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Transcription: [00:04:21]
and Ebony at that time and other magazines at that time that were popular and we would lie about say I'm tryin to sell these magazines so I could go to college aright? And this was the first time that college ever entered my mind. And so we travelled from Chicago going to St. Louis and I got sick in St. Louis and they left me in the hotel [Washing?>] Hotel in St. Louis

{SPEAKER name="woman"} Very appropriate

{SPEAKER name="Brooks B. Robinson "} and so I'm coming to the end of this, but anyway what happened is uh that I ended up, very bad shape. I's pawned everything I had. I's playing trumpet at that time. I pawned my horn, pawned my only suit, my only coat and everything else. And i sent half the money to my sister and I kept half and I tried to get into the Army Reserves. My thinking was that if I could get into the Reserves, at least I could eat. I could get a meal three times a day. Well anyway they weren't taking reserves. I went down there and they were only taking regular Army. I went in to take the physical and knowing that something was calling in terms of misbeat around my heart what I did this time was I looked for the youngest doctor there, looking for an internist if possible, and I found one and when he measured me, measured my heart beat he asked me what was wrong. I just told him I was nervous. And essentially I got through.
[00:05:41]
So I ended up in the regular Army, doing what I did, two years and ten months in the Army. This was my radicalization period, really. This was the first time I'd been around white people, um the first time I'd been around them en masse. You see we always had white teachers, had, you know, white insurance men, white police, white uh firemen and so forth, but in terms of having to sleep with them and eat with them and so forth, this was my first real introduction. And being only 17, going on 18 at that time, it was a radical change.
[00:06:16]
. And during that period I put myself on, basically, a very high reading and writing program because I was coming out of the public school system and I was ill equipped

Transcription Notes:
unsure who the woman speaker is.