Ethel Dory Lockerman

Ethel Dory Lockerman

"On the Hill"

"So many, many people worked at the University of Maryland, because that was the only place that we really, you could get a job, you know…at the University of Maryland the only jobs you could actually have would be a secretary, maybe a janitor, or you could work in the dining hall…Mr. Clay Bomb came across some article, or something, that they were hiring in the physics department at the University of Maryland. They wanted scanners. They wanted heart scanners. So he said go ahead and apply for the job. And I was like ‘Oh, dang, there are no black people doing that type of work. And he said try anyway, so I went up there and applied for it. I was the first black to work in the physics department. We were called pictorial data analysts…And you know, we were helping the grad students to get their theses. And then in order for them to be physicists, they had to pass the test, they had to finish the internship. So it was like a four year program that they had, but sadly, there weren't any blacks in the program at the time. Only blacks on the campus during that time was in the chemistry department. Well, we had no blacks in the physics department."

Lakeland Digital Archive - Lakeland Community Heritage Project (LCHP)
Picture credit: https://archive.lakelandchp.com/collection/item/4433

WAV

Timestamp: 4:36