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Judge Andrea Buford and Medill Professor Deborah Douglas on Voices and Visions Podcast · Voices And Visions Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Voices and Visions Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Alumni Jeffrey Sterling and Lauren Lowry's interview series exploring the black experience at Northwestern University amid a changing national landscape.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's learn together.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Award-winning journalist Deborah Douglas interviews Judge Andrea Buford in 2016 in preparation for the Nova Archive.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy part one on Voices and Visions Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was formerly the number two on the Sun-Times editorial board and a columnist.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I uh teach about leadership at universities around the country.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm finishing a program at the University of Texas and the Minnesota Foundation this summer.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's who I am.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Very impressive.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I like those ideas.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: What am I wearing today?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh these, okay.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: You ready?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um again, as we said, we want to get a sense of um your time at Northwestern, uh, what led you to come to that campus, uh, what other campuses you uh considered, and um what was your your sense of yourself when you were in high school and you were getting ready for the for the college cycle?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So start off by introducing yourself, um, what you do, and what years you went to, more question.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh okay.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh sorry.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: 78-78, okay.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Andrea Buford and I attended uh Northwestern from 1974 through 1978.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I graduated from what was then the School of Speech with the Bachelor's of Science in Speech.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: So at the time, what did you feel like you would end up doing with a speech degree?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that it was radio, TV, and film was it?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: RTV, yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought I would uh be a TV reporter, but in order to do that, you have to start off in a smaller market.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: They always told us that you need to start in a smaller market, Peoria, some some small uh market before you could come to Chicago.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So of course I did not uh want to leave Chicago, so I didn't uh I didn't pursue that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh although my first job out of as a senior was as a um an intern with WBM TV, so that was my first real job.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And they hired me when I graduated from Northwestern, so that was my first job.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's great.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So let's uh before we talk about your your pivot to law, let's talk about your time at Northwestern.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So um, first of all, tell me about your the process of of applying and finding out that you were that you were accepted, and where else did you apply?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: I remember applying to Northwestern, to Boston University, and one other university, and for some reason I can't remember the name of that other school.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it's not important.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, of course I got accepted into all.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: But Northwestern offered the best financial package, combination of scholarships, grants, not much of a loan, but a small loan, but that allowed me to attend without having a financial burden, not to mention that it was one of the best schools around.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, where did you grow up?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up on the south side of Chicago.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I went to um Catholic school, Holy Cross Elementary School, Aquinas Dominican High School, and then I went to Northwestern.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so what did you what was it about those other schools that you thought you were interested in?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get a sense of the tension between accepting Northwestern and other schools.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I I don't know, I can't so long ago.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think that Boston probably had the major that I was looking for.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: I would assume that they had the major that I was looking for.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: I really can't remember.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, and it was also so far away from home.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: I could go to Northwestern and feel like I was, and I did live on a campus and I wasn't at home anymore, even though it was like a take public transportation back into the city if you choose to do it, but it was like being away.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was like living on a campus, which of course uh my family and everyone wanted us all to experience is living on a campus.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, so you have siblings?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I have had three brothers.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I have two brothers now, and I have four sisters, so there were eight of us totally.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, okay.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And were you first gym?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your college tradition with regard to college?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um all local, let's see.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: We have DePaul, we have Loyola, we have uh, well, one University of Detroit, I think she's the only one that left.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, and my brother, he went to well, he went to DePaul here, but he also has a PhD from the University of Louisville, so he's a professor.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but everybody in my family has at least an undergraduate degree.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Most of us have something beyond an undergraduate degree.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So now let's take you into your time at Northwestern.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember where you lived?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: I lived in North Allison.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: I lived in Allison.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: There were actually four girls from my high school that uh attended Northwestern.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: There were four of us.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so we all ended up at Northwestern.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't roommates initially.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I remember uh we all did, we all lived in Allison Hall.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: I remember being in Allison Hall and I remember conflicts amongst roommates, racial conflicts amongst roommates, uh not wanting to be roommates with with a black person or a black person not wanting to be roommates with a white person, whatever.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: I remember the conflicts.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually it all earned itself out, and I became uh roommates with my best friend who's also a judge.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: She's retired, judge, could count me, but we became roommates.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Returned Trella Savage.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me a little bit about the nature of these conflicts.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think as I remember it, someone's parent did not appreciate the fact that they were roaming with a black student, and they were always running down to the uh RAM and there were just problems.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Not real big problems, not major problems, nothing we couldn't handle, nothing that was really that bad.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: But was it like taste and music or just that you know, I don't want a room with a black person.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be in the I don't want a black roommate.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if it was if I re what I recall is that was mainly the parent, parents, not not the student herself, but mainly the parents.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: But in any event, it worked itself out.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't that bad.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: It sticks with me for some reason, but it really wasn't that bad.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so tell me a little bit socially what was it like on campus other times?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was really strange.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: All the all the black people called each other, everybody brother and sister.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's up, brother?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: What's up, sister?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that was a little strange to me, felt felt strange to me.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the only person I ever called my brother and my sister was my brother and my sister.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um, so people were very we had the black house.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was there after the the big sit-in at the Burns Art's office and all of that, but of course, you know, that was on everybody's mind.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a there was a lot of camaraderie amongst the black students.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: A lot.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Did you spend time in the black house?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Where did you do there?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what we did there, just socialize.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um because I only stayed on camp, I lived on campus for two years before I moved off campus.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So um during my time on campus, I was in the black house a lot.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't quite remember what we did there.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about socializing, but do you think it was important to have that definitely very important.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: How so?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because we all came from different backgrounds, you know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: We all came from some of us may have been in an all-black school, some may have been in a mixed school, some may have been the only black student in a white school, but whatever, but we all had to come together on that campus.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just um it felt like home.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: It did not feel like we were in the minority.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think at the time we were about 10%, but it didn't seem like it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't seem like it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was so welcoming, so warm when we came on campus.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: How did you feel elsewhere in classrooms?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it was okay.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't bad.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was class.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so tell me about c your classes.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: When do you have any high points or I have a low point?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: I got my first C in my life.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I will never forget that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: I I just remember it was a lecture class in history, something simple, but it was a big lecture class.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I came from a very small, all girls high school to this big campus.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a lecture class.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: How you can do that in a lecture class?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but it was my first C and it just crushed me.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Crushed me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'll never forget that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I remember an astronomy class.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I think I walked into class late and uh the famous astronomer was the instructor.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember his name right now, but he was a real famous astronomer who was our instructor at the time.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there were these sounds like the solar system or something floating around.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, it was a very interesting experience.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't, it wasn't a bad experience at all.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: How did it feel?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what was your favorite place to go to a lecture?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like for me, Harris Hall to me means college.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Even when I visited there as a high school student, I'm like, this is where I belong.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I still like to go there.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is it still Norris Hall was the uh student student union?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that was nice.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: That was where you felt like you were really on the college campus, you know.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Northwestern is a beautiful campus, of course, it's huge from the north end to the south end.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um I can remember another thing.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: I can remember, I shouldn't say this, but I can remember they would have parties, events.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we lived on the south end, so most of my friends were on the south end.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: On the north end, if the party was on the north end, that was a long way to go.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh sometime during our time there, um, they started with the escorts.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why, I don't remember any problems on campus, but sometime during my period of time there, they started providing escorts to get from one end of the campus to the other at night.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: But um my time at Northwestern was uh I I enjoyed it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I look at it fondly.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have any negative experiences other than my first C.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: What about positive experiences?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Positive experiences?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I guess I don't know, I guess I would have to have our campus, Northwestern's campus, to compare it to another one to determine whether or not it's better or not.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean all of my friends were on different campuses at different places, and when they would come to visit at Northwestern, they were always impressed with the campus itself.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I can only say I enjoy my time there.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, do you have like a story or anecdote you can share about?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It could be about anything.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: The the toughest paper you ever wrote or a project that you worked on or your first love?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I since my my major was radio, TV, and film, I can remember a project where we had to um film a story or something.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even remember what I worked on, but I do remember carrying my little camera, which they were a lot bigger than big huge cameras, around campus to film the story.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: I also remember doing a student teaching uh class at Northwest at Alison Township High School in radio TV and film.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I remember going to their school thinking, my God, they have almost their equipment was as good as our equipment was at the time in their radio, TV, and film department.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I that's I guess that's what I can remember.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you pledged during this time, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: That was special.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: That was extremely special.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I pledged AKA.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's my family sorority.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I pledged, not for that reason, but I pledged AKA, as did um uh many of the people I came to know on campus.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we all, we didn't all, but we I pledged AKA.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: That was a that was a good experience.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I wouldn't give that up the fact that I am uh an AK and always be an AKA.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, nobody can take that away from me.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad that I did it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't an easy thing to do at the time, but I did it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So did you go to Rush for any of the other sororities on campus?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: They did not have what I would call rush for black for the black sororities.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um you didn't go to the ones for the white sororities just to see what they were talking about.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um I took my family.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Me either, but I'm a case.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we are, that's what we'll that's what we'll be.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So no, I didn't rush with it with anyone else.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: What about um any per any particular professor stick out to you who um impressed you in any sort of way or no?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I could probably remember a a a nun from first grade before I can remember.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember any of my professors by name.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: None that stick out at all.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are you Catholic?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you how did you maintain your connection to your faith during your time?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I lost everything uh during that time.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, um I guess growing up Catholic, I was always taught, they always taught us, told us that uh basically go to Catholic churches and Catholic churches only as a child.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: We couldn't go to the Baptist church or to the whatever church, we had to go to Catholic church.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: So when I went to Northwestern, there was a big Baptist church there.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the first time I ever attended a Baptist church, and I only did it once because I felt guilty.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was the first time I ever attended a non-Catholic ceremony.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, what was that experience like?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Different.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Different, you know, and in in in Catholic Church, you kind of just kneel and stand and the whole songs.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: And in a uh Baptist church is a lot more light.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it didn't convince me to change, but it was a lot more light.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's great.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So now let's talk about your pending to law.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you graduated?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: I graduated and I had my first, I was an intern at WBBM, which is Channel 2 here in Chicago.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: That was a lot of fun.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: As it that was during my senior year, uh, which is another, oh which is another point that people told me all the time they were saying black students can't afford to do non-paid internships because they need the money.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so you don't get the opportunities that other students might get.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: It just so happened that I was able to do the non-paid internship, not because I had money, but I was just able to do the uh non-paid internship at Channel 2 News, which was great.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Walter Jacobson, Bill Curtis, Susan Anderson, I can remember all the reporters who were there at the time.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I used to get to, I would go out on stories and uh just hold the mics.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you ever see somebody holding the mic and you don't see that person, that's probably an intern.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Holding the mic because you don't get to go on camera, ask questions, but they cut your voice out and the person answers.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I did that, and then again, my first job, I I stayed there, they paid me to work there.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've only had very, very, very few jobs in my life.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: I went from there to law, well, I went from there to um working for the state.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was in charge of dental investigations for the state, and I went to law school while I was working for the state, full-time job for the state.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Went to law school at night, take four years at night, three years during the day.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Why did I go to law school?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Keeping up with the Joneses.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I needed an advanced degree of some sort.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: If I had to do it again, probably preferred an MBA.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, I went to law school.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine now.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you made it to the top of the hill.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm here now.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: So um I originally did not have a burning desire to be a lawyer or anything like that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was really just no, no, I just knew that I needed some type of advanced degree.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Law school would be helpful whether I practiced law or not.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: I knew it would be helpful, and I always had this thing in my mind about numbers, math.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So something about NBA said you better not try that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: You might not, you might not make it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to law school.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: And uh here I am now.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I went from working for the state, going to law school at night to my first job, and maybe I had uh one job at a firm before I had my own firm before I became a judge.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, so um, so you graduated from law school, then what did you do right after that?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: I went to work for a firm which was Jones Wear and Grenada, which was the largest, predominantly minority-owned firm in the country.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I was working with Jones Ware and Grenard.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: After about, I think three years, I became a partner at the firm.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we did uh a lot of um civil, all civil litigation.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: We represented insurance companies, a lot of municipalities like the Board of Ed City of Chicago, um, who did that kind of work.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: That firm dissolved, and I started my own firm with some of the people from that firm.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I was lucky when I started my own firm because I was able to keep a lot of those clients, so I didn't have to hustle too much.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um I did that up until the time that I was appointed to the bench.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: So how did you get appointed?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh boy, you um the Supreme Court appoints judge, uh, appoints attorneys to the bench.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Once you are appointed, if you are lucky enough to get an appointment, you have to be screened by every bar association.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're about 11, 12 bar associations, they have to screen you.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: In my case, the judge had appointed me.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Also I had a special screening committee, so I had an additional layer of screening.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: All of these people have to screen you.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: You have to pass with flying colors and be found, qualified, recommended, or whatever the rating is.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then the Supreme Court uh appointed me to the bench.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um then I had to run to keep my job.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: So once I was appointed to the bench, I had to run in that next election.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I ran countywide, which is the absolute worst thing I ever had to do in my life, was to run countywide the whole country.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: What was tough about it?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: You have to you have to get out and meet people countywide.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: So from day to day to day to day, you're all over the county.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: The county is huge.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: We could go from Evanston all the way up to uh Flossmore or something like that in the same day, traveling to go to all of these different events because you have to meet people, you have to meet the politicians, you have to get the people to know who you are, know your name because everybody looks on a ballot and you know, I don't know who these judges are, I'm not voting for them.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you try to get everybody to know who you are and what you stand for.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: So you're all over the place.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, what did you tell them these did where?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I what I told them and what I truly believe and what I sit on that bench every day is that I will be fair.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I will listen to everything you have to say, and I want you to know that I heard you.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I may repeat it because I want you to understand that I understand where you're coming from.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: If I don't move in your favor, I want you to feel comfortable and thinking, well, she did the right thing, she heard what I had to say, and she just didn't agree with me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what I campaigned on, and that's how I sit today.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: I 100% believe in that because as a practicing attorney, you're in front of a lot of judges and you think he's not even hearing me, or he's not understanding, or he didn't read my briefs, or whatever.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: I read everything before I go out there.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: I read everything.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know, I know.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna read everything in advance.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want you to feel like you're wasting your time, or I didn't understand what your argument was.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if I do rule against you, like I said, I want you to be comfortable in that room.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now how do you uh balance your initial interest in RTBF with the law?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's really different.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it propels you.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's different, but as I said, I realized early on that I wouldn't do radio and TV and film because I didn't want to move and I didn't want to go to a smaller market, and I didn't want to do everything that I had to do in order to get back to Chicago to be the star uh on local news here.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I knew that that wasn't gonna work.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to figure out something else to do.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Other than my undergraduate degree, I needed uh another degree.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So what can you tell me about your your caseload in a general sort of way, just to help people understand what the stakes are?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, I work in in uh child protection.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: My job is to do what's in the best interest of the child.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: So when uh children are taken from their home for allegations of abuse or neglect, they come before this court and uh we decide whether they were abused or neglected, and we offer services to try and reunite the family.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: We want to put the family back together.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: If the mother has a drug problem or whatever her problem is, we'll give her services to try and address her issues so that she can uh get her children returned to her.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we do.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: We hear horrible stories on a daily basis about what happens to children in Cook County.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um that's what we do.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: How do you how do you handle that?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: You uh you know, when you first go on a bench, you start out in the traffic division.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody basically starts in the traffic division, and from there you you try to figure out what you want to do, what your interests is.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well I've never done uh criminal law.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Don't want to touch it, don't know anything about it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Civil is always in my thing.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: I told people, there were some judges that were in this division, and they said, you should come over there.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And all my other friends who are judges say, Oh, you don't want to go over there.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna, you know, if the stories are so sad, it's gonna be.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I like it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm doing uh a service here.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing, I'm providing a service, I'm helping people, I'm really helping people.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not sitting on the bench deciding how much money you should win in your lawsuit or whatever.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really touching people and I'm helping them.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love my assignment.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I beg to come over here.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: People couldn't believe it, but I beg to come over here because I love this assignment.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's right, your fault.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a little bit about your family life.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you married?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have children?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yes.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm no, I'm not in I'm divorced and I have one son, but um.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And your son uh grown up now, professional working in the world?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's older.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: All right, and uh do you still live in the city?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: I live in the city, I live in the South Loop uh area.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've only moved, I've lived in the city my entire life except for Northwestern.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I lived in Naperville when I was when my son was growing up, just to get him away from the city.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: But other than that, I've lived, always lived in in the city.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: I love the city.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'll never move out of it again.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And let's see, I I can also say that I did serve as the president of the Cook County Bar Association, which is the largest association of African-American attorneys and judges in the United States, the largest and the oldest association.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I served as the president there.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: I also served as the president of the uh County Bar Association Foundation, and I was just elected as the chair-elect of the Illinois Judges Association.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, Illinois Judicial Council, which is the association of primarily African-American judges and lawyers.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, judges in the state.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I will be going in as that chair next year on the chair elect.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that it's important that there's a black presence on Northwestern's campus?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Any campus should have, all campuses should have a black presence.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody should be exposed to everybody else, especially when you come from all various different backgrounds and you're thrown together on a college campus.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in high school, every high school is smaller.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care how big your high school is, it's certainly smaller than the university setting.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: So when you come to a university, you get to interact and meet a lot of different people, lots of different backgrounds.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: I do remember we had a girl that lived in our dorm who was from, I think she was a princess or something like that, from the Middle East, and I remember she was tall and pretty.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember that she took her roommate home with her.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, it wasn't all a Middle Eastern conflict as it is now, but I mean you get to meet all kinds of people.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: We had uh Dick Clark's son who was uh part of our class.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you meet a lot of different people.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm just gonna interject a few questions.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um tell me, just going back to another question a little bit, did you have any black professors?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, did you have any black deans in back then in the capacity?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um Alice um Palmer was the uh was a black cat.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only person I know.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um we talked about I just want to sort of a small transition.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So at what point in your life did you meet your husband and married?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Were you already a practicing lawyer or was it in between?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I met my husband when I was uh when I was in high school.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: I uh went on to college about after my second year in college when I I got married, moved off campus, but I finished.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then a couple years after that I had my son.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: You got married?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: In college.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: College.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: When did you ding ding ding?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: You missed that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: That was pretty early.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: That was after I pledged.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, after the wedding.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Was that was that something that occurred a lot in that era?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was probably the first in that group that did that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So what made you want to get married so soon?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I was in love.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there you go.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um the Cook County Bar Association, how did you become familiar with it?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Cook County Bar Association, uh, I became familiar with it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's well, as I said, if if you're a black lawyer, you're gonna be familiar with it because they they reach out to you basically.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're in law school, you're a member of Boston, which is a black law students' association, so they have a connection with the Cook County Bar Association.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I joined the Cook County Bar Association as soon as I got out of law school right away uh and worked my way in.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so you were the the president from what years to what years?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think I want to say around 1998 to 1999, somewhere in there, I'm not quite sure, but somewhere around there.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I saw it in your bio.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think right.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so what prompted you to be the president?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot of people who are certainly uh members.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why why did you want to be president in that organization?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm a natural leader, and because I really did, I worked very hard.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I worked my way through and up and committee work and other offices, and uh because I wanted to do it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was working for the firm, and my platform I do remember at the time was to try and get more business, corporate business for minority-owned firms.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my platform, and I wanted to do that.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: So the way to do that was to become president of the Bar Association.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh why why can't Y IIT for law school?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Why IIT?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Again, Chicago.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: It had a really good legal writing program.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't even remember if I applied anywhere else.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: I know my my consideration was it had to be a school that had an evening program.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there were only so many schools here that had an evening program, and uh Kent was was the uh higher rated of those schools.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: So are there other prominent alum other than Drella Savage who I definitely want to meet and talk to?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Renetta Walker.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: What is Renetta's new married name?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: She was the, she's probably the most prominent.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: She was in my class, she also went to my high school.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: She is, she was head of Stockcom, spinoff of Leo Burnett.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: She was the person.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know who you're talking about.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Renetta, what's her married name?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, but she was in our class.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: She, like I said, she went to high school, she was one of the four girls that that uh went to uh Northwestern together.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm trying to think of who else.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: She's she's probably the most prominent.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um Jella is a judge.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um Deborah, no, I'm sorry, she didn't go to Northwestern.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had four girls from my high school who are judges now, and they kind of yeah wow.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: A small high school, four of us are judges.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: That is amazing.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: That is amazing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that kind of sometimes I confuse the two.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: But from Northwestern Renette, who else?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: She's the one who came out with this law gun for secret.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Strong enough for a man, a made for a woman.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Did she?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that was hers.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: She she sold it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, so what do you think?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, clearly we're creating this archive to preserve history there, also to assist in preserving the black houses.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you probably don't know, this year there was a little debacle.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, do you think that's important?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that something you think it would be valuable to Northwestern?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Certainly valuable to Northwestern.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: As I said, when I came on campus, it was a lot of camaraderie.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: You need that when you when you come to a big, strange campus with all these different kinds of people, but to have them embrace you like your family, that makes you feel safe and that makes you do well in school.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you're just floating out there on your own and you you're not connected, the black house was our connection.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: It kept us together and it helps everybody to to do better.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to follow up with that.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get a sense of what it what the experience was like outside of the black house.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can you have like a scenario of how it felt being in a in a lecture hall or being in a classroom?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get a sense of what this disconnection really looks like.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: The disconnect?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, again, I came from very small uh all-girls school.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: We had a hundred people in our senior graduating class.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: So to go to Northwestern, which is huge.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: We never had lecture classes, and you would see them on TV, of course, but you go in this huge lecture hall, and chairs are going up like that, the professors in the front, it's impersonal.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and he's just lecturing.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's it's something that was foreign to me and probably to most people because you know it's a university.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um I guess the black house to me was our was our center.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of pulled us all together and gave us a sense of community.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.
• 33:02
  unknown: Okay.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: That helped a lot.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I guess I want to get a sense of like, well, was it like rubbing elbows with the majority?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my school was both, so and that wasn't uh wasn't an uh an issue for me.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I don't know, it was just natural to me, normal.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, you know.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have friends of all races from that time?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: I the only friends I have, no, I don't.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I have my sorority sisters and of course the girls that I went to high school.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Does that surprise you?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't surprise me.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: I would think that it would work the other way.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that you would have uh more friends that you would uh cultivate and still have from that time, but it during the time that I was there, I don't think that happened a lot.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I I still think that groups were kind of separate and different.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this group was here, this group was here, this group was here, came together for class.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think that people socialize uh across racial lines a lot.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's interesting.
• 34:14
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• 34:18
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• 34:24
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• 34:28
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