Witness to a century is supported by a grant from the partnership for a Nation of Learners program.

A Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Institute of Museum and Library Services leadership initiative, and by Robins Foundation.

Have you ever dreamed of living to an exceptionally old age?

How about the prospects of living a full century?

Living to the age of 100 is becoming quite a possibility for many of us, especially given the recent advances in medicine and science and the changes in nutrition and health care.

According to the US census, about 1 in 4000 Americans is 100 years old or older.

That means at about 2000, Virginians are centenarians.

You're about to meet several of these Virginians who were born at the beginning of the 1900s.

Think about what each has experienced over the course of his or her own century.

World War one, the 1918 flu epidemic, the Great Depression, World War two, and all that has followed since.

Each has witnessed the advent of electricity the automobile, The airplane, The telephone, radio, television, antibiotics and pharmaceuticals, and of course, the personal computer.

Each also lived for more than 50 years in a segregated society, and then saw firsthand the strides made in civil rights and desegregation During their early years, these centenarians learn from their elders by listening to stories, narratives told to them by their parents, their grandparents, and family members.

Now they'll pass on their experiences to you as they have been witness to a century.

In the early 1900s.

Virginia was still emerging from the aftermath of the Civil War.

In many ways, the Commonwealth was transforming itself.

Cities like Richmond, Norfolk, Danville, and Roanoke sprouted factory smokestacks and rail lines crisscrossed the state.

Despite this modernization and growth, the state's economic heart still beat to an agricultural rhythm, and most people lived in the countryside and worked on farms.

The change in the air produced uncertainty about the traditional social order, and in an effort to maintain stability, the authors of the Virginia Constitution of 1902 greatly restricted who could vote, while also creating a climate that encouraged economic growth.

I was born April 17th, 1907, in Norfolk, Virginia.

My mother came from Middleburg, Virginia, and my father was from Winton, North Carolina.

My parents were very protective parents of us.

My father was a butcher in that section.

The people depended on him, those people, to cut them good slices of meat and the like.

And they pinned Jim.

I knew him very well.

We knew those white people who were near so they sort of kept up with what we were doing.

So these are Jim's children.

And then, what was amazing was that Jim's children, they went off to school.

Jim and daughter went to college.

They had quite a bit of respect for my father, for the fact that he was a black man who not only was respected, but his children and doing well.

I was born March 18th, 1930, Right on Morris Creek in Charles City County Not exactly on the creek, but the creek was the land, and in those days, every body wanted to build on th They used the water with rowboat to go to church, to go to the country stores and things of that kind.

We did not have roads.

No such thing as the car.

Didn't too many of us have horses, so we used water transportation.

My father was a carpenter, and then many people wanted to hire him because the [?]

was too high He charged 25 cents and hour.

They said that was too much.

They couldn't afford to pay that.

But he could build anything The story I tell about him, he could build you a rowboat, or he could build your yacht.

He could build your Johnny house, or he could build your mansion.

My dad's.

would fill us all up in that old buggy with little trunk and carry us off to the beach.

It didn't stop us from going, but it wasn't like having an auto.

Well, I guess I liked it, but I can't say I liked it much.

As much as I've been on a car.

Loved one that was on the way you have of getting places you were grateful you had the horse and buggy.

My uncle from Suffolk had the first car that came over Smithfield, and every time he would meet somebody in a buggy, he'd have to pull off because a horse would be so scared of the car, it would run away.

You know, we thought we had it made when we got electricity, We were one of the first houses had them.

But you know what they were?

One chain hanging down with one bulb.

That's what we started with.

Got a little better as the years went along.

No, its much nicer to go punch a button.

I remember when my mom bought a washing machine/ She was on the big back porch and I had a washing machine out there.

We washed up everything we could find and.

Well, they weren't exactly like they are now.

Kind of funny looking things then.

We at you first.

You had to put water in there and [unintelligble] After you wash, you had to drain the soapy water out, and then you had to put in clear water.

and rinse about and then hang the clothes out.

I saved almost a half a day's worth doing that.

But I know one thing.

It was whole lot better than that roving board.

I was born on Wickham's plantation.

That on the plantation called Hickory Hill.

And he had this big, big farm, grandmother.

And day in and day out on the farm.

And, they, they work for the Wickam.

And my mother was a maid at the Wickham's home.

And the part of the farm that we lived on was called the dairy.

My uncle John ran the Dairy for the Wickhams.

The cows, and you have the milk.

You churn the milk and all and they'd carried over to the Wickhams you know, to use for the house.

if you will let us push through a big churn, and we'd have fun pushing for him.

We went to this grammar school from the day.

We had one teacher would come in and he had seven grades in a one room school, and she would have the classes and every move on.

Wickham to Miltan, where we live.

I went to Virginia [unintelligble] school that was after I finished, the one room school.

Very important for us to get an education.

The people from the north would send a barrel.

They got a barrel at Christmas time.

And they would have books and things like that.

But of course, my mother would always provide tablets and pencils and things like that.

When I was going to school, I remembered all those things they told us we then we had to recite the books of the Bible.

[[unintellible] and the Gettysburg Address.

You learn the states of the Union and the capitals.

We didn't have all we needed, but we used what we had.

Right across the street from me lived a little lady who has a kindergarten and who taught music.

I went to Kindergarten to her.

and I took music from her for about six years.

and she was just Miss Minnie Smith.

She never married, but she loved those children that we would in the kindergarten.

That was our first school.

Then I went on to Smithfield.

Went all the way through the school there.

Then went up to Lynchburg went around.

[unintelligable] womans college which is now, called Randolph.

But I loved college.

I enjoyed it.

They had a lot of wonderful programs throughout the year.

Music, lectures just mighty nice school.

I hate think what it's like now, Im not going to see.

I'm not go up there: co-ed school.

Women were not permitted in colleges frequently.

I think there was the thought that there was no great need for women to go to college.

Of course, this has changed dramatically.

Now more women are going to college than men.

And coed colleges are common.

Well, as a student at UVA, there were about 1800 students.

There only women where the nursing school and maybe a few graduate Women.

But otherwise there were all men.

The freshmen were called first year men, and they were has after the first year, you didn't wear a hat anymore, even if it was raining.

Snowing, you wore a slicker and water was running down your face.

You still didn't wear a hat.

In 1924, when I came, that was the first year for Memorial Gymnasium.

We were required to to have a physical and and we ran around a track.

We did tumbling, swimming, and, that was where the dances were held.

Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians was the choice of the orchestra.

Fraternities treated him very well, and he always said he was very happy to come back.

[music] In those dances, we had what they call a break.

They played music and they men rotated in one direction on the outside, and the women rotated on the inside, and the opposite direction, and we handed off each other until the music stopped.

And then you dance with the person that you had in your hands at that time.

It broke things up and made it, a good mixer.

I went to Penn State.

They were segregated, and there were five black women, three Chinese, girls and four Jews.

They didn't like them either.

We couldn't eat in the dormitory.

And and, we couldn't socialize because there was not that no place to socialize.

I had an advisor, Doctor Pauline.

Berrimac.

I told her I was interested in textiles, and so she said, I'm gonna see what I can do for you.

So she got the American viscose company that to sponsor my scholarship to Penn State.

But American Viscose Company didn't know they were sponsoring a black.

And that's what started me with my dissertation.

I worked in the lab, and that's when I did my study on the rayon.

I used almost a thousand samples trying to do the things that they were doing with, the new manmade fiber, which was, colorfast breaking strength, laundering, dry cleaning and all of this.

So that's what I did.

Eisenhower's brother was president of Penn State at the time.

He came to commencement when the doctor Eisenhower went to the podium, when they called my name to come up on the stage, he said, a woman, the only one and black.

I was the only one.

Doing the PhD.

he walked of the stage and came down two steps and took my arm and walked with me up there on that podium and stood up there and it people cheered and everything.

He looked at me and then he kissed me.

Yes, sir.

He did.

In those days, Virginia was Jim Crow.

It had a poll tax.

The blacks were not welcome to pay the poll tax.

They were not encouraged to register to vote.

Being segregated, couldn't go to this place.

You couldn't go to that place.

You go to the movies.

You had segregated streetcars.

Got to sit in the back.

We couldn't drink out of the water fountains.

That was different.

All the drugstores places like that would go and try to get service.

You just couldnt can get it.

That way it was.

I had to stay out a semester because, there was no high school to go, and we didn't have transportation.

And my father did not have a car.

We either had to ride the bus or walk.

And with three and a half miles to Booker T.

[school] and,to ride on the bus, you sat in the rear of the bus, and the caucasions filled up the bus on the top.

But this particular day, one caucasian girl was late.

The bus driver looked up and this caucasian girl didn't have a seat, so he tried to make this, black boy get up and give her a seat.

So the bus driver said, if you don't get up, I'm not going to take the bus.

So he locked the door and took all of us to 18th Street, where the car [unintellible] was When he got there, he called the police.

So they took the [unintellible] to jail.

Williams father worked with rich white people.

He was a butler.

He sued the company.

He gave William the money and sent him to college.

And he, finished college, bought himself a home in Washington, DC, and then set up a filling station.

We stopped riding the bus because we thought that maybe some of them would be angry because of what we had done.

We just had to walk.

And so we did.

You could go down to the counter and buy what they had, but you couldn't sit there and eat it.

Of course, you always had to wait until they waited on the whites.

They had, I remember separate glasses.

I remember that experience because I was there with a friend when we asked for something to drink.

This waitress, she went back and got these glasses.

And I remember my friend said, do you have separate glasses for white and black?

She said, yes.

And so she said, well, I'm glad to know that she said becauswe I'd hate to be drink behind any white.

People experience segregation differently, but viruses and bacteria did not discriminate.

In the fall of 1918, all eyes and ears were trained on France side of an anticipated armistice to silence the guns of World War One.

This event so dominated the news that it overshadowed the story of a horrific and lethal silent enemy.

Spanish influenza.

In just a few months, beginning in October 1918, the worldwide flu pandemic killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.

Communities across Virginia mourned their losses.

Warwick, Fairfax and Prince William counties were hardest hit in Pulaski.

50 people died in one week.

In Lynchburg, another 75 perished in just nine days.

All told, the flu killed more than 11,000 Virginians in just a few months.

There was so much sickness around and so many people died.

I had the flu.

I was really sick when we ached all over.

Well, everybody in the family would be sick and others just have to go and take care of them.

I remember my brother had had the flu and there was a family that lived, they called them section houses, lived on railroad track, and he would go up there at night and take care of those people.

There were two doctors in Amherst My father was one [unintelligible].

He kept mighty busy, I know that Night and day.

in one part of the county, was about ten miles from Amherst and had to go up the afternoon, see the people in that area and spend the night and then come home, see the others nearby.

Thaere was an extra bed in my mother's room, and I've seen him come down, come in and lie down on that bed is so tired he wouldn't even take his coat off.

That was a terrible time.

My brother and I both had flu and I can't remember it.

My folks had it and we lost relatives with that.

People went around with dust clothes around the faces, and your relatives would stand outside the window and call up to my bedroom on the second floor, carry out a conversation with you, because nobody could come in.

My grandparents were in Charles City County, and we want to go up for Christmas.

My mother had gone ahead with the small kids.

My dad was taking the big ones.

I got the Newport News.

That was caskets stacked up.

I never saw anything like it.

[unintellible] Influenza was the most deadly disease that confronted Virginians who lived in the early 20th century.

But despite advances in medical treatments made throughout the 19th century, it was far from the only health problem they had to worry about.

My mother had smallpox and two of the children.

People couldn't come to their house.

They would bring food to the gate and call somebody.

My father took sick.

He had diabetes.

Doctor Lowenbury, he taught me how to give my father insulin, and he taught me with an orange.

I was so good at it.

A neighbor of ours, they were white.

She had diabetes too.

And she had to have injections.

And I went next door, used to give her her needles twice a day and fix her meals.

And I did that for the whole time I was at Booker T, working at the store, working at the bakery shop and all of this.

before the war, world War two, penicillin was only for the army, and we started using as soon as we could.

Right after the war, it became available and I, I happened to know of the young woman who died of a strep infection because it was just months before penicillin was released for lay use.

One of the biggest changes in the century was how Virginians got around.

As one Virginia woman put it, it wasn't the vote that made me independent.

It was my car.

Well, in the early 20s, there weren't many cars.

Most of them were Model T's.

Not every family had one.

Or in those days, a car cost only about $400.

I remember my first car was a Model A Ford.

I believe.

In those days you had to crank the cars by hand in front of the car, and if you wanted to take a spin, you'd put in neutral arm, crank it and get in.

And, there were three pedals on the right.

You push it net, put it in low gear.

There were two gears, and after getting up to 15 miles an hour approximately, you would let it all the way back.

That was second gear.

You left it in second gear.

If you wanted to back the car.

There was a metal pedal for about 22 hours of marching and saddlebag, brand new car parts of the car parked in the front.

People come by whose car, man?

Swell up is mine.

That went on, theyd ask me, Can I get one?

I had {unintelligble] run a store a few miles away.

So we made a mistake.

We ought to sell something bigger than canned goods.

So he said we'll get an agent.

So he did.

I ran it by myself a year and a half, Would have kept it but, no roads.

There were not many paved highways, dirt roads, which were dusty and dry weather and muddy and wet weather.

You didn't go very fast because the roads werent suitable.

I met with a man that, had a motorcycle for sale and, he had just married and his wife, didn't want any part of the motorcycle, so he sold it to me for $40.

And, Ive, taht made me independent.

That was a Harley Davidson twin.

And it was a powerful machine.

I didn't have, a helmet.

I didn't have a driver's license.

Well, a motorcycle didn't have a speedometer either.

I didn't speed on it.

I think my top speed was about 35 miles an hour.

And, that was the speed of most everybody else.

Incidentally, I sold the motorcycle.

when I graduated in 1930, for $40.

So it's, no loss proposition.

In those days, you called your operator.

Place your call.

Hello?

This is called and hung up.

She said I'll call you back when I have a connection.

Maybe 15 minutes.

A half hour or a couple hours later, your phone rang and the operator would say, have your party now.

Would ask the operator to give us time and charges when we hung up so we would know how much you know, we would you liable for at that time, I just couldn't imagine, the services that they have now.

We had, ice, refrigerators.

The Iceman came around once a week with the ice wagon, and we had a card in the window.

And the size that we had at the bottom was the number of pounds of ice.

That we wanted that day.

So the Iceman would weigh and chip out a chunk of ice about that weight, and put a drop of ice in it for refrigerators.

Had a removable top or front.

We had to watch out for the drip underneath the refrigerator.

And if we saw a trickle of water across the kitchen floor, we knew we'd been a little bit too late.

It was a great improvement when electrical refrigerators came in.

I don't think they had a freezer at first.

You could serve food and, keep it for a while.

They were a wonderful thing.

You are now looking at a skyline of the city of Richmond, a community of more than 300 years old.

This community has been growing marvelously since 1865, when Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States, came here as a visitor.

He came to what had been just a few minutes before the old capital of the Confederacy.

You are now looking into the canyons of Main Street, one of the richest financial districts in the South.

The economy was booming.

Jobs were plentiful, salaries were high, and then boom.

And, I think it was October 1929.

I think that suddenly the market dropped, to a very low level.

It was very bad in the world of finance and economics, the 20th century was an era of both good times and bad.

One of the worst times became known as the Great Depression, an economic implosion that stretched around the globe.

The depression in our country lasted a decade, until after 1939 and the beginning of the war economy of World War two.

Fortunately, I always had a job, but I know many people did not.

I remember that some of my fellow graduate students with PhD degrees didn't get jobs and in their career.

Remember, if you'd ride a cab in New York or Washington DC, you, the driver, might have a Ph.D.

or a very well educated man unable to get a job in his profession, would digging ditches, or anything they could do to make a living.

It was a bad time, I tell you.

Well, it was hard.

I was working, my husband was working who had the four children.

I was making a dollar a day.

He was making $0.10 an hour.

So we had to live off that.

But we made it.

Many Virginians were used to hard times.

But in some areas of the state, the impact of the depression was less severe.

In Northern Virginia, for example, the growth of the federal government brought new jobs and ushered in an era of expansion that continues today.

They got acquainted with the head of the pharmacology department, and when an opportunity came to get into medical school, there was a sudden opening for a woman.

I was accepted as the senior in absentia from college, but people ask me if it was hard for women and outside of the first guy who gave me a job, who also didn't like women, but he gave me the job I'd never found, it was hard.

That I was discouraged at all.

I signed up with Arlington health department there in hospital, and I worked in the pediatric clinic and around the birth control clinic.

A High school kid, I don't think she was more than 15.

Came to me who was living with the grandmother right on my street.

She got pregnant.

Grandma sent her to New York for an abortion, and they send her back on the bus the same day after the abortion, which I thought was such a brutal thing to do.

I think there was a prejudice against Jews always, forever.

We've been, I think, interfered with my father's engineering career.

It, interfered with my husband's getting an appointment after he got a masters at Western Reserve.

So that was another reason we came to Washington, because the federal government was not prejudiced against Jews.

And when we came here, we, when we were looking for a house, we looked in Maryland.

We saw something we might be interested in.

No Jews.

We came to Arlington, by this time, we were aware of the fact that there were this was going to be a problem we had saw a place we were interested in, I called a real estate agent the next morning, and he.

He said it sold.

Well, I was still reading the newspaper.

It wasn't sold.

It was only advertised.

It was so bad.

I called him up and I said, why don't you say you were taking Jews?

And he said, well, we promised the neighbors.

December 7th, 1941.

A date that will live in infamy.

World War two for us started the week I came here.

I was in the habit of writing a weekly letter to my folks.

And Sunday afternoon, the Pearl Harbor news came in.

I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.

The news came by radio, I guess, and my wife at the time rushed to tell me.

So that was my first knowledge of what had happened at Pearl Harbor.

You know, when President Roosevelt declared war, people were pretty well ready to fight.

We will gain the inevitable triumph.

So help us God.

President Roosevelt had a lend-lease program that he, loaned some ships, merchant marine ships.

I think it was, maybe a few destroyers to Great Britain, to help, transfer, food and supplies.

They, confined part of the Japanese on the West Coast in concentration camps, which, a lot of people felt was really unnecessary hardship because, most of them were very loyal to this country.

There was rationing of gasoline and rationing of meat, and they had little fiber tokens, I think, that were used for meat.

And we had, I think some other kind of tokens for, butter or eggs.

Everybody went to, a war planning board.

You told them about your circumstances, and they decided how many stamps for gasoline you were entitled to, depending on where your job was, how you traveled there.

I did have a victory garden.

I had some tomato plants, 2 or 3 pepper plants radishes,lettuces, beets, onions And I may have had some turnips, some other things I raised, but, yes, I had a victory garden.

My two sons, were in WWII.

One was in the Army, And one was in the Navy.

They wanted to go [unintellible] was drafted and Sonny.

he volunteered.

I took Sonny down the street and caught the streetcar.

And we went to Richmond and we got down to the recruiting station, and there was all these other boys, signing up for the service, and it looks so pitiful that I really didn't want him to go, but he wanted to go.

So they sent me in and he went in the Navy.

But he did good.

He got married in the Navy and he became a dentist.

I had a brother was killed in World War two on Omaha Beach.

I can remember we'd planned to go and spend the day with my husband's niece, and we hadn't heard from my brother, and I was so worried about him, I didn't go.

All the others went, and I stayed home to hear from my brother.

He was a doctor, and when they went out, he didn't have to go.

He could have stayed and gone later.

But he said that his boys needed him and he went with them and he was killed.

I was chairman of the draft board.

Don't you ever take a job like that unless you have to.

Someone had to But you make a lot of enemies, A lot of my friends who was in the First World War told me I was crazy as hell.

[unintellible] I said yes I know.

I could keep you from going, or I could send you in.

Somebody had to be boss and I was it.

I never felt bad.

I knew I had to, but dont cry about it.

You got do it, do it.

Don't cry.

I was a radio engineer, and I designed the, radio backup system, and it was a backup for the wireless in case, the acceptance office was bombed.

They were having a terrible time with submarines off the coast of Virginia.

They had to have, a quick communications system because, there were subs, would lie on the bottom and then just surface when a ship came by.

Oh, there were lots of them toroedoed off the coast of Virginia and up or down the Atlantic coast.

One time it did capture a sub.

They, confiscated the, submarine decoding machine code book, and they captured the crew.

I think they took the submarine into Norfolk.

I volunteered to be a warden.

In those days.

You know, they had to practice the air raid drills.

They gave me a helmet, mask, and armband.

And the sirens would go off.

You had to go And see that every light or shades pulled.

so I used to go up, down the block See that everything was in dark.

I didn't mind doing it.

I thjought is was kind of a prestigious job.

with the helmet on I would do a good job, I thought.

Everyone pitched in to win the war.

But for some, the fight for freedom abroad rang hollow upon their arrival home to a segregated Virginia, black Virginians still found their opportunities to earn a living and educate their children restricted by racial discrimination.

First day I went to teach.

I went to a place called Camp Branch, and they sent me to school.

It was made out logs.

It was a two room school.

Children from all around in the county came there.

See, there was no other schools anywhere else there.

I had the upper children and another teacher had the others.

And of course we'd, wood stove in and we had to walk from that way out to the school.

We'd come through the woods to keep from getting muddy.

At the beginning of the school year, they would give all the art teachers kids their materials, would come to one school.

You go to that school and get your material.

Well, they didn't have a black in that program until I came into it.

So when we had the first meeting and she's giving out the kids and she gets to me, the thought comes to, oh my goodness, I've got to give a black, key to this school.

She gave me a key that year.

The next year she's said miss Coppage, I tell you, that whenever you want material, you just call me.

So the others had the kids, but I had to call her.

They built a new school here for the blacks.

And they came to me.

Some of the black people.

That was before I would get phone calls were scarce.

If I would give a call from Ford motor company and sell it to them Theyd [unintellible] Id say, what do you want it for?

the said the white school has got.

cafeteria, and we done have anything in the new school were building.

I said yall, sit still.

I went to the school board,r I said, you got a nice cafeteria in the white school.

Not in the black.

We can't do that.

Let's give them what their entitled to.

Let's go ahead.

The story would be well, the blacks don't pay much taxes.

I said, plenty of whites don't pay much taxes either.

You cant use that.

Try to discriminate because you were poor.

Because I was poor.

I have been poor all time.

The flawed premise of separate but equal education began to unravel in April 1951, when black students at the Robert Russo Moton School in Farmville in Prince Edward County, walked out in protest of discrimination.

A court case resulted from this unprecedented action and it, along with four others, was decided in 1954 as Brown versus Board of Education.

When the U.S.

Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine of separate educational facilities was inherently unequal, black and white Virginians were part of a movement that saw equal access to education, public accommodations, and the electoral process.

The civil rights movement achieved major goals with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Desegregation came in and you could ride on the front of the bus or, you know, anywhere I told my husband and I had been sitting at the back of their bus a long time and Im not sitting in the back of that bus anymore.

Im gonna sit on the front.

My legs would be so cold.

because on that front seat they would open that door, you know, and my legs would be so cool sitting up there, but I would sit up, I would sit up there just because I could sit up there.

And know, Id get on the bus in Richmond.

And one big, white lady was sitting on a bus on a on a second seat on a bus.

And she, wont nobody sitting there.

And she put her pocketbook there.

And I said to her, but you move your pocketbook, please.

It didn't pay away and she wouldn't move.

I said, well, move the pocketbook.

She picked it up.

Oh, she got red!

I was kind of funny.

You know, it kind of tickle me.

Well, I guess I did it out of meanness.

Oh, I don't know what I did it for.

I did it because I could, I reckon.

but anyhow, I would let them know that I know what a difference.

Ive been sitting up front ever since When I retired and came back to Norfolk in 70, changed my voting, you know, from where I was to there, I volunteered as a worker.

I found eight teachers who would work.

We built up that, that precinct to almost 2000 people, and they will come and vote.

My husband was, very instrumental.

He was, a politician.

He said even president, the United States, I'm equal to him at the poll.

He has one vote.

I have one vote.

Every man is equal at the poll.

And don't let anybody buy that one vote.

Its precious.

Eventually, the Virginia leaders who asserted states rights gave way to the federal assertion of civil rights for all citizens.

Legal segregation ended, but the road to integration remained rocky.

The final blow to the old order came with the sweeping changes ushered in by the Constitution of 1971, and two decades later, in 1989, Virginia voters made history when L. Douglas Wilder became the first elected African-American governor in the nation To be the first to elect a black governor, he was a big deal.

I don't think anybody would ever have thought that it would happen in Virginia.

Of all states.

It was naturally exciting.

sort of things are change They give us, that the next step is maybe greater things, maybe open doors for others.

Well, that was a token good step in the right direction.

After all these years and all we've gone through and we still fight for some the same things, is it better?

You ask, You know, you ask yourself, then you say, I wonder.

I wonder if it is.

You might have a few more people who convinced.

But is it better?

I can't tell you if its better.

It's a pity, but, I think you in advance.

I think God's got to have a hand in it for it to be better.

America has gone through major social, economic, and technological changes over the last hundred years, and life in Virginia has reflected those changes in every way.

It's hard to imagine what our world would be like today without the amazing technologies we often take for granted, and the many historical advances that have been made.

The first television I ever saw.

I didn't believe it.

Ford Motor Company had a meeting in New Jersey.

Up there across from New York.

We stopped in a bar in Jersey, they had a little round television about that big, over top of this counter.

Well, we got the drinks And we saw the little television Man, that was something.

Right after that they picked up here in Virginia.

Cameras.

Yeah.

People used to have cameras a long time ago, but he thought that was something that you couldn't fix it.

And then make a picture of yourself as something.

And they were a little boxy things there.

There's nothing like these things they got now.

Everybody got them.

Think of doing this and that, But then there's a little box and yeah, your film in the back end of it, close it back up.

And in doing the little peephole in the top.

But yeah, the little picture, weren;t worth much, but it didn't look like much.

But I can do a little bit of computer, you know, I went to [Virginia] Union.

I was the oldest student there.

And I ordered a class on computer education.

So I brought myself a laptop because see, Im making pictures.

I made over 1800 pictures I printed on my new printer I thought that was fascinating to me.

So I get busy when I get on the laptop, but I dont like the [unintellig that you move with your finger.

I want to use a mouse.

Back in the 40s This was good years.

Mike Mullins down in Martinsville.

We had a company of Fieldcrest made towels and sheets.

Danville made yard goods material they'd like that they are a company right there near Danville.

Made a automobile tires, and a lot of people worked there Then DuPont came and was making all that stuff at DuPont.

Now all of that is going somewhere else.

Now is nothing in Martinsville for the people to do.

I would like to see small towns back.

It would be bettwe for the people Everybody will know everybody, everybody have a job, and everybody can work together.

I'm not certain there's more happiness today than it was then.

There are more conveniences, more luxuries.

But I'm not certain these have brought more happiness.

So the 20th century is a big century, a big century of change.

And the first century to have benefited by a great deal of research.

Computers for one, television, To think you can sit in your living room and watch the war in Iraq or to watch the Olympic Games.

These are great.

Living is easier.

If you want water, turn the spigot.

You don't have to look for a spring somewhere.

You want electricity, you turn it on.

There are advances in agriculture that are major.

These are some of the big advances, some of the developments.

Give us a better life.

I would like to come back in 50 years and see what has been done.

Oh, I expect to, of course.

These remarkable individuals and their stories demonstrate the wide range of experiences of 20th century Virginia.

Their wisdom and humor helped them survive in an era in which much about the state and nation has changed.

Mostly it has been for the better.

But as our centenarians remind us, the process of change has been uneven and sometimes painful as witnesses to the century.

Their testimony also reminds us that in the end, it is in the lives of people that we can see how the past links us all.

Witness to a century is supported by a grant from the partnership for a Nation of Learners program.

A Corporation for public broadcasting and Institute of Museum and Library Services leadership initiative, and by Robbins Foundation.