AL 93 Page 23 helped students. That was when the federal government first began to take any real interest in education, under the Roosevelt administration. C: Can we talk for a minute about the Negro school system? How did it work? It seems like it functioned completely separate of the whole system of trustees and things like that. Who appointed Negro school teachers in Florida? J: Well, they were appointed either by the local district trustees or by the county board of education. C: In the same manner as the white teachers? J: Certainly, they were. They were appointed that way. Now, they may have had some local Negro citizens committees. I am not sure of that, I do not recall, but Florida may have had some districts. You see, the Negroes were not voting much. There was very little encouragement of them to vote. They may have had some Negro citizens committees, although I do know about that. I never did encounter one. C: No, I have never seen any. [End side A1] J: If they had them, I did not know about it. What has helped the Negro school some is called the Gene Supervisor. C: That was a philanthropic organization. J: Yes. They got help through that. I doubt if the board of education paid for a supervisor out of public funds for the Negro schools. They did for whites. C: So the Negro system tended to lag for that reason. J: Well, it lagged for every known reason. C: Well, they had a shorter term. J: They did not have any equipment, and the buildings were very poor. C: Salaries were lower. C: I was in a Negro school in west Florida where they did not have any floors; there was dirt on the floor. For heat, there was a fire in the middle of it and a hole in the roof, just like a tent. That was a Negro school in west Florida. Actually, it