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Well. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Well, why don't you tell us your full name? I'm Sheila Minor Huff.

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Sheila Minor Huff. Correct. Well, welcome. Glad to be here.

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And tell us what year did you start at American University? I started here in 1965, and I graduated in the summer of 1970. Wonderful.

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Well welcome back. Welcome back. Good to be back. So you lived at a time where there

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was a lot going on? Yes. Both the city and the nation. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that time.

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What were some of the key things that were going on during that period of time? Well, unfortunately or fortunately, I went to segregated schools in the District of Columbia.

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But I received an excellent education because I was taught by scholars. Scholars in the Black community who could not be employed in other jobs.

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So they prepared us for the new world. I think they saw that a change was going to come and education was invaluable.

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They taught us to be, have self-respect, self-esteem and not to believe any stereotypes. There were no limitations except for what I could envision here.

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So when I came here to AU, I was fully equipped. I had already learned scientific techniques, studied how to collect specimens, looking through

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microscopes, um, doing, um, just everything. We diagrammed sentences, we were literate. Um, education was empowerment and it still is empowerment. It is freedom.

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And my parents were also a part of my growth process. And I don't need to talk to you about what they experienced, having been born in the 1920s.

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My father was in the military and when I was here, he, uh, he was a part of the D.C. Armory National Guard, and he was a military police officer, and he was also a member of Selective

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Service. So this was during the Vietnam War, and every man had to have a card from Selective Service. So I was here during the Vietnam War, during the demonstrations,

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and I'll just stop there. But I learned a lot. I loved it. It was like being here in a new

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universe. Tell us more about that. Tell us more about that universe that you found yourself in at American University.

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Well, I guess back then, I don't know, maybe I was called a minority. I don't know what the official term was, and I don't know if I was Negro or African American or still colored, but it didn't

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matter to me because I knew my self-worth, and I knew that I wanted to learn and read and explore as much as I could here. And that's what this environment provided me. I was never scared.

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Now, maybe I should have been scared being maybe the only, uh, Black person, um, in the laboratory. My minor was in chemistry.

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My major was in biology, but I just walked in because I had been taught by scholars in high school on laboratory techniques. So I feared nothing. And I remember being in class, and

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maybe some of the people in the majority, or who had never seen people like me, would look at my paper and say, oh, how did you get a 97? And I said, because I studied. I said, do you need me to help you with yours?

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And I would turn it around. And by doing that, um, I found out a lot about human behavior. And so I'll just stop with that.

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But it opened up a universe. Um, I never felt threatened here. Um, I was never scared. And if I made mistakes or when I

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made mistakes, or I was graded and I did not agree with the professor's grade, I went up and I tried to listen and get feedback. And I also used study groups, study groups, um, of different people.

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Um, and then before test, I would have my friends, um, test me, ask questions. My favorite spot here was in the library. Yeah.

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Other than hanging out in Mary Graydon Center. Um, and talking to people. And I also like sitting out on the grass and the steps and coming in

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touch with what is my purpose in life? What do I have to offer to the universe? So where did you find community? I made community. Like, right now you're smiling at me.

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There are other people here smiling at me. So a smile, I believe is international. So one way is to smile back. Now, if somebody else is not

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looking at me, well, that means maybe they're not ready to greet me. So, you know, in biology, you study animal behavior, right? Behavior doesn't matter what it

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is. Small mammals, insects. So if somebody is approaching me, it does not appear to be a threat. The first thing I can say is I'm so-and-so and you are.

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And now we know genetically, this is the only person that ever existed that I am meeting outside of my usual habits. What does this person have to offer? What can I learn from you? What do we have in common?

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How can I help you? That's how I made a community. And sometimes I was rejected. And that's okay. Everybody has the right to an opinion.

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From where I sit in just hearing your story and the power of your storytelling, I would call you a trailblazer. This was at a time when it was not common to have women in the sciences to speak up.

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Oh, no. I was supposed to be stupid. Let alone a woman of color. a black woman In the sciences.

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So what made you decide to go into the sciences? And then when you graduated, what did you do with that learning? Okay, I'm going to back up because women, women of color, I believe, have always been in the sciences.

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It's whether or not we have been recognized. Okay, perhaps at that time, maybe there no were. I don't want to speak about professional organizations if there was rejection or acceptance, because that was not a part of my

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community. Um, what? Like I said, I've always loved the sciences. I, I got a microscope when I was ten years old.

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Everybody in the neighborhood would run from me because I would do my own blood samples. It wasn't correct. You know, I didn't sterilize Analyze anything.

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And then I had some slides, but I did not know how to get more slides. So anyway. And then I collected bugs.

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Um, it was fun. And then also my parents uplifted me. My faith uplifted me. I don't want to say I never had

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doubts, but when you smile at somebody, it's hard for them to reject. And if they rejected me, that's okay.

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You know, I just made the note. Stay away. I respect wherever it is you are. And also in the sciences.

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Yes. I would be stared at. Um, I tried to proportion negativity against positive affirmations because when I went

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to church on Sunday. I was accepted and I knew that I would never be good at everything. Correct.

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Nobody knows everything. So I just followed my passion. I also became a cheerleader because I was a dancer. I had been a majorette.

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Um, and that kind of, like, made me popular. But I had to give up cheerleading because I had to do a lab, um, um, in organic chemistry and in

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organic chemistry, you make up, mess up one step, you got to start all over again. And one time I sneezed after I had completed my my work, and I had to start it all over again because I

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had no product to weigh. So that's what happened. So you get up and do it over again. And that I had have reset my life several times when I've made

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mistakes, just, you know. Okay, so I've lost the product. I can't demonstrate that. I've done it to the lab

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technician. So guess what? You have more chemicals. So I just sit and start over

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again, and this time know not to sneeze. So when you graduated from American University, what was like. What was life like?

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What did you end up doing professionally? Oh, I have well, it took me a while to find myself, um, just evolving. And this was during a very

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difficult time, I think, for the world, because the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. My father was in the military on active duty, like I said, he was in Selective Service and not only

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I, but other people had. We were questioning what the United States was doing, what we were doing as people of color and another part of the world, um, fighting communism.

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And I told my father, the communism. Communists have never lynched me. He still kept me as his daughter. But that's that's where I was.

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So I was evolving. And other things, too, happened here on campus. Um, you know, there were riots. It was it was a changing time in,

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um, in the world, in the United States. But again Pick up and start over. And still, I always wanted to know what is it that I can contribute? Um, what is it that I can

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contribute? And I found myself in environmental sciences, but I didn't know then that it was going to be environmental science because the US Environmental Protection Agency hadn't even been established.

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But I went my first child was with my first love, the love of animals. And, um, the, uh, chief mammalogist wanted me to be a secretary.

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I had enough pride to say, no, I will not be your secretary. I went to school too long and paid too much. So you're going to have to make another position for me. Which he did.

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And so I became an animal technician In the biological sciences, which is in the 400 series in the federal government. And I went on from there.

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And what happened, what I did with my jobs, my profession. You didn't like me. That's okay with me. You have the right for your opinion to reject me.

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So what I would do is I am going to go somewhere where if I'm not appreciated, at least I can be left alone. And so where did you. Where did you work?

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Oh, I. Sorry. I'm so sorry to interrupt. We probably have about like, 5 to 10 minutes. Minutes or seconds? Yeah.

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Five minutes. Okay, I'll, I'll I'll wrap it up. Okay. Okay.

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All right. A lot of jobs and professions found me. I evolved again.

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I researched. I ended up working for the Smithsonian Institution. Their environmental research

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center. I did not only laboratory work, but field work. And I collected specimens.

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In 1977, I traveled to the Soviet Union. So I was one of the few black Americans that was there. Um, somehow, I think in life, when we're open, you know, look around who is seeking me and respond and different positions were offered

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to me in the federal government. Um, like I said, if someone didn't like me, that's their position. So I would move on and seek other

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jobs, other positions. And in summary, after 35 years of working for the federal government, I retired as a senior environmental protection specialist.

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Awesome. Wow. Congratulations. Last question for you.

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Whether you recognize it or not, do you consider your changemaker a trailblazer? Thank you. And so as a changemaker, as a trailblazer, if you had to give advice to this generation of black students at American University,

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given what your experience had been, what would be that one advice to them. Each of us is like a pebble, a grain of salt.

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What happens when you throw it into a lake or a pond? It disseminates. Each of us is an influencer. Each of us has the power.

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And it's okay for anybody not to like me. That is your right. And I thank you for not liking me that way.

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I know I'm not wasting my time. So I look on out who else is smiling at me? And I go to that person. And that's what I would say to

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each of you. Don't give up. And if you sneeze, start over.