr. Grady Bluford:  When I was growing up, my father, some of the first words I heard from my father was, ”Little Old Man, don’t ever be guilty of running around with the white women, white girls, and the women. That is death to you in many locations.” So, I’ve never gone out with white women. I’ve been in the company of them, but they were not my dates. I took my father at his word. And he said this also, “Little Old Man, as long as you are black don’t ever forget it; the white man’s’ not going to. He will come at you with subtleties.” You asked me how it is today, just two years ago, I lost my wife after forty-seven years plus. I was coming out of the Red Lobster, two men stood and waited till the group I was with, it was a group of white women and two other men. They waited ’till they left. They said, “Just a minute can we talk to you?” I said, “I don’t believe I know you, but what’s on your mind?” This is what came out of their mouths. “You have been watched, observed being with this group of white women.” They didn’t mention the men that were there. “What’s going on?” And I said “If you noticed”, I forgot myself. “If you noticed my wife was on my arm. We are a group from the church that we attend and we have been invited to go to this forum. Thank you for your rudeness.” And I walked away from them. Now, if it had been back when I was a boy, my father wouldn’t have been able to walk away. But that was a reminder: you have a place. My father had told me, “You will run into subtitles when they finally do get discrimination on the books as nonexistent, but don’t fool yourself young man. It is very vivid out there. You can chase the skirts all you want to that are white. Somewhere along the line it’s going to trip some of you up.” I know, my son, went with, I had to get an attorney, upfront, $5000.00. Yes, he was cleared of any wrong doing but that’s the price you pay, and if your father doesn’t have the $5000.00, you’re up a creek. Yes, I got mine back because he said, “We really didn’t have to do a lot of work.” He refunded it. I was surprised and I wrote him a letter of thanks.

Is it different? Yes, when it was in its heyday, and when I say heyday, I am talking about discrimination. When it was in its heyday, I knew where I stood as a little boy. I went south to bury my grandfather. My grandmother had said to me, “Son, when I go to get on this bus and you get on the bus, you follow me to the back.” Strong head, strong will, stubborn, bullheaded, I was. And so, I sat behind the driver because I wanted to see how this big wheel worked. The driver finally, after sitting for a period of fifteen or twenty minutes, said, “Nigger, go back to your place.” So my brother and I went back to the back of the bus. That was in our travels.
Oh, I learned much from my father. I never knew the word son, until like he was going to the hospital to die, at my age of 16. Then he told me he says, “You got a question?” I said, “Yeah daddy I do have. You call my brother, son. You call me “Little Old Man” ever since I can remember. Am I not your son or am I adopted or something?” He says, “No, Little Old Man, you are my son, but you’ve never been a boy. You’ve always been a Little Old Man. I’ve asked you questions that I made decisions for the family. So I called you my Little Old Man. You’ve been walking since you were six months of age.” I said, “Daddy,” I said, “don’t get mad at me.” Cause I remember getting the backhand once for what you call sassing. You didn’t talk back to your parents when I grew up. If you did, you found yourself picking yourself off the floor. And I said, “Little kids don’t walk that soon.” He said, “I don’t care what other little kids have done. You were walking getting into stuff at six months of age. And I knew that God had something special for you to do.” Then I learned about my ancestry on my father’s side. His father was netted as a boy of eleven years old with his dad brought over here, one of the last slaves. And I go back to the Wattu tribesmen of Africa which is supposed to be a leadership group in the African central Africa Tanzanian area now known as. On my mother’s side I’m part Cherokee chieftain. Trying to find the roots and all that stuff is very difficult. I don’t even know my African name. But see it is different, back then we knew where we stood. Today, the black man walks on eggshells. The black woman can get by, because the black woman and the white man were considered the only free people. I picked up on that not only from Dr. Vivian who was a part of Dr. Martin Luther King’s March; I trained under him as well, and what to do, what not to do. So you learn how to walk in the white man’s world and yet what things to avoid and what things you can do. It becomes an egg shell walk, is the way I depict it. Yes, I have been blessed in the process. Yes, I have an education. I am the holder of a high school degree, a college degree, pre-med, three master’s degrees, and a doctorate in Bible studies, guidance and counseling at University of South Dakota, from Coventry Theological Seminary, Christian counseling to balance out the white man’s counseling, and Bible. Yes, I say to you I see you running around with the white chicks and being very blatant. I say to you be careful. It is not as clear, when I was a young man thirty-five. I have a friend in town who’s still living, he’s a business man who tracks these things. He’s Jewish. He sometimes will call me and tell me what’s going on. The hate groups have grown from 526 organized hate groups to 926 today. Is that progress? Not in the right direction. Most people are not aware of it. White man has always done things in a subtlety and so you have to watch. Be sophisticated enough to understand what the man is saying, because he doesn’t always tell you. Not all men are that way. Not all whites are that way. You find some good whites as long as you stay in your place. Does that answer your question?

Trenton Lee: Yes, it does. Yes, it does.

Dr. Grady Bluford: Yes, I get a _______

Trenton Lee: I understand.

Dr. Grady Bluford: Talk about it, yes.

Fourth video begins
Dr. Grady Bluford: Other questions? I’ve been involved in civil rights ever since I got out of high school. My first job when I graduated, didn’t tell you. I graduated from South Sioux City High School; I was active in sports, music, played in the band, sung in the a cappella choir. But my first job, in my class book I have to tell you, we had, each of us had to come up with an expression what our motto would be. My motto was finishing to begin. Never realizing, they never told me that would be used as the motto until after I graduated. I was voted the most likely to succeed in the class. It’s a strange thing the twists that life brings to you. It’s a blindness, though I was in church every Sunday morning, every Wednesday evening, every Friday night. I knew of God. But I didn’t know God. Today people will tell you, “God is dead.” God is not dead; it’s us. We are dead to him. And having lost my sight when I was a young man, a student at Wayne State Teachers College, my second year, I had the privilege of being the Chef because the railroad chef that I trained under, who had a PhD, could not teach because the system would not allow him. He taught me about food and food preparation. And so when he had a massive heart attack, he had told the hostess that I could handle anything they threw at me. And they threw a big banquet of 1200 teachers and principals and superintendents of schools. I got a number of compliments on the meat; they could cut it with a fork. In going to college myself, I had an advisor that I despise to this day because all he talked about was, “You’re a black man; blacks are good at cooking; blacks are good at music. You need to change from pre-med to one of those two.” I was bull-headed. My bull-headedness has carried me to where I’m at. You asked me a question earlier and I didn’t answer you. What has been my highest achievement? I’ve had a number of them. I’ve served on fifteen boards in this city, not for what it would get me, but how it would make it better and that we would have somebody in the pool that has something to say about what goes on with us. I happen to be the chairman for president of the advisory group for the three high schools that we have now functioning west, north, and east. Part of my job was to help the committee come to a consensus of equality in what’s offered in each of the schools. The sizes of each of the school; so that whites could not go to one school over another school. Racial balances the locations of those things. I had a hand in that. That’s one of the accomplishments that I am proud of even though it was always thrown up to me by the school board that you’re doing this because you are getting something out of it. I never got anything out of it. Yes, my kids went to North. They took advantage of the transfer policy. I took my kids to school. They didn’t ride the city buses. I made sure that they got there and I made sure they got out. My kids were both musically inclined because my grandparents were musically inclined, my grandparents on both sides. My wife and myself, our grandfathers, could pick up any instrument and play it. I have a daughter that has been to Europe five times. She’s, see the woman gets more breaks than the man, but you have to have to watch how you carry yourself, because the black woman was first to white man. Yes, he had a white wife, but the mistress was always there in the background. I listened to a commentary on, if you watched “Africa; Blacks in American”, I looked at the faces of most of those blacks who were prominent, most of them worked in the house. They were the house maid or the butler or whatever you want to call them. They took advantage of the brain knowledge.

I have worked with Goodwill Industries, having been blind all attributes to this. But I was blind for, I went blind my third semester of college at Wayne State. The professor asked me, he said “Bulford, what did you,” about the test he says, “What did you think of the test?” I said,”It wasn’t a bad test.” I said, “But what I read, “ after answering the questions I reread all the tests I take. I said, “I must be losing my sight, because the second time reading was not the same as the first. But I didn’t change any of my answers.” And he said, “Oh you didn’t study.” And I laughed and I said, “Yes, I did.” During the time of my blindness, the President of Wayne State Teacher’s College came to my home. And he said, “I’m supposed to give you a message. Your botany test that the professor thought you hadn’t studied for you got a B+ in.” I found that interesting. The other thing, my greatest accomplishment, that was one of the questions you asked, the last question you asked me, was receiving, having worked in the Goodwill Industries for forty-one years I’ve committed my life to helping handicapped and disadvantaged because for a long period of time it was rare to find that handicapped person get a job. And I’ve been instrumental in breaking it open, so that handicapped of any ethnic group has the opportunity. And as a result of my work I drive a fancy black car, it’s not a brand new car, it’s a Presidential Town car as they call it. The owner tells me, the dealer tells me, he was offered by three men $25 grand for that car. He let me have it because he had been following my life for twenty-five years, and his wife is confined to a wheelchair. And he let me have it for $11,000.00. I just said that’s God’s gift to me. That’s a gift. But my greatest award, you’re still wondering about that, is having received the gift Goodwill gives every year to the top CEOs of the company, Organization International. It gives the Founders Award to the top CEO. This year they opened it up to the senior staff. I am the first to receive it. I received on the 29th of July of this month. Not this month, June of June. I received it in Indianapolis where I took my first training. I made the complete cycle in Indianapolis, where the headquarters is for the Ku Klux Klan.

Trenton Lee: Congratulations for that.

Dr. Grady Bluford: Thank you, it’s an international trophy. I’ve got it in my car. I said, “Maybe I shouldn’t bring it in.” But, maybe I should go get it in a few minutes, when you’re finished with me so that you can see what is possible-to have Goodwill Industries International, Edgar J. Helms Award, awarded to Grady L. Bluford. It was something to behold. There were ten awards given the night that I received mine. Mine was the first one, standing ovation I received. My daughter tells me it was the longest standing ovation. She told me I went five seconds over my time limit of three minutes that I was given to talk. Several of the people said, “We thought you were going to preach to us, but we could have listened all night to you preach.” But that was where we’re at, that was my greatest accomplishment, to date.

Fifth video begins
Trenton Lee: Does anybody have any questions?

Dr. Grady Bluford: Yes.

Laura Triplett: What do you think about our president?

Dr. Grady Bluford: You would ask me that. I don’t think he’s equipped for what he’s having to handle. That’s my personal opinion. You’re probably wondering if I voted for him, too. You haven’t voiced it but you are thinking. I did not vote for him. When he was inducted into the Senate, as a Senator, he refused to put his hand on the Bible. And I said, my standard, my father always taught me, ’cause I said to my father, “How can I lower the standards so that blacks become inclusive?” And he said, “ Never, never, never, Little Old Man, seek to lower standards , always be looking to lift the bar.” And because he did that “I said what message is he sending to us as a nation?” I was proud of him, that he was able to make it; but I have that reservation. And I’m a man who votes what my conscience dictates. My standard bar is very high, My kids will tell you if you were ever to meet them. In fact just as of last night they both said to me. “Daddy thank you for the way you raised us. We can compete with any white group on the market place.” That made me very proud. The wife and I have been very blessed. I had a lovely wife. I always asked her, “Why did you marry me?” She said, “You wanted a beautiful wife with intelligence. Be thankful.” But that wasn’t her real reason. Our first date, I was all dressed to go and pick her up. The voltage regulator in my car decided to go dead after I had just finished washing it. So I put on a new voltage regulator, then I went and picked her up. We headed out to Stone Park to a shelter. We get to Dick Wallen’s stable and I have a blow out. So I pulled into the driveway at Dick Wallen’s. I forgot to put a brick under the front wheel. I got it jacked up, was getting-only time I sat down to lift a tire off a car-and the car started to shimmy. And I pushed myself away from the car in time to keep from getting my legs cut across from here, cut off and the car bounced down. Then I managed to jack it up again. And the comment comes from this, I got in my car and I said, “Praise the Lord!” My wife to be, she says, ’cause I asked her, “Why are you staring at me so?” She said, “I’m waiting for you to cuss like a parr, like my father.” I said, “I don’t cuss.” She said, “All men cuss.” I said, “I don’t cuss.” “Why did you say praise the Lord then?” I said, “Because the Bible says you give thanks in all things, not just the good things, but all things.” She told my daughter, two weeks before she died, when my daughter asked her, “Why did you marry dad? You made a good choice, but why?” She says, “Don’t tell daddy; I’ve always told him for forty-seven years, he’s asked me forty-seven times, and I’ve told him, ‘You wanted a beautiful wife with intelligence, be thankful.’ But the real reason was in the midst of adversity he praised the Lord.” And to have her tell me face to face, I’ve kept every promise to her that I made, and I made some big ones. The biggest one was, when I was able to get squared away so after paying all the bills and whatnot, whatever money she made she could spend it anyway she wanted to. And that she was able to do. She said,”You kept every promise to me. I have no broken promises and I love you more for it.” That’s probably my biggest accomplishment, was with my wife. I loved her dearly. Still do. You have other questions of me? Did I answer your question?

Laura Triplett: Yes.

D’Metrick Rainey: One of my questions is, when was your recent encounter of racism?

Dr. Grady Bluford: Not quite two and a half years ago, it came before, it came, I took my wife out to the Red Lobster with a group from the church February, I think it was the first Sunday of February, and it was when leaving that I was encountered by these two men. A year later I was encountered by a fellow from up in Rock Rapids, I think it was. I was at Stryker’s going through the line, and he says, “Where’re you from?” I said, “I’m from Sioux City.” He said, “Well, where I’m from we don’t encounter and have any Jews, any Indians, any Blacks.” And my answer to him without thinking was, “That’s your loss.” He became very flush and I walked away. That was my last encounter. I’ve had some subtle things done to me. Verbiage. But I’ve learned to deal with verbiage. You never lose your cool. That’s one of the things my father always taught me. Never get angry to the point that you lose your control. You, as a black man, must always maintain your control. Never. That’s what I tell my son and my daughter. My daughter last week she was home. She says, “Thanks dad for telling me never to forget I was black.” She said, “I run into it” when she traveled. She said, “I not only did I ran into it on foreign soil but I ran into it here in America.” Yes.

D’Metrick Rainey: Thank you.

Dr. Grady Bluford: But right ________ was two years ago. Any other questions?

Issa Ford: I have a question about the president. Did you ever think that there would be a black president?

Dr. Grady Bluford: No, I didn’t. I thought it would come, but not in my life time. I credit his success. He was able to play the white man’s game. And he was saying the kind of things that the white man wanted to hear, but he never said the things that are critical to us. You say what’s critical to us? To continue to climb the ladder financially. I have served as vice president for the company that I work for for thirty years. I know serve as director of administration. I work part time still. My doctor said to me, “Bluford you’ve been working since you were 11 years old if you stop because you have no hobbies”….the one hobby I have is raising German Sheppard’s and training them. He said, “Because you can’t do that anymore, your best bet is to stay working or you’ll be dead in 6 months. You can’t go from the pace that you have traveled.” I operated on the philosophy- and as I told the people as I received the award-I operate on the philosophy 110 % plus, everyday. And I said I’ve maintain that, even at the age of seventy-nine. I’m responsible, have been responsible for a number of years, for hiring, the final word on hiring, in our stores, and our basic operation. This year they decided they wanted me to handle even the, our vice presidents, have a say so on that. Give the president my summery how I see the person we’re bringing in. He doesn’t have to hire him, but he knows what I am thinking.

Sixth video begins
Dr. Grady Bluford:  I have been blessed to be a part of an organization that’s gone from 110 people to right now we’re running at four hundred and, I think it’s 425. We have a payroll, on monthly basis, my job is to analyze and to break down payroll into four categories: those who are handicapped and sponsored, those who are non-handicapped co-sponsored, those who are staff and the executive level. Our June budget for one month was over $700,000.00. This one will be in the range of, close to $600,000.00. We had three pay periods in the month of June, that’s why it comes to that larger achievement. Normally, we will range anywhere from 500 to $585,000.00 and that’s a part of my responsibility. I look at all the top applications that come through, sign off on. I’m also responsible for the Samaritan Fund; it is a discretionary fund of the president. I have discretionary rights. For somebody, normally once a year they’ll help somebody but try not to double. But if somebody’s fighting cancer or somebody’s out of medicine for diabetes-diabetes, I have, diabetes runs in my family. I’ve lost a sister, a brother, and my wife. That was a part of the diagno…reason for their deaths. My wife’s stomach quit functioning. She had cancer. They did six CAT scans in four weeks period of time. ’Cause, they kept telling me that it’s spreading, “It’s spreading rapidly, Mr. Bluford. We got to check it, we got to find….” So I said, “You can do the test, but there is no cancer there. You will find nothing.” And all six tests they took they found nothing as to cancer. But the cancer treatments had done their damage; they messed up her stomach. And her stomach was not functioning. When your stomach stops functioning, I have enough medical background to know, she don’t have a, you don’t have a chance. So, that’s what took my wife. My doctor, Dr. Murphy, when he was here in town, he would often say something, “Bluford you have too much medical knowledge.” I said, ‘Better to help you with.” Because one of the medicines that I was on, he gave orders for it to continue, but the nurses did not continue it. After seven weeks being out of the hospital, I kept going back. I said, “You’re not doing something right. I’m not on the medicine that you prescribed, all the medicines you prescribed.” He said, “Well we ask you every month.” “I told every month that I’m not on it. Do you check your records?” And he said,” Are you questioning me?” I said, “It’s my right.” He said, “Is this for your benefit?” I said, “No, you’re a black man, I’m a black man, we’re two black men talking together in a room by ourselves. If this is happening to me, how many others is it happening to? If this is happening to whites you got a major responsibility to be thinking about.” He went back and checked his files. Found out that I was right. He said, “Thanks for knowing what you’re talking about.” So even though I breathe less oxygen than you all operate on, you all operate on fifty-five to sixty-five percent of oxygen usage every day; I operate on seventeen to twenty-five. When I had my viral pneumonia and my sinuses peaked at the same time, they damaged the pumping mechanism in my heart. And thus I’m limited. I have to watch. If you notice I phrase sentences differently, than your normal sentence structure. I hated that, diagramming of sentences. But that was drilled into us. I had to stay after school for it. And I didn’t like penmanship. Make up these little, I don’t know why you still have to make up these little lines that mean nothing, up and down, up and down, and circle, circle, circle, circle. I had to stay and write those 100 times. But I write better than most people today, for men, especially for men. Do you have any questions of me?

Trenton Lee: Thank you, thank you very much for doing this interview with us.

Dr. Grady Bluford: I trust I answered all the questions?

Trenton Lee: Yes you did. Yes you did.

Dr. Grady Bluford: God bless you! You ladies are privileged because you are number one as far as the white man is concerned, but don’t forget your blackness, don’t forget your blackness.
I’ve known couples, mixed, white man, black woman. And the word “nigger” has come up in their conversation with one another. And though we as black men and young youth we use the term black all the time against ourselves, I cringe every time I hear it, because we’re no better than them. When you lower the standard of any level, you create chaos. So the principal that all of us need to be looking for is raising the bar.
I trust you with so much, I know we, I’ve had strange things happen when I’ve prayed. I’ve seen men had cancer and we took them to God in prayer and when they went back for testing, they could not find cancer. And I said to the man, one particular man, I said to him, “Give God the credit because that’s where it’s due.” He said to me, “God doesn’t” I said, “Don’t finish it.” He said, “Well, He didn’t have anything to do with this.” I said, “He had everything to do with this, but because you just denied Him, in less than a month you will be back at a plus four cancer level.” And two weeks later, he went in for tests, grade four cancer level. I knew the different levels because I was a part of making diagnoses when I was in the hospital, part of my work was dealing with diagnoses, part of it was me being able to read slides, tissue, body tissue, tell whether it’s cancerous, or whether it’s cycle cell anemia, or whether it’s pernicious anemia, whether it’s Mediterranean anemia, the different, all those different anemias, being able to tell just by looking at blood slides, you can tell all that stuff. And he died, not quite a year later. I’ve gone to hospitals and daughter’s have stood there and told me, “Mother knows Christ, but I don’t know why she’s holding on.” And they ask me, “Will you pray for her.” I said, “Be guarded in what you ask for.” Prayed for this woman and before I could finish, she died. And it scared me, praying for people, even though I still do it. It scares me every time, especially if they are asking for something specific. But God has used me in a strange way.

Seventh video begins
Dr. Grady Bluford: I have to say I am not my own man; I’m His man. But I’ve vowed I would serve him until I die. That’s the kind of commitment I have. I’ve been asked, “Why didn’t you take on the role of a Goodwill executive, be the top CEO?” I made a promise to a man-I believe strongly if you make a promise, you keep it, if it is at all possible, keep it. So I made a promise to a man; it kept me out of that role, serving as CEO at three different times in my life. But I believe my word, and my father said to me as I was growing up, “A man is no stronger than his word. You can’t trust him if a man is a liar; you can’t trust him; you can’t depend on him. You can build a pyramid of lies, for every lie you tell,” he would say to me, “you build, you tell seven other lies to cover the one and when you finish up, you got a pyramid built and you don’t know what you started with.” When I tell what happened to me, I know what I’ve said and I know where I’ve been.

Laura Triplett: If you could give words of inspiration or encouragement to young black men, what would you say to them?

Dr. Grady Bluford: I’d say to them remember you’re black first of all because it’s when they forget, as my son did-my son’s been shot at twice. When they get, the little white girls, and I had the little white girls, being an athlete, I had the little white girls chasing after me, the skirts as my father would call them. But I had sense enough because of my father had said you play with fire when you deal with the little white girls. You deal with a white woman, you’re playing with fire. It’ll burn you and though there will be marriages that will come about, mixed marriages, that N-word will pop up invariably in some of the conversations that I’ve talked to some and they invariably tell me, “Yes, it pops up.” They say, well I let it slip I didn’t mean, but it should never have been in the, shouldn’t have ever been in the brain capacity! Should never have been there. For the black man, it’s a rougher road to hoe, I use farming terms, ’cause I hoed a lot when I was a boy. For the black man, if he can remember that. My father would also say to me, “Little Old Man, I don’t’ care what kind of clothes you put on your back, they can be stripped from you but what you put here [points to head], no one can take away.” And my mother would say to me, “Why even try?” And I said, “Because my dad said I should. And he said, ‘You have it in you.’” And she said, “Well if you don’t get a chance, say you get married and have a family, what good is that education? It won’t make you more money.” And I said, “Mother, it’s not what it won’t do for me, it’s what it will do for my offsprings if I have any. They will be better off.” You don’t think about yourself, we find ourselves when we lose ourselves in thinking about others. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been blessed to get that prestigious award [touching Trenton on arm]. I hope you don’t mind me touching your shoulder.

Trenton Lee: Not at all.

Dr. Grady Bluford: But that’s one of the reasons. The men, all five of the judges came to me at-I knew one of them, the other four I’d never met. They came to me after the affair and they said, “Mr. Bluford?” They referred to me as doctor, but I don’t use the term doctor very often unless something of critical nature when the white man knows what it stands for, then I’ll use it because the term doctor and three Masters that’s hanging on my wall, when we became a certi, accredited as a rehabilitation facility, the first question a white lady asked me, “What makes you think,” in a sarcastic tone, “What makes you think you’re qualified to do the work you’re claiming to do?” I said, “The work that I am doing, the qualifications are in my file, but you didn’t look close enough. And she looked, she says, “Show me.” And I flipped over to the miscellaneous file in my file. I said, “You will see there’s a high school, there’s a degree, a pastor’s degree from the University of South Dakota, there’s two Master’s from Covington Theological Seminary, and there’s a doctorate from Covington Theological Seminary.” “Why are they not on the board?” People, if you have an education, they figure your, they’re too little for you to waste their time on, that’s why I’m there. And when people tell me, “Grady don’t spend time working with the people.” I say, “What better place to work?” You then know what they’re going through. You think and make corrections. You can’t make corrections sitting in the front office, not valid ones. You need to be out and be among them. My boss, we lost two contracts once because we had two different people quit and they both told me, “You’ll lose all your contracts because I quit.” And I said, “Well, I’m glad you think that way.” So I went out among the workers and I said, “Can you help do me a favor?” They said, “What is it, Mr. Bluford?” I had won their trust because I had worked with them, individually and collectively. And they said, “What do you need from us?” “I need you to help me to do this so that you won’t lose your job.” They bent over backwards. My boss said, “How did you do that?” I said, “I work with them. I worked with them before we got into a crisis; I worked with them when we got into a crisis.” You have to be the same; you can’t be like a salamander. I don’t know if you know about salamanders or not. A salamander is a little animal, little creature, he slithers along and he blends in with the space that he’s in. I have to be true. You as black men need to be true to yourself and you can’t really be true to yourself until you find God. Forgive me for being that blunt, I know I’m not supposed to talk about education. My father would have been in jail if they’d a had corporal punishment, razor strap. I got seven good ones with a razor strap. The first one was for lying. I got two of them because I used the words try and can’t. In my family I grew up with try was an excuse to do nothing; can’t never did anything. So I couldn’t have any part of either one of them. It was “I expect” and “I will determine” when you’ve met the standard to the best of your ability. So I’ve always lived in functional expectation. We have now enough of that today. We throw people out into the stream and say, “Swim!” That’s the major reason that the Indian‘s in the problem he’s in today. The Indian made white man put on a reservation gave him a bottle of whiskey and said, “We will take care of it.” The black man they didn’t want him free they said, “Get out and fend for yourself, means you’re free.” We haven’t begun to use what’s up here [taps head].

I’ve been a part of the Police System Advisory Committee where we established they’re not supposed to be doing it anymore, but I don’t believe them, using the clubs on beating people, black men in the kidney area then across the shoulders, l ’cause you can’t prove anything. They’re not supposed to have any brutality at all. But you know and I know, behind the scenes and they’re an organization that sticks together. I’ve had policemen tell me, “We want your fingerprints. “ And I said, “If I can help it, you’ll not have them. I’ve not done anything for them to have them.” They told me one time that I was the only black male in Sioux City that didn’t have at one time in my life. I said, “It’ll be a cold day in Hell when you get it.” I still feel that same way. A black man has to set an example. I was frustrated because I could see no blacks in history. I said, “My life will accomplish something with the grace of God.” I couldn’t do it by myself. You probably saw the article they wrote on me.

Trenton Lee: This is it?

Dr. Grady Bluford: Yeah. And I’ll run out if you don’t mind.

Laura Triplett: Sure!

Dr. Grady Bluford: I’ll run out and get you. So you can see what you can attain, but you got to work at it diligently.