Lawrence E. Newman Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Linda Millette
Interviewee(s): Lawrence E. Newman

Linda Millette: Today is June 12th, 2005. I am Linda Millette and I am interviewing Lawrence Newman, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, Africa, serving in an education project from January 64th [1964] to December '65. Would you please give your name and current address?

Lawrence E. Newman: My name is Lawrence Newman. My address is [address], Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Linda Millette: He also happens to be my husband. I am Linda Millette. Can you describe your present family and your work situation and any interests that you may have at the moment?

Lawrence E. Newman: I have five siblings. My father has passed. My mother is still alive. One sister and the rest of the siblings are brothers. I work for the U.S. Department of Education. At the Department of Education, I'm a special assistant to the Inspector General. My duties consists of being an ombudsman. I did Director of Hotline Operations. I'm do human resources work such as surveys, work succession plans, mentoring program, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Linda Millette: And do you have any other interests outside? And what's your immediate family like?

Lawrence E. Newman: My immediate family life like includes working with my wife outside in the garden, working on the lawn, landscaping. I work in the vegetable garden myself. I really enjoy doing that. Plus, we have we have flower gardens. And we chase animals, wild animals quite a bit because of where we live. We live on four acres of land. We have lots of trees, water, and the animals seem to congregate here, especially the deer, the raccoons, and the groundhogs. We stay pretty busy.

Linda Millette: Okay. I want you to tell us, if you can, ere the things in your childhood or things in previous to Peace Corps that led you up maybe to having an interest in joining the Peace Corps?

Lawrence E. Newman: I grew up on a farm, so naturally I was close to the land and in nature. When I heard about the Peace Corps, my imagination told me I would be in a place where there would be lots of trees, lots of, lots of opportunities to be a part of nature, lots of opportunities to enjoy the fresh air and the water. So, yes, I would say growing up as a kid on a farm in a very rural area in Prince George's County, had something to do with my passion or my desire to become a Peace Corps volunteer.

Linda Millette: Where did you hear about the Peace Corps?

Lawrence E. Newman: I was working for the Department of Interior during the summer months when I was in college, when I wasn't in college during the summer months. And I worked for the National Capital Parks Service, which is a part of the Department of Interior. John F. Kennedy was the president at that time. As part of my, my work, we had exchange students from other countries there. And because I did work for the Park Service and because I was a student, had an opportunity to interact with them. And in one of the sessions when the President was talking to the foreign exchange students, he mentioned the Peace Corps and he mentioned it was a new program. They were looking for volunteers. They're looking for people who were willing to, to sacrifice personally and try to help others. So that's when I first heard about the Peace Corps, from John F. Kennedy, who I think was the originator of the Peace Corps.

Linda Millette: When you, um, so when you heard about it, then what exactly made you apply?

Lawrence E. Newman: I was, um, I was, I would say I was getting not bored, but I wanted to do something different than what I was doing. I wanted to get out of Rosaryville, get out of the state of Maryland, get out of Prince George's County. I didn't have any money. I wanted to do something different and something probably worthwhile. I think there was a lot more I could do to myself than just being a schoolteacher. So I would say that the adventure was there, the desire to help others, and not to get caught in the same rut that I saw so many of my brothers getting caught in or my neighbors getting caught in. I had to get away. And the Peace Corps sounded like the best way to do it because it wouldn't cost me the money. It was just disappearing all the challenges that I'd have to deal with.

Linda Millette: Did you have a specific project or country in mind when you joined or applied?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, I didn't, but my last year in college I did write a paper on Nyasaland [now called Malawi]. And unbeknownst to me, when I was selected to the Peace Corps, I was sent to Nyasaland and it all dawned on me that I had been here before. I had seen this place before. I knew a lot about it. And it was because I had written this paper when I was a senior in college.

Linda Millette: I should just interject a note that the country that you went to serve in was called Nyasaland, and then it later became Malawi while you were there.

Lawrence E. Newman: That's correct. That's correct.

Linda Millette: Just describe for me the process that you went through to apply for the Peace Corps and the time, like the time it took for you to hear a response, if you remember any of that?

Lawrence E. Newman: I recall I got the, I believe I got the application from a post office in Washington, D.C. I did not talk to anyone about it. I just simply filled out the application. I sent it in. And to my surprise, the Peace Corps got back to me within, within a month. And told me they had received my application and that I was eligible and there were certain things I had to do in order to get into the training. So basically it was just a question of filling out the application and responding, being responsive to the Peace Corps in Washington.

Linda Millette: And did you have a specific country in mind? Did we?

Lawrence E. Newman: At this point, no. All I know, what I did have in mind was I wanted to go to Africa.

Linda Millette: Okay. What were your friends' or family's reactions when you told them you were going into the Peace Corps?

Lawrence E. Newman: They were very surprised. They wanted to know why would I want to go into the Peace Corps? Why would I want to go over to Africa with these strange people and land was when I had spent four years going to college to be a school teacher? Why? Why? Why do something like that? It just didn't make any just didn't make any sense. They told me that I'd probably go over there and probably have an accident because I didn't know the country. Or some of the people would, would probably reject me. There was a lot of objection. To make a long story short, there was a lot of objection to my going there. There was no one except for my father who said, son, if that's what you want to do, go ahead and do it. But my mother and my siblings and my, and my neighbors, not my teachers, and my neighbors didn't think it was a good idea.

In fact, I had received a couple of offers for teaching jobs, and I was called by the principals of a couple of schools and they said, we hear you also are applying for the Peace Corps. Do you really want to do that? You can come and teach and work with us and we can make sure you have a great career in teaching. I just simply said no. I just, I wanted to do something different. I had to get out of this area. I had to, I knew there was more to life than Rosaryville and Prince George's County and the state of Maryland.

Linda Millette: Okay. Was there anything in particular you did to prepare people close to you, that kind of thing, for your being away for a couple of years? And anything you did to prepare yourself for being away for a couple of years?

Lawrence E. Newman: In terms of preparing the people close to me like my family and friends, there's nothing in particular that I did. I just simply explained to them what I was doing, what I planned to do, and the reason why I wanted to do it. And there was nothing to worry about. For myself personally, I, I had to prepare myself emotionally. I had to think outside of my little security box. Um, I talked to a couple of my former teachers about it, um, and develop a mindset of, Lawrence, this is, this is going to be something different. This is going to be a challenge, but you're up to it. You want to, you want to get out of here. You want to do something different. Here's an opportunity. That's about it really.

Linda Millette: Okay. Where did you go for training?

Lawrence E. Newman: My first training was in Camp Radley in Puerto Rico. Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Linda Millette: And what did you do there?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, we dug latrines. We did all types of swimming. We did trekking, we did canoeing, we did mountain climbing, we did rappelling. We did all those things I guess you might have to do if you're caught up in a rain forest someplace but no, no, with none of the resources you really need to survive. It was a survival type of training. We spent, I believe we spent a month, no, three weeks there, I believe.

Linda Millette: And was that helpful for being in Malawi?

Lawrence E. Newman: Eh, not really. I could go to Malawi without that training. Although on a couple of occasions, because of some risk that I took when I was in Malawi, I think the drownproofing in the canoe and I think the mountain climbing probably, probably would have been useful if something had happened when I was taking these risks.

Linda Millette: Okay. How long was that training?

Lawrence E. Newman: The training in Puerto Rico, I believe, was, was 3 to 4 weeks. I can't recall correctly, but it was at least three weeks. No more than four weeks.

Linda Millette: And then where did you go?

Lawrence E. Newman: Then we went to Syracuse University for language training, African culture training. And I think we spent another 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 weeks there at University College, Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York.

Linda Millette: And how long was your total training? Do you have a remembrance of that?

Lawrence E. Newman: The total training must have been at least at least two months, but no more than three months.

Linda Millette: Okay. What was your reaction to the other people in your group?

Lawrence E. Newman: Um, I'd never been around white people before, so to speak, except working for them. So I was pleasantly surprised to see how receptive they were, how responsive they were to some of the questions and needs that I had. I was also surprised at how naive a lot of the people were when it came to doing things like the physical things, like digging ditches and finding your way through the rainforest and that type of thing. Because I sort of grew up, grew up with that. Basically I was very, very comfortable with them.

Linda Millette: What is your ethnicity?

Lawrence E. Newman: I'm African American. In those days I was called Black or colored really.

Linda Millette: Okay. Do you feel, kind of looking back, do you feel that your Peace Corps training on a whole was useful to you in the Peace Corps?

Lawrence E. Newman: It was very useful to me, primarily because I found out a lot about my about myself. Um, it was also useful because it gave me a holistic view of the, of the world. At one point I thought life began and ended in the United States and everything else was peripheral. But I discovered that the world is a huge place with all kinds of diversity, all kinds of people. And it was important that, uh, that we, it was important for me as a human being to, to realize that because it helped me to get to know myself better because, you know, I was a bit self-centered when I left. But when I was exposed to all these other people and places, all of a sudden I remembered I was like a needle in a haystack. I was, I was just sort of like nobody.

And which caused me to, you know, to, to pay attention to other people a lot and not be as self-serving as I was. I also learned, you know, that by giving, you are normally receiving, and it's very easy to give and feels very good to give, because I learned that these were the real, real things that made a difference in my, in my mindset, in my emotional.

Linda Millette: Okay. There was a deselection process in the training. Did, um, how did that affect you? How many did you start with and how many did you end with? Or were there any people that were deselected that you had feelings about? Or did you understand the deselection process?

Lawrence E. Newman: I understood the deselection process very, the deselection process very well. I think we started with like 50 people and then we may have deselected about, about six. I think the deselection process could have been improved upon. It was, it was, it was a very nervous time for most of us because we were just simply given an envelope. And then we were told to open the envelope. And if you had a pink slip, then that means you were deselected. So I don't know what happened to the people that were deselected, but I hope, you know, there was a deselection conference or something to really explain to people why they were deselected.

Linda Millette: So you all didn't learn why people were going?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, no, no. We did not learn. Those of us who were selected were not told why people were deselected.

Linda Millette: What was the criteria for selection in or selection out? What went on? Or was there anything that went on or?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, we had interviews, I guess psychological interviews. You know, we had to, to learn about the culture of the country that we were going to. They'd watch how we interact with, with, with other people. Um, I think the main requirement was, although they didn't tell us, was their observations of us and how we, how we dealt with people with whom we were not really familiar with. How we dealt with learning the language, how we dealt with learning about the culture. There was no like, you have to do one, two, three, four, five in order to be selected into the Peace Corps.

Linda Millette: Okay.

Lawrence E. Newman: We never knew for sure exactly what the criteria was. All we knew was what their training requirements were. But we were never given any examinations in the language or any of the other subjects that we took. I think the main selection requirements were that we had to be psychologically and physically up to par, up to the standards that they had created, and we didn't know what those standards were.

And it's probably a good thing we didn't know what they were because then, then I think we would have been concentrating on meeting the requirements. And I think a lot of the other, other intangibles that we got from being with each other would have been lost because we would have been concentrating on the training requirements. Intangibles such as building close relationships, intangibles like showing, showing, feeling that you're being cared for by somebody else. And the non- competition, I think, helped a lot. People wanted to see others succeed. People wanted to see others get selected and not deselected.

Linda Millette: Okay. How diverse was your program and what was the makeup of that diversity?

Lawrence E. Newman: You mean in my training? Or once I got to?

Linda Millette: Your group that went to Malawi.

Lawrence E. Newman: The group that went to Malawi, I think we had maybe three African Americans. I was one out of three. We had no more than four. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe we had, maybe we had five out of, five out of 40. Five out of 40, something like that. Very few African Americans.

Linda Millette: That went to Malawi.

Lawrence E. Newman: I could be wrong there with the numbers, but there weren't many of us.

Linda Millette: Okay. Okay. Now, some time, you had some time before you, uh, when you finished training and before you went over? Was there a break in there at all?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. Yes. Yes, there was. In fact, I invited the African teacher at Syracuse who taught us language down to my parents' home to stay with us. I think he stayed with us for about a week till I wanted him to see what it was like to be in an American home. And not just an American, in an American home, but in an African American home. So he actually came down and stayed with us. And my parents were nice enough, said he could. I believe if I recall correctly, he stayed with us for about a week. Now, this was after, after I believe I was selected into the Peace Corps. I knew I was going there and I wanted this African teacher to experience this before we went back to Africa.

Linda Millette: I haven't touched on, but I wanted to ask you about the staff of the training. Are there any, this teacher obviously was someone you connected with and you wanted to invite. You also just very generous. Were there other staff members that you remembered or that you connected with or?

Lawrence E. Newman: There was a female Caucasian teacher or professor at Syracuse, I can't recall her name, who taught African culture whatever, Malawian culture, what have you. I was very impressed with her. But other than that, I was not particularly impressed or unimpressed. They were just people who were instructors. But this African instructor stood out because I thought he did a very, very good job in teaching the language. And he was, he was also very much a human being. Yeah, he was very easy to talk to. He was very friendly, full of smiles all the time. And he just sort of reached out to us and I was impressed with him.

Linda Millette: And he was a Malawian?

Lawrence E. Newman: He was a Malawian, yeah. Nyasan then.

Linda Millette: Right.

Lawrence E. Newman: But I thought it would be good for him to experience an African American family and my family to experience him because it was an opportunity I knew that my family would not get for a long time to come. And I don't know, maybe he wouldn't have either. But I know my family were very, very appreciative that I did that. And it was, it was quite an experience for my little nieces and nephews as well as my mother and father.

Linda Millette: I'm sure they still remember it to this day. Okay. Now you've made the trip to Malawi, to Nyasaland. What was your entry like? What are your first impressions?

Lawrence E. Newman: My first impression was the weather was hot and I'm in a real strange place here. These people, these women walking around with these big baskets on their heads full of veggies or full of wood. And I'm not seeing the paved roads and what have you. I really felt like I was in a very strange place, um, but I wasn't scared, you know. I also, I guess, I guess I got a sense of security, of comfort because by being, by being, um, having grown up on a farm and having lived in difficult situations, um, that although it was all strange to me, I figured I could fit in and I could do what I was supposed to do and, and help the people that I was there to help.

I think if I hadn't had that rural upbringing out in the country, that I would have been, and have not, have not been around African Americans all my life, it probably would have been different. But the fact that most of the people I saw were African American in itself was a good feeling to me because I never had that feeling before.

Linda Millette: Were Africans.

Lawrence E. Newman: Africans, right. Um, because I never had that feeling before. Because the whole time I was growing up and for the most part, you know, I was around white people except when I was in my own community or in my own high school going to college. So here I was all of a sudden thrown in with all of these Black people and my God, what a, what a strange, what a good feeling that was.

Linda Millette: Uh huh. Did you have any training when you got into the country?

Lawrence E. Newman: Um, I. If we had any training, I can't recall what it was. It seemed to me we, we got there. We went to Soche Hill College for something. I can't quite remember what it was, but it didn't last very long. I can't even remember the training. Orientation or something like that. Yeah.

Linda Millette: You don't remember any speakers or anybody?

Lawrence E. Newman: No. No, I can't remember any speakers, anybody like that.

Linda Millette: What, uh, what was your reaction to staff, Peace Corps staff?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, I thought the staff were very friendly, very concerned about helping us, very concerned that we got started on the right foot, and that we had the resources that we needed to get the job done. And that we, we understood that we were in a different culture, we're in a different country. And things were not the way they were back in America and we needed to act accordingly. And I think those were the types of things they, they, they in their own way, you know, let us know that here you are. You're in a different place and you're going to have to act a little bit differently because you're, you're someplace that's quite different from America. And people might expect different things from you than what they expected in America. And you have to act accordingly. You have to live according, not act. You have to live accordingly.

So I thought the staff was very, very well trained. And they got their verbal training in getting the message over to us as New Peace Corps volunteers. And also to show that they want to help us.

Linda Millette: Now, you were group three coming to Malawi. What was your reaction to other volunteers who were already there? They'd been there a year.

Lawrence E. Newman: My reaction was to get to them as soon as possible and find out as much as I could.

Linda Millette: In what way? What do you mean by that?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, you know, how do you, how do you deal with certain types of situations? For instance, you went out to a village. How did you react if somebody offered you some food or if you went out to a social gathering like a dance or something? You know what, what did you do? What could we expect from the Africans? Or if you went to a shop to buy something, go to the market, you know, what could you expect from the people doing the selling and what how do you deal with the people who beg from me? Because I already had already experienced that. Um, and what do you do when people want to come to work for you? Like.

Linda Millette: What did you already experience?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, people asking for money on the street.

Linda Millette: Begging.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, begging. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, what's the most important thing you can tell me? Yeah, I'm a new volunteer. You've been here for a while. What, what? What's the most important thing that I should know at this point?

Linda Millette: What did, you had some language training. Did that play a significant role in your life? Where were you? Where were you stationed and what were you doing? And then did the language play a significant role in that?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, I was, I was stationed in Blantyre. It was at that time, was the most highly commercialized city in the country. And I was teaching at the Malawi College of Commerce. Um, we taught everything in English. Um, most of the students were, were civil servants, so I didn't have any young kids. They were mostly grown men and grown women who had come back to school to brush up on certain skills. Um, the language was not a big factor there. Um, but whenever I went out to the, to the villages or if I took a trip up to Soche Hill mountains, to the rainforest, um, it was always, it was always. I was always more received when the people found out I could at least speak a little bit of Chinyanja.

Um, from time to time, the Africans used to mistake me for an African or, or Euro-African or an African coloured. And once they discovered that I was not one of those people, they used to say to me, some of them used to say to me, well, Thombo Newman, you've been away from home so long, you've forgotten your language. So I thought that was kind of, kind of funny. But they would look at me kind of strange, like when they found out I was African American, or I was Black and not from Africa. And the fact that I was there, um, it helped me a lot because although I wasn't African African, that bonding was there, I think solely because of, maybe because of my skin color or maybe because I was reaching out, I don't know. But it certainly didn't hurt me by being, by being African American, about being, being Black.

Linda Millette: What was the makeup of your classes in population? Was it diverse?

Lawrence E. Newman: I had all types of students. It was very diverse. I had Indian. I didn't have any European students, but I had Indian students, African students, African colors, Euro-African, and every type of ethnic group there except for the Europeans or whites.

Linda Millette: And the coloureds. What does that mean?

Lawrence E. Newman: Um, that means that they're, that they're mixed race. Um, chances are the mother or father was white and the, and the, the other mother. The father was white or the mother was white and vice versa and into intermingled with the Africans. So you had the coloureds which looked very much like me. They weren't really black, they weren't white, but they were, they were a brown skinned type of person, just like I am. And they were like, like the African, the pure Africans from, from what they were telling me and the way they reacted to them were like, they were. They were class wise, the coloureds were like a cut above the real Africans and just below the Europeans. So the coloureds were like caught between the Africans and the Europeans and like caught between a rock and a hard place.

Linda Millette: The coloureds could also be a mixture between African and Asian?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Linda Millette: Anybody mixing?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. Coloureds were the mixed race people, but they're normally mixed race with a lighter, lighter colored, lighter skinned people. That's why they were brown.

Linda Millette: Okay. The physical environment that you were in, what, um, what was that like?

Lawrence E. Newman: Physical? You mean the natural or the buildings or what?

Linda Millette: Well, all of your environment where you lived.

Lawrence E. Newman: I lived in a wonderful house. You know, we had, we had bathrooms, we had mosquito nets, we had fireplaces, we had gas stoves. We had everything except the telephone and a, and a TV. We had the cooks and we had the gardens and all of that. And in fact, my physical situation, the manmade physical situation in Malawi, was probably better than the physical situation I had back at home before I left. Um, the natural physical situation consisted of green trees, green grass. You know, the rainy season, the dry season, the Chiperoni season, which was this season that was kind of cool and kind of kind of wet. To me, it was just perfect.

I enjoyed the, the natural environment and I enjoyed the physical environment, I mean, the, the environment in the household. I think I felt kind of guilty because I wasn't used to having a cook and a gardener and that type of thing. Someone to make my bed, someone to set up the mosquito net, someone to ask me what I wanted for breakfast. That was just not my cup of tea. It took me a long time to get used to that.

Linda Millette: Did your, um, did your assignments change your living conditions? Anything change over your two years? You were there just two years?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah.

Linda Millette: Okay. Did it change at all during the two years?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah.

I moved from one house to a bigger house, but basically I still had all the amenities that most volunteers didn't have.

Linda Millette: Were you alone in these houses?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, no. At first I lived with two other people. An older guy who was about 75 years old.

Linda Millette: He was a volunteer?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, his name was Mac. And then another guy by the name Terry Seno, who was around my age I guess, maybe a little bit older. We lived there for about a year. Then we moved to Soche. We called it Harmony House, it was an old governor's house, huge house. And there we had, there was like 6 or 7 of us living in that house and another house close by. So it was like a communal type situation. And we all ate together. We had parties. And it was, it was a very, I thought, a very, very nice environment. You know, they had that little differences, but nothing significant. That's my last year, I spent living in what we called Harmony House because we used to get in a few arguments, but nothing serious. But it was, it was a nice environment.

Linda Millette: When you weren't teaching, were you involved in any projects?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. A buddy of mine and me, between teaching, we, during the off months, we would, we had a cobbler school. That we got money from the government to develop a cobbler school. And we taught the handicapped indigenous Africans of Malawi or Nyasaland how to make sandals, how to make shoes out of car inner tubes and tires. And I also taught them how to keep the cash receipts and disbursements journal because a lot of them wanted to create their own businesses. So we spent, we spent 3 or 4 summers during the semester breaks doing that. We, we, we, I enjoyed it very much. And they were, I'm pretty sure the people that I know, the people that we worked with, were very appreciative.

Most of them were handicapped. They had one arm, they had one leg, or no legs at all. But they could learn to do these types of things that we were teaching them without, despite those handicaps and still earn some type of a living for themselves. Most of these people were, before we got them, were beggars on the street. Then I would say, you know, at least 50 percent of them, as a result of coming and taking the cobblers course did have another type of work. They had a type of work that they could do other than just sitting and begging on the street.

Linda Millette: Did you do any traveling while you were there?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, I met this woman called Linda Millette. We went down to, uh, we went down to Lourenco Marques [now called Maputo] in Mozambique, down an old Navy ship. And I'll never forget that because I was sick on my back, seasick on my back, until we got there, which was, I think, a couple of days, I believe. Um, and then I think we left there. I think we went down to Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and then we came back on the train, I believe, back up to Malawi. And the other traveling I did was when I left Malawi to come back to the United States.

Linda Millette: Did you have any health problems while you were there?

Lawrence E. Newman: I was very, very fortunate. I did not have any health problems whatsoever. I can't think of one time that I was sick. I really, I never had a stomach ache or headache or anything. I was very, very fortunate.

Linda Millette: Did you travel to any other parts of the country?

Lawrence E. Newman: I went to, I went to some of the Portuguese territories.

Linda Millette: But outside?

Lawrence E. Newman: Outside?

Linda Millette: Inside Malawi. Did you do any traveling?

Lawrence E. Newman: I went down to the southern part to the cape and that cape down with Carl, Carl White was.

Linda Millette: Port Harold?

Lawrence E. Newman: Port Harold. Went up to Mlanje [now called Mulanje] where Linda Millette was. I went to Cape Maclear, which is up on Lake Malawi, on Lake Nyasa, for any number of occasions, just to relax on the, on the, on the lake. And I went out to some of the villages up in the rainforest. I did traveling when I had the opportunity to, to do so. Um, went out to the tea estates, the tea plantations. I went out to the Chari River and went across a rickety crane seat one time. Um, so yeah, I did quite a bit of traveling inside of Malawi.

Linda Millette: Did you, did you have any experiences where you would say that you observed discrimination?

Lawrence E. Newman: Um. I think, um. I don't think I really saw any overt type of discrimination, but I could feel a certain type of institutional discrimination, say, from the, uh, from the Blacks towards the coloureds and from the coloureds towards the Blacks, and from the Europeans towards the Africans. I got the impression by talking and being around some of the Europeans, they felt themselves to be very superior. Um, and they also like wanted myself not to think too much out of the Black Africans because, because they probably didn't have much, much to offer. None would ever told me that. But it's a type of institutional type of racism that we oftentimes have in this country here, that I could sense that. And, you know, and I'm not saying that was a fact, but I felt that way. I did not outright observe any type of racism.

Linda Millette: And you're feeling that way, did it hinder anything that you might have done or?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, no, no. It, it did not hinder anything that I wanted to do because I felt if I want to be a good Peace Corps volunteer and provide the services I was sent there to provide, that I couldn't let something like that into my mindset. That couldn't be a factor.

Linda Millette: Um, during the time you were there, I think Nyasaland changed to Malawi.

Lawrence E. Newman: Mm hmm.

Linda Millette: They had independence.

Lawrence E. Newman: Mm hmm.

Linda Millette: Do you have any memories around any of that?

Lawrence E. Newman: I remember being at the stadium and listened to Kawazu talking along with his little, little thing you switched back with?

Linda Millette: [inaudible].

Lawrence E. Newman: [inaudible] Yeah. And how happy, you know, my students were and what have you. And but I also remember right after the independence, I had some really bright students. I believe there were four of them who just disappeared afterwards. And I think primarily because these were very, very bright students and they're very independent thinkers and they would oftentimes say things contrary to the I think it was the Malawi Congress Party. And they disappeared. I never heard or saw them again, saw them again. And would, I would ask other students about them. The other students would never say anything as if they were afraid to say anything. So when you asked me about independence in Malawi, that's what I remember the most. Those four bright students disappeared and I never saw them again.

Linda Millette: When you came to the end of your tour, first of all, do you have, do you remember any funny stories or anything that stands out in your mind with your time in Malawi? Anything else you want to add before we leave?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, other than the Africans telling me that I've been away from home for so long that I forgot my, my language, um, you know, I mean, I had, I had a good time. I mean, I can't. I had so many types of fun situations until I can't just pick out one to say this is what's really defined the situation. I mean, I remember a time when a couple of the female volunteers brought their motorbikes out to Harmony House where we all lived, and they didn't quite know how to ride them and they got on the bikes, was going to show us, I guess, what they could do. And the bike took off and left them sitting on the ground. Those types of things.

Linda Millette: So volunteers had motorbikes?

Lawrence E. Newman: Well, some of the volunteers who lived, say, way out in the rainforest and in very desolate areas and.

Linda Millette: In the bush?

Lawrence E. Newman: In the bush, that's what, you can call it that. They had to have those bikes in order to get back and forth, to buy food and that type of thing.

Linda Millette: Did you have a car or a vehicle of any kind?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, but whenever we needed a car or I needed a car, I could always rent one. Or I had, I had a Portuguese buddy who would loan me his car. So transportation was very seldom a problem for me.

Linda Millette: Tell me about some of the relationships you formed while you were there, with the people of Malawi. You've mentioned the Portuguese.

Lawrence E. Newman: I think the closest, the closest relationship that I formed with had to do with the African coloureds and the Portuguese people. I met a Portuguese family and his name was Jim, and we started to like each other right away. Jim had a car, so Jim used to come to visit me a lot and I'd go to visit him. He would loan me his car. We'd go out socially. I'd go to his house and he'd come over to Harmony House sometime. Um, I met some African coloureds, I mean, who seemed to have a lot, I seemed to have a lot in common with. And we would go out socially. They would come, come to, come to our house. I would go to visit them and their and their families.

I met some Africans. I intermingled with a lot of the Africans. Also, I would go out to some of the villages and look at and meet their, their, their families. Um, I would say that, that, that my, my social life in Malawi in terms of intermingling with the indigenous people was very good. I, I never once got homesick. I always felt, when I was there, I always felt at home.

Linda Millette: Hmm.

Lawrence E. Newman: Not like at home here, but I felt that I was around people who cared about me and they certainly knew I cared about them.

Linda Millette: When you, uh, after you left Malawi, did you have any regrets or did that feelings of dissatisfaction or?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, I had a very, very strong regret and that was a concern, let's put it that way. And that was whether or not some of the programs like the cobbler school and some of the programs in the business area were going to be continued after I had left, because I could see no volunteers coming in to continue those, those programs. So what bothered me more than anything else was the lack of what appeared to me at that time would be the lack of continuity, the carry over from the time I left to somebody else coming in. And in fact, one criticism of the Peace Corps, it would be that you bring, you try to bring in new volunteers to pick up your old volunteers left off, if in fact it's been proven that that person or person's program was a good program. And that was never a consideration, so far as I could see by Peace Corps Washington. I think that was a huge mistake. And if they're still doing it, it's still a huge mistake.

Linda Millette: Were there no coloured or African or European counterparts that could have stepped in or been trained to step in to take those positions and carry that on?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, because I think, I think that's where the culture, real culture difference came in. I think most of the, the African teachers were, they were good teachers, but I don't think they were, as you say, as conscientious or as unselfish as we were as Peace Corps volunteers, because, you know, we were doing that because we wanted to do it. We didn't have to worry about making a living there. We didn't have to worry about doing what the principal wanted us to do. Our only concern was helping those students. That was not the case with the African teachers or the other coloured teachers. There were certain requirements set forth by the principals and even the government for civil servants, and they had to adhere to them. And lots of times it wasn't in the favor of the students. So I don't, they couldn't. No, I don't believe.

You know, as much as I've worked with my coworkers that they could have stepped in and carried forth the programs that were in the category. For one thing, there were programs that I had gotten to push as a business. The business office, the office machines program, the business management program. These were programs I helped to create. And they didn't, they didn't really, those teachers didn't have anything to do with the creation or implementation of those programs. They had their own programs, set curriculum they had to work on. So they couldn't do, couldn't do both. So the continuity there of some of the things I thought which would help some of the students, especially the more advanced students, and in some cases, the students who really need help just wasn't there. And I really, really felt very bad about that.

Linda Millette: Did you, did you keep contact with any students when you left?

Lawrence E. Newman: Oh, sure. When I left, I was eventually drafted into the Army not too long after I left, about seven or eight months after I left. And I went to Frankfurt, Germany. And I had known that some of my senior students would get scholarships to Pitman's College in London. And sure enough, when I got to Frankfurt, because I did keep in touch with these students, I discovered that they, too, had been, they had gone to England and they were in in London attending school at Pitman's College, and as well as a couple of the African instructors. So we used to see each other on a pretty regular basis while I was in Germany for about a year there. So I kept in very, very close contact with them during that period. Once I left the Army, you know, the contact became almost, almost nil, you know.

Linda Millette: Um. Did you have, did you make plans for leaving the country and making your reentry into this country?

Lawrence E. Newman: Oh, I worked very hard at that one. So very bad to go to graduate school. So before I even left the country, I knew I had been accepted at Columbia University Teachers College. So in fact, when I came back, before I even went home, I went to New York and had interviews at Columbia to, to make sure that my confirmation of entry into that university was, was okay. So, yeah, when I got back to the States, I knew exactly what I was going to do. It was all set.

Linda Millette: Did you travel to get back to the United States or did you just go right home?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, we traveled. I went to Greece. I went to, I went to Athens. I went to, where?

Linda Millette: How long did you take when you were traveling?

Lawrence E. Newman: We took about two weeks to get back. Two and a half, three weeks to get back. I didn't do extensive traveling, but we went to, David Thurston and Mack and I went to several different places.

Linda Millette: Okay.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah.

Linda Millette: How did you find reentry into back into this culture?

Lawrence E. Newman: Oh, I found it very strange because I thought people would be very interested in knowing and learning about all the things that I did and what have you. And what I discovered was, you know, they could, they couldn't care less. They didn't care about anything, including, including to a certain extent my own immediate family. You know, they were really preoccupied with their own lives and they couldn't really relate to a lot of the things that I was trying to explain to them and tell them about. It was, it was just too much. They could, they couldn't relate that to, to any of their own life experiences.

So, so my reentry was more of a culture shock than going to Malawi. The biggest culture shock I had was coming back to the United States, getting on a subway train in New York City, and trying to get up to Columbia University. That was culture shock because I just thought people were so rude, you know, they wouldn't even let me off the train. And, you know, I was probably wrong and blaming them and everything. But, but to me, in Malawi people were so kind and so friendly. And all of a sudden I'm among these people who just didn't seem to care about anything except for themselves and what they wanted. And that was a real culture shock because I was away from that for two years. Plus, I'd never been in New York City anyway. So yeah, and that was a huge culture shock and it took me a while to get over that. Yeah.

Linda Millette: Evaluate your service in the light of the three goals of the Peace Corps, your service and your life afterward. Um. The three goals were to provide technical assistance to the people of Malawi. And I think you felt you did, did that?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, I believe I provided the business technical assistance as well as helping the handicapped people to get some jobs and careers that otherwise wouldn't, wouldn't have.

Linda Millette: The second goal was to promote a better understanding back here of Americans of, of that, of Malawi.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah.

Linda Millette: Do you feel that, did you, did you have opportunities to do that? I've heard you, you know, people, which was my own experience, weren't really that interested.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. One of my greatest challenges throughout the whole time I was there was trying to explain the American Black situation in America versus the American white situation in America. The Africans never distinguished between white Americans and Black Americans. They couldn't understand, you know, they thought we all were rich and all we had to do was. [tape break]

Linda Millette: You were explaining that you, the Africans, couldn't keep straight. You were explaining to the Africans about, and the coloureds about the differences between American white and Black. They all thought we were all wealthy and whatnot.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah.

Linda Millette: And, and then what about when you came home? Were you able to help educate Americans about Malawians?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. In Malawi, it was a challenge. And, and when I came back home, it was a challenge. In Africa, basically, I was trying to tell them that being Black and being in America is not the same as being white and being in America, that there's this whole history of racial discrimination, whole history of mistreatment, and what have you. And for Africans, you know, after they began to listen and act more, I talked, they began to understand that. But again, I wish I had been better trained or more equipped to explain that. That was something we didn't have in training that I thought that was missing. I thought African Americans needed that training as well as white Americans, because it is a truism about America. And you run across students who have never even heard of America and you try to explain that to give them a full picture of everything is very difficult.

Back here, trying to explain to African Americans, as well as whites, what it is like to be around Africans in Africa, uh, I think was, was difficult for them to understand because the first thing I'd tell them was it's the first time in my life I'd ever been in a situation where the majority of the people were, were African, were Black, I said. But at the same time, a lot of the laws and everything were still being made by the whites. But the fact that you're in a place where all the people for the most part are Black like you is a great feeling, something that 90 percent of Black Americans never experienced. Um. Some, some, some Black Americans could, could relate to that a little bit. But they fully didn't understand that, but whites could. Because, you know, being white and being in America, obviously you're in the in the majority.

But one of my biggest challenges was explaining the differences between Black Americans and white Americans in Africa, and also explaining to Americans the difference between Black Africans, coloureds, and Euro Africans in Africa. It's very difficult to do.

Linda Millette: Okay. Through the years, have you continued any involvement with your country of service with?

Lawrence E. Newman: No. No. Once, once I left, the only involvement, it's been, it's been peripheral. And that we have some, we have a Peace Corps, a lot of Peace Corps volunteers at the U.S. Department of Education where I work. And we get together from time to time just to reminisce and to be recognized by the Secretary of Education. But I sort of left, when I left Africa, left Malawi, that was a chapter in my life I left behind. I learned a lot from it. I became a much better person. But I knew I wanted to go ahead and do other things. And if I dwelled upon some of the experiences I had there, it would probably interfere with the new things that I wanted to do.

Linda Millette: Did you, did you ever hear of the Friends of Malawi? Were you ever?

Lawrence E. Newman: Sure, I mean, my, my wife is a very prominent, was a very prominent member of the Friends of Malawi. So I learned about what was going on in Malawi. In fact, I still do, despite the fact I've not been involved in a very close manner. And I'm still concerned about Malawi. And I read about them in the newspaper. Never a friend of mine. In fact, I have a friend who just left there. When I learned they were going there, I like to talk to them and, you know, tell them things, some of the things that they might expect based upon what I'm hearing these days and based upon the experiences I had years ago. So. So you might say I'm out of touch, but yet I'm still in touch, but not as closely as I had been before.

Linda Millette: What about regular, just Peace Corps involvement?

Lawrence E. Newman: No, I don't really get that much involved in the Peace Corps and what they're doing, except what I read in the newspaper and what I, what I hear over TV or radio.

Linda Millette: Okay. Describe now your life since you left Peace Corps, since you left Malawi? In summary, highlighting.

Lawrence E. Newman: When I left Malawi, I came back and I started to graduate school at Columbia University Teachers College and majored in business, business education. And I was flying high. I was feeling good. I was doing exactly everything I wanted to do. And then I came downstairs to my mailbox one day and checked. And there was a letter from the United States Selective Service System telling me that I had been drafted into the Army, and I spent the next six weeks trying to convince the Selective Service System that I should not go into the Army right now, at least let me finish up my graduate degree. And it was in vain. But the thing I did accomplish was that they allowed me to finish my first semester in graduate school.

One of the things that I always remember about that experience was that I went to my local draft board clerk at the advice of General, I think his name was Hersey, the head of Selective Service then. Because he said to me, Larry, why don't you go to your Selective Service clerk and tell her what the situation is and, and just hope that she understands and maybe she'll give you a break? Well, I did that, and my Selective Service person told me that I should be glad to go into the Army because if I went into the Army, I would help the Blacks here in Upper Marlboro, which is the area where I'm from. By being in the Army, she said, I could uplift some of the crime and poverty that's happening over on Sugar Hill. Now, Sugar Hill is a so-called bad place where Black people live. And that to me was so astonishing until, well, it's a good thing my dad was with me at the Selective Service Board there, but that was very, very, very bad.

Anyway, I, uh, after my first semester, I was selected into the Army and I spent six weeks in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and another four weeks in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in an individual basic training. Then I came back and then I was told I was going to go to Germany. And when I got, then I was told that chances are when I left Germany, I'd go to Vietnam. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, hold on here. Anyway, when I got to Germany, I discovered they were going to send me to Ethiopia as an intelligence officer. I said, Boy, that's great. I'm going back to Africa. Wow. Then somebody comes along the way. Wait, we can't send this guy to Ethiopia because he's already been over there as a Peace Corps volunteer. If we sent him to Ethiopia, Ethiopia as an intelligence person, can you imagine what the communists are going to say? That we have people in the Peace Corps collecting intelligence information to use when we put them in the Army. So, nope, couldn't do that.

So I was, um, I was, I was then assigned to a medical unit in Frankfurt, Germany, as an administrative officer, as an administrative worker, and I stayed there throughout my entire time I was in the Peace Corps [sic]. I never did go to Vietnam. The Army to me, the Peace Corps to me was probably the best experience I've ever had in my life in terms of learning and helping other people feel good about myself. The Army is probably the worst experience I've ever had. I think it was a total waste of time. I saw a lot of other people wasting their time. It was a waste of American resources. I'm not saying all of it is, but I just saw too much, too much waste, not only of material things, but also of minds.

So anyway, I served my two years, did a lot of traveling, went through, traveled throughout Europe. So one of my ex-Peace Corps friends, Linda Millette, who came to Germany to see me. So that was that was very nice. Then after, after my two years, I came back home and first thing I did was to go to my local draft board clerk to see that lady who told me to go in to help the people at over in Sugar Hill. And thank God she had died because if she hadn't died, I don't know what I would have done to her. But I wanted to let her know that I was still safe and I'm back in your face now. So anyway, I came home and I went down to the bottom of the hill where my parents lived and burned up all my military clothes and what have you. I felt pretty good in doing that. So it gives you an idea of what I feel about how I feel about the military.

Anyway, after about three weeks at home, I went back to graduate school at Teachers College, Columbia University, to finish up my graduate degree and worked there at the university in the African American program, international studies, in various areas for about seven years. And then I came back down to Washington, D.C., and worked for the U.S. Department of Education as an administrator, as an investigator, as an auditor, as a guaranteed student loan examiner, and basically most of the time as a manager in these areas. And I'm still at the U.S. Department of Education, as I told you earlier, working as a special assistant to the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Education.

Linda Millette: Did, did the Peace Corps service itself have a direct impact on what you did in your future?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, the Peace Corps not only had a direct impact on what I did in the future, but it had a direct impact on my attitude. You know, as you will know, attitude has everything to do with what you do as a human being. And what I learned in the Peace Corps was, was that it's very healthy to help other people. It's very healthy to, to have that desire. It's very healthy not to measure success by the amount of money you have or the material things that you have, but how you feel about what you've done to, to help somebody else or help other people. Um. I knew I wanted, I had to, I wanted to do things to continue to work and help other people. And I was pretty sure I didn't want to teach. So, so although I worked in those various jobs I just told you about, most of my work had to do with, with, with helping others. And I think that started with the, with the Peace Corps, which is.

Right now, I'm an ombudsman for the U.S. Department of Education. I'm the internal ombudsman. It's the only one in the whole department. Now, that job is there because I proposed and I created that job. I told the inspector general that we needed somebody like this and he on his agent, I wrote a proposal, he accepted it, and I've been doing it ever since. And basically what I do there is I help young people and older people to try and get relief to some of their concerns and problems with going, without going outside of the Department of Education, causing themselves a lot of duress. I run the mentoring program there. I, I survey, I survey employees a lot to get feedback on their feelings about their work environment. I do employee exit interviews. I teach, I teach coach, coaching. I, uh, I'm very much involved in trying to help other people because I get so much back. And that came, I think, I think without a doubt my experiences in the Peace Corps had a tremendous influence on my attitude in that area.

Linda Millette: Is there anything else that came out of the Peace Corps?

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah, and I met this old lady. I met Linda Millette again about 30 years, I believe, after we had, after we had left the Peace Corps, after we hadn't seen each other.

Linda Millette: 21 years.

Lawrence E. Newman: 21 years. And then one day in the mail, I got this letter from her, and she was telling me that my cousin Rita had told her that I was still around, and that she was wondering whether or not I wanted to buy these little trinkets that has something to do with Malawi. And she comes to Washington from time to time. And she was wondering, you know, was I, was I married or? And I wrote her back, I wrote her back and told her I wasn't married. And yes, she could send me some Malawi trinkets. And that, by the way, if you want to come down sometime, you know, feel free because I live here in Washington. And, and she said, well, yeah, you know. I said, well, but, you know, she sort of wondered where she would stay. So I told her I had a big house all my own.

So anyway, that was, that was the beginning of, of an old relationship that, that really came back to, came back together again. And we started seeing each other again. And we lived together for a couple of years. And after that, we, uh, we got married and here we are 16 years later and we're still married. And that was probably, being in the Peace Corps and being in the Army and this relationship I just told you about with my wife was the third. These are the three most dramatic times in my entire livelihood because they're very unusual type of stories and they're types of situations, conditions, circumstances that you never planned for. You can't. But you can plan for the Peace Corps and you can plan for the Army, but none of the situations, you never know what's going to happen. But I never thought that I would hitch up, or hook up, or connect with Linda again and we'd get married after 20, 22 years not having seen each other. So that that in itself is another whole story.

Linda Millette: And we'll go into that another time.

Lawrence E. Newman: Yeah. Yeah. But it has been a bit of a roller coaster, but I've learned a lot about myself and learned a lot about people that otherwise probably wouldn't have learned if it had not been for the Peace Corps.

Linda Millette: Well, thank you, Lawrence.

Lawrence E. Newman: No charge.

Linda Millette: For your interview, for doing this. Do you have any other thoughts before we close off?

Lawrence E. Newman: I would just recommend any, any young person fresh out of college and who don't quite know what to do with themselves to at least take a look at what the Peace Corps offers and what you can give to the Peace Corps, because I think the travel and getting out and seeing other places and other people really, really helps to create a better human being within your, within yourself. I think travel is just, just wonderful and meeting people who are different than yourself, especially a different culture, who sees life differently, is one of the best things that anybody can do for themselves. Especially if you're an American, because you can so easily grow up in this country and never have to experience any of that. And I think you've missed something if you don't experience that.

Linda Millette: Thank you, honey.

Lawrence E. Newman: You're welcome.