“An Interview To Remember” Penn Student Interviews Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963

In the book “Penn High School Remembered”, which was published by the South Bend Tribune, there is a photo and a story recounting the time that Penn student Dini Cox interviewed Dr.  Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. 

“An Interview To Remember
Lloydine “Dini” Cox. a 1965 Penn High graduate, got the interview of a lifetime when she went to the Town Tower Motel in South Bend to talk to Dr. Martin Luther King on October 18, 1963.

Dini was a reporter for Penn Points, the school newspaper. Bill Gould, a photographer for the school paper, captured this great photo.

The two of them also finagled an interview with John Johnson, the editor of Ebony Magazine, that same year. Dini pretended to be a reporter for The South Bend Tribune and was then allowed to talk to Dr. King. After telling Dr. King that Penn High School had only one black student, he encouraged our community to integrate our schools with a “new” method called desegregation – something we had never heard of at the time.

But within l0-15 years later, the South Bend Community School Corporation began their busing program to bring diversity to all the schools. That was one
of Dr. King’s major points to achieving racial balance for the next generation.

After graduation from PHS, Dini attended Defiance (Ohio) College, where she planned to study journalism, to ultimately become a foreign correspondent. She was told at that time by many professors, that women were not going to be hired to cover war zones, no matter how qualified they were. She then changed her major to Speech & Hearing Therapy and attended Purdue Campus in Fort Wayne, and also IUSB.

Dini returned to the South Bend area in 1978, after having a plant and garden business in Muncie, Ind. She married Thomas Miller from South ,Bend and is now enjoying a bit of an early retirement, with time to enjoy all the important things in life, like her three daughters and three grandchildren. Dini’s eldest daughter, Jessica Miller (Barnhart), was also a writer for the Penn Points newspaper (which changed its name to The Pennant), from 1989-1991.”

“Penn High School Remembered” recounds the history of Penn High School from 1958-2008 in honor of the school’s 50th anniversary.