Martha Ann Cox

Published on June 14, 2017

Martha-Ann-Cox "I don’t consider myself to be a confident person, I consider myself to be a competent person. You know, if you don’t know how to do something. You find out how to do it."

Chapters

Background; Introductions and Childhood

Martha Ann Cox talks about her early life in Alabama, her parents, and coming to Howard College.

Play Segment

Memories from the Eastlake Campus

Cox talks about coming to Howard College, and her first experiences on the East Lake campus.

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Student Activities and Mischief

Cox describes her "mischievous" side as a student, and talks about many of her activities and schemes while at Howard and Samford.

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Moving the Flagpole

Cox talks about one story where the students of Howard College carried the flagpole from the East Lake campus to the new Lakeshore campus.

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Dress Code

Cox discusses some of the issues that students had with the dress code during her time as a student at Howard.

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Buildings on the New Campus

Cox describes the construction of the Lakeshore campus.

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Swimming

Cox talks about how the students took advantage of the rain, and the construction on campus, to create a makeshift swimming pool.

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Involvement in Student Government, Step Sing, and Homecoming

Cox describes her involvement with many student organizations and activities during her time as a student at Samford, such as SGA and Step Sing. She also talks about her experiences with Homecoming and being Homecoming Queen.

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University of Alabama

Cox relates her experiences at the University of Alabama, where she received her master's degree and worked as counselor for Vivian Malone during the integration of the school in 1963.

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Working at Samford

Cox talks about beginning work at Samford, her role with Student Housing, and her future role as Dean of Student Affairs.

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Step Sing

Cox describes some of her experiences with Step Sing, such as her involvement with the BSU show and convincing university president Dr Corts to participate in Step Sing.

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Interacting with Students; The Fall Carnivals

Cox talks about interacting with students as Dean of Student Affairs, as well as participating in many Fall Carnivals.

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Thoughts on University Presidents

Cox gives her opinions on the four presidents of Samford University that she served under as a student and as an administrator.

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Dancing on Campus

Cox describes how she and Dr Corts worked to change the university's policy regarding dancing on campus, and the events leading up to that change.

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Updating the Student Handbook

Cox describes the process of updating and changing the student handbook, such as changing the outdated rules for student curfew.

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Elizabeth Sloan Ragland

Cox relates her experiences working with Elizabeth Sloan Ragland, the first African American Student at Samford University.

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Dean Sizemore

Cox talks about here experiences with Margaret Sizemore, Dean of Women at Howard College and Samford University.

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Updating the Dress Code

Cox describes her work with updating the outdated student dress code rules, and the reasoning behind the change.

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Miss Alabama Pageant

Cox talks about her work with the Miss Alabama Pageant, as well as Samford University's involvement with the pageant.

Play Segment

Transcript

MICHELLE LITTLE:  This is Michelle Little, I’m here with Martha Ann Cox.
Today is October 29, 2012.  First I would like to talk about your childhood.
You grew up in Talladega.  Is that right?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Yes, Michelle, I was actually born in Brantley, which is in
south Alabama. But we moved away when I was one. So, virtually no, I don’t
remember anything. I grew up in Talladega.  Lived in three different houses.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Where did you go to high school?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Talladega High School.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Were you involved in any activities in high school, any extracurricular?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Tape recorder you have to remember that we’re eating.  Yes, I
was in the band.

MICHELLE LITTLE: Oh wow, what did you play?  I was in the band.

MARTHA ANN COX:   Saxophone. And one year I played the cymbals.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  To march with?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Um-hunh.  Then I was in the Honor Society and the Fellowship
Christian Athletes. Although I was not an athlete. I played all types of sports,
but not competitively. And then I learned how to type.  And I learned how to run
a mimeograph machine. Which you don’t even know what that is.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  I don’t.

MARTHA ANN COX:  It was two sheets, usually carbon, and you typed on it, not a
computer, typewriter.  And then you tore the back off and you lay it down on a
felt thing that had ink on it.  You’d crank out tests, just like you do a copy
machine. I learned how to learn how to do that.  So that got me out of the
classroom a lot of times, which helped me get to know the faculty.  That’s one
of those things that I look back on now, one of those out of the classroom
experiences were valuable to me. I did all right in high school, made A’s,
made one or two B’s but I also got to know the faculty, and they’d call on
me to do their mimeograph machine.  So when I started working, and I had that
added advantage.  So, out of classroom experiences are valuable.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  And then, what made you to decide to attend Howard?

MARTHA ANN COX:  My sister attended Howard.  She was eight years older.  And I
don’t know that I ever thought about going anywhere else.  I’m sure that if
I had said anything, my parents, both of them were educators.  My dad was vice
president of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, and my mother was a
teacher, a third grade teacher.  So it was an understood fact that I would go to
college.  And I think an understood fact that I would go to Howard College.
Probably because my sister was there.  I never got into the Auburn/Alabama
hoopla .

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Where did your parents go to school?

MARTHA ANN COX:  My dad went to Emory and my mother went to Troy and graduated
from the University of Alabama.  So I came out of an educated family.  But I
suspect that there might have been some subtle pressure from my parents to go to
Howard because my sister had gone there.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Do you have any other siblings?

MARTHA ANN COX:  No, just a sister.  She has three children, one niece and two
nephews, a bunch of great nieces and nephews.  Only one of them, my sister
graduated, oh, I already told you that.  One of those nephews graduated from
Samford, but that’s the only one in the family I could convince. I had a great
niece who said she wanted to come to Samford, and she came for one of the
preview days.  So they were carrying her around on that golf cart that the
Admissions Office has, and she was telling, there were not that many kids on the
tour, she was telling the tour guide what went on in various buildings. So he
said, “How do you know so much about this place?” She said, “Well, I used
to spend my summers down here.” And they did. I lived on campus and they would
come spend summers with me and run all over campus.  So they knew as much about
the campus as the tour guide.

MICHELLE LITTLE:   As the tour guide or more maybe.

MARTHA ANN COX:  And he asked me when they brought them back.  He said, “How
does she know?” I said, “Well, been down here before for summers”. Well,
not all the summers.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  What are your memories from the Eastlake Campus from going to
school, because you were actually there during the move.  What do you remember
about Eastlake?

MARTHA ANN COX:  The first thing that I remember was I perhaps have been
identified with my Dad as much as anything.  And so when they left, when my Mom
and Dad left us on a Sunday afternoon.  Well, of course, you know my mother was
crying, and I was crying, but I got over it right quick. My first memory other
than that is in about ten minutes my Dad comes knocking on the door.  And they
had bought some furniture polish and he was bringing me the furniture polish
back.  Well, it all happened over again.  I started crying again.  So that’s
my very, very first memory was my Dad used the furniture polish.  Did we use it,
no? No.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Furniture polish.

MARTHA ANN COX:  We did not use that polish.  And then very few of us had cars.
So, if you wanted to go home.  You had to find somebody, an upper classman,
usually, that had a car.  It was not real hard to do.  People would be going to
Anniston.  I never had any problem. We did ride the bus one time.  Don’t ask
me why.  The first time I rode the bus.  I had a little suitcase, walked down on
First Avenue, caught the trolley.  Never done that in my life, went to the bus
station, got on the bus, rode the bus to Talladega.  Never did it again.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Was it a bad experience?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Well, no, but why do it?

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Did you get a car then?

MARTHA ANN COX:  I think we thought, my roommate was from Talladega, also.  I
think we thought, “Well, let’s just be independent.”  I tend to be
independent.  You will soon find that out. So that was another experience.
Another thing that we did have a snack bar on campus, which was right off of the
football field.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Oh, okay.

MARTHA ANN COX: Which was much smaller than the Food Court.  But that was the
place where we met.  And a lot of the student went to Ruhama Baptist Church,
which is just right up the street. Well, I didn’t go to Ruhama.  I don’t
whether I was a rebel or not.  I went to Woodlawn.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Okay, how far away was that?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Well, you had to ride the trolley.  There again, we didn’t
have cars.  We’d go hop on the trolley.  I think the reason that I went to
Woodlawn was because I knew the youth director.  So, that was an experience.
David, not David, forget that. Another thing I remember about the old campus was
that we knew we were going to move and so some of us took probably a little more
liberty in what we did than what we should have.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  In what way?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Well, you can imagine.  Have you talked to anybody?  Did
anybody know you were going to do this?

MICHELLE LITTLE: No.

MARTHA ANN COX:  That’s good.  I was a little mischievous, and we would do
things like, one day we short-sheeted everybody’s bed on the hall.  And then
one day two or three of us got a mop and we mopped everybody’s room on the
hall.  Didn’t tell them anything, just mopped it.  It was mostly seniors.
Somebody did me a favor.  I don’t know who it was.  And I got a room in the
dorm in the Renfro Hall, which is where all the upper classmen lived.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  And you were a freshman?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Oh yeah.  So I was there on the floor with a lot of upper
classmen.  I was not about letting them get the best of me.  So we did things
like that.  And I did one thing one time that I’m not proud of but it is a scream.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Well, do tell.

MARTHA ANN COX:  I was taking General Psychology under Miss Foreman, who a lot
of people that you probably won’t interview will remember.  Miss Foreman
taught Psychology for a long time.  And one of the things she said was “If we
fear something that we ought to see that there’s nothing to fear.” So we had
a girl that lived on the hall.  She, too, was a freshman.  And we worked in the
Dining Hall.  We waited tables.  The Dining Hall seated meals.  So I thought
I’m going to cure her of her fear.  So I got a sheet and I got a butcher knife
from the kitchen and a bottle of ketchup and a piece of rope, and I knew exactly
that she was coming to her room, and hang up her apron. So I went in there and
put the rope around my neck, and tied a noose in it, put the sheet on, put a
little ketchup on it, and dropped the knife on the floor.  And when she came in,
now we were great friends, and still are, surprisingly. She reached in to put
her apron in there, and you know felt me, and so she looked in there, and she
screamed and fell on the floor, and fell on the knife.  Well, in the process,
well, I of course jerked, and I jerked the noose tight around my neck and burned
my neck, rope burn. So, once I discovered that she had not hurt herself and that
she thought it was funny, I didn’t think it was too funny at that point.  I
had to go see the Dean of Women, who at that time was Margaret Sizemore, very
stiff, very prim and proper.  Here I am with a rope burn on my neck, explaining
what I had done. As I said, I am not proud of that, but I told Miss Foreman
about it.  And she was impressed that I had listened and you know had taken that
to heart.  I said Miss Foreman, “I believe you are stretching it a little
bit.”  You know, I should not have done that. But just things like that.  Then
Birmingham Southern came over.  Sometime during the Spring.  It might have been
in the summer, I don’t when it was, but some of our guys were going to move
the flagpole.  You heard this story?

MICHELLE LITTLE:  I’ve heard that there is a story.

MARTHA ANN COX:  They were going to move the flagpole from the old campus.  They
were going to walk it from the old campus to the new campus.

MICHELLE LITTLE:  Walk it?

MARTHA ANN COX:  Un-hunh.  And the president of the Student Government organized
it.  The girls, we went along and cheered

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewer	Michelle Little
Interviewee	Martha Ann Cox
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Collection	STORI Collection
Accession	SUHist/Samford/009

Martha Ann Cox

Chapters

Background; Introductions and Childhood

Memories from the Eastlake Campus

Student Activities and Mischief

Moving the Flagpole

Dress Code

Buildings on the New Campus

Swimming

Involvement in Student Government, Step Sing, and Homecoming

University of Alabama

Working at Samford

Step Sing

Interacting with Students; The Fall Carnivals

Thoughts on University Presidents

Dancing on Campus

Updating the Student Handbook

Elizabeth Sloan Ragland

Dean Sizemore

Updating the Dress Code

Miss Alabama Pageant

Other Stories and Closing Remarks

Transcript