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Speaking Out
Western Michigan’s Civil Rights Histories
Interviewee: Donald Cullen
Interviewers: Ian Baert and Heather Taylor
Supervising Faculty: Melanie Shell-Weiss
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 2/26/2012
Biography and Description
Donald Cullen grew up near Royal Oak, Michigan. After being in the 4th Marine division on Iwo Jima, he
was stationed in Hawaii before returning to Michigan. Donald now lives in Whitehall, Michigan, near his
daughters. His love for the game of golf is as great now as it was back in high school. He discusses war.
Transcript
CULLEN: Well compared to the, the P-8 that’s a big ship you know.
BAERT: Um hm
CULLEN: It’ll hold a couple thousand men. Well, you know you’re bobbin up and down like this, you
know that it’s stationary, and (pauses) a guy gets crushed in there.
BAERT: Oh Really
BENEDICT: (Interrupts) after he comes…
CULLEN: Next that sticks in my mind more than anything… (Daughter Interrupts again)
BENEDICT: After he comes, after he comes home
BAERT: Yea?
BENEDICT: Uh, makes it through everything over there, and then that’s what happened to him
CULLEN: And then when we get aboard the P-8, and the guy says, “What do you, (stutters), what do you
want to eat? Swiss steak or something else you know? (Daughter and narrator laugh). After eatin’
rations for a month (everyone laughs more), you know? He says, “I don’t care.” They even had ice cream
with that meal, uh so, it was uh… (Interrupted)
BENEDICT: Didn’t you want spam Dad? (Everyone laughs)
CULLEN: You know I’ll tell you one thing, I never, (stutters), I never minded spam.
BENEDICT: Uh hm
CULLEN: I didn’t always, (stutter), I mean compare to some of the other things we had I think. But it was,
I was in an outfit that has a lot of guys from Detroit. That’s where I was from, Detroit, and it was, I don’t
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�know, about 50% guys from right, (stutters), right around the Detroit area. I went to one, (paused)
reunion they had, like you know just the guys in our outfit that was from around Detroit there.
BAERT: Um hm
CULLEN: And I never went to anymore that was it. (Chuckles)
BAERT: Yea
BENEDICT: Tell Ian when you went down to sign up dad. This is a good story. When you went down to
sign up.
CULLEN: I (stutters) I don’t know what you’re talking about.
BENEDICT: Well, well…
CULLEN: I know when I went down there
BENEDICT: Yea, and you told me that you were gonna sign up for the army
CULLEN: Oh, oh yea I wanted to go in the airborne, hmm, cause I had a, my brother was in the airborne,
And, the guy says, “No.” he says, “We got our quota, we take the first 500 men.” that day for the army,
and so he says, “We got Navy, Coast Guard, or Marine Core.” And I said, “Oh, I’ll take the Marine Core.”
(Chuckles)
And that was uh, (paused), the guys never thought nothing of it, it was, but uh I didn’t want that Navy,
they was, (daughter chuckling in the background), I was reading about it in the paper all the time. Those
ships were getting sunk right out of New York Harbor. I says, “I want, I want dry land.” (Everyone
laughs).
BENEDICT: And Charley. Bill’s dad, he went down and he wanted to be in the Navy, cause he loved that
water. Oh no, no, he couldn’t, they put him in the infancy 2:35 – 2:40
BAERT: Oh, I never knew… (Interrupted)
CULLEN: (interrupts) Well uh……
BENEDICT: They do?
BAERT: So you grew up around Detroit
CULLEN: Yep I was uh, in uh, I was uh drafted.
BAERT: Uh hm
CULLEN: and uh, I was a draft warden for 62 out of Plymouth, MI. That was just, not too far from here.
(Waiter comes takes drink orders, etc.)
BAERT: That’s where all of my roommates are at, right around from Detroit, like uh.
CULLEN: You, (stutters), you are?
BAERT: My roommates are right around from Detroit. Livonia…
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�CULLEN: Yep, that’s where I was
BAERT: Yep, and…
CULLEN: Livonia
BAERT: uh Royal Oak, they have that big theater there.
CULLEN: That’s where I was born, Royal Oak
BAERT: Oh really? Yep, that’s where one of my roommates is from and he lives two blocks from the
theater down there, so its uh, that’s why I was just curious though.
CULLEN: Royal Oak Township.
BAERT: Yep, it’s uh, it’s a nice area.
CULLEN: I, I don’t even know what it’s like.
BAERT: Oh Really?
CULLEN: I was move away from there when I was just a little 3:36 – 3:42????
BAERT: Um, so you were, so you were drafted, uh we were talking about um, your childhood, um like,
did you have any, like dreams jobs when you were younger?
CULLEN: No
BAERT: No
CULLEN: Uh I, I think uh why I went in uh engineer outfit is uh I’d worked as a carpenter’s helper, you
know, roofing houses, and I think that’s why they, why I went in a engineers.
BAERT: Uh hm
But I never had no, I wasn’t a carpenter I was just a, haul the lumber and nail em’.
BAERT: Yea
BENEDICT: Well wouldn’t you say caddying was a dream job for yea?
CULLEN: (laughing) Oh, I, I caddied for a long time.
BAERT: Yea?
BENEDICT: (laughing) Oh Yea
BAERT: I was going to do that for a ser too. I (stuttered) looked into that, that would have been a fun
job. I love golf so, that would have been nice, but…
CULLEN: Wouldn’t it? I think uh, well the, the guys around, I ….4:38 – 4:40 With a fella, well we was in
school all the time, and uh, boy we played every golf course around this time of the year. You know,
when they was closed up, and we knew they would be open (laughing)
BAERT: Yea (laughing)
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�CULLEN: We’d go out to Birmingham, or Oakland Hills, (laughing) drive right up the club, There was no
other cars around
BENEDICT: Just like they were members (laughing)
CULLEN: Yea with an old 36’ Ford (laughing)
BAERT: Yea (laughing)
CULLEN: Henry, this guy that hung around us all the time. He had uh, he worked at Cadillac’s
BAERT: Yea?
CULLEN: And he drove the cars off the assembly line out into the parking lot there, you know, wherever
they need them. (Laughing) And there he had to get into that old 36’ Ford, he had to drive it (5:17 - 5:23)
and they don’t have no brakes you know them old 36’ Fords, mechanical brakes, and they never worked
(everyone laughs).
It was (paused) Henry he went into uh, he went into the Army after the war, and maybe he was little
younger than me, I don’t know, and he went over in Korea. He was playing polo all the time, riding
horses. I guess he had a good time doing that (laughing).
BAERT: Yea definitely
CULLEN: He was uh, we caddied together and played golf together all the time. He was a nice buddy. I
watched hockey, not watched it, I mean I listened to it. We’d play table tennis, you know, in a garage
with a (laughing) a little (6:26-6:30) we was always bumping our head on that thing. Anyway, that’s
when Detroit won the first 3 games against Toronto. What was it 1942?
(Laughing)
Well I thought maybe you knew the hockey…
BENEDICT: Dad, I was still a star in heaven (laughing)
CULLEN: Detroit wins the first 3 games just blowing Toronto out. They lose the next four.
BAERT: Oh, wow
CULLEN: I think 1942
BENEDICT: So we come to be Red Wing’s Fans from way back.
BAERT: Do you have any Siblings? Did you have any brothers or sisters?
CULLEN: Yea there was five of us, and my oldest sister, she’s gone, and so is my older brother. And my
younger sister, she uh not doing good, her minds going, like mine is too. Donna told me to, 7:27 – 7:35 I,
I drive over here I thought she told me to meet her over here.
BENEDICT: I said, I see him at the casway and I said to Bill, well there goes dad, (laughter). Good thing
it’s a small town. We can track him down (laughs).
CULLEN: I pulled in over here this morning I thought it was at 9:00.
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�BAERT: Ah
CULLEN: The cop was across the street waiting, boy I had to be careful I didn’t do anything wrong. He
was just waiting for someone to pull a boner, and he was going to nail them. I don’t mind the police
being on alert like that cause I, I usually drive I think slow enough. I don’t, I don’t speed too much. But
uh, you know most the time when I’m driving, every once in a while I’ll look and if I see a speed limit
sign, I’ll look at the speedometer, you know the speedometer, I’m going exactly what that reads up
there. Now is that just, I don’t
BENEDICT: That’s talent, that’s skill (laughter)
CULLEN: But honestly I’ll, if it says 25 I’ll be maybe doing 26 or 27, but right in there
BAERT: Yea, that’s what I usually do too, so.
BENEDICT: Dad has also a younger brother.
BAERT: Oh ok
CULLEN: Yep, Jack he’s a. Does he? Jack was a brickplayer. That longed for me to…
BENEDICT: (interrupts) 8:59
CULLEN: He uh, we worked together for a while trimming trees for the city of Detroit, well that was, we
enjoyed that I think both of us. We had nice foreman. I think having a good ser means a lot to a job. It
makes the day go by so much faster.
I gotta tell you this story with this foreman we had. He’s great big guy. Big teeth, just a big smile on his
face all of the time. We’re trimming on this street you know, I knock down a branch or maybe about this
big, and (estimates size) just about covered all the way across the road. And there’s, oh about this much
snow I’d say (estimates again), fresh snow. This UPS guy he’s coming along, and he’s got a delivery, he’s
pushing this branch along. This big ol’ foreman we got he said, “Can’t you read that sign, it says do not
enter.” “Road closed.” And he’s getting pushed backwards and he’s got feet about like that (laughs).
He’s a great big guy. He loses his temper, the first time I ever seen him lose his temper.
He says. “Goddamn you!” He says, “Stop it!” (Laughs)I never seen Harvey, Harvey Brinks was a 10:27,
never seen him get like that, but there he, he got pushed off edge by 15, 20 feet backwards. The guy
couldn’t get across that, Harvey’s feet was there. He couldn’t get away. It ticked me, you know, I was,
having a bird’s eye view I was up the tree watching it. Oh, that Harvey was a…
Then we, we went over on another Street, Boston Blvd, maybe you know that. Well, that was the
wealthiest street in Detroit, you know way back. Henry Ford lived there, and the whole haul of General
Motor people. Everybody that had money lived on Boston Street. The trees hadn’t been trimmed in
about 20 years, since the WPA had been there. They were way up there; they had trees up there about
80 feet somewhere, Elm trees, big ones. We’d be up there climbing around. Harvey was up and say,
“Coffee!” (Laugh) He’d just like to see us come sailing down out of some trees. It was his way of having a
good day. He was uh, really uh, good foreman. I liked him a lot. He had a, had a brother that was into
racing.
(Stammers a little)
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�His brother in law bought this Lincoln, or (paused), I think it was Lincoln. And that was the fastest thing,
you know for the track, riding on the track
PAULINE: Oh ok
CULLEN: Like what they’re doing today. I, I see that on television every once in a while. They had a big
crack up yesterday. Did you happen to see that or anything?
BAERT: I saw it on ESPN, yea
CULLEN: I was watching that…
BENEDICT: Oh is that a NASCAR or?
CULLEN: Yea about 3 or 4 of them right together coming into, they only had about a half a, not even half
a lap to go.
BAERT: Yea the quarter turn, cause uh, the 11th place guy at, right before the crash ended up winning
the race.
CULLEN: (laughing) Yep!
BAERT: Which is weird so (laughing)
CULLEN: you know there was a car there I was watching, he was, I think he had the most speed. But boy
they kept him pinned in back there.
BENEDICT: Well I think they use that as a strategy don’t they? To kind of widdle people out.
BAERT: What did your parents do?
CULLEN: What?
BAERT: What did you parents do for work?
CULLEN: Oh I don’t know (laughter). My mother she was a worker, my dad was an outman. Then he had
a pool hall over in Highland Park. I, I never, I think I, I didn’t spend I don’t think 3 hours in that pool hall.
I, I never, I rather play table tennis more than pool.
BAERT: Yea
CULLEN: Look it there’s the dog tag I got.
BENEDICT: Yea this is um, Dad’s dog tag.
BAERT: Oh this is awesome!
BENEDICT: Yep, isn’t that great that we found, we were, um looking for, uh the toy box um grandma, she
had a toy box for all of us grandchildren you know, and um Jenna now that she has a child. She said, “Oh
can you find grandma’s toy box?” So dad and I were down in the basement looking around. We found
his (sea bag 14:02 – 14:05).
BAERT: Oh Really? Wow.
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�BENEDICT: And I said, “Look it dad.” And it was his I.D. and, um his dog tag was in it, and we had cleaned
out a couple other boxes and I said, “And what’s this?” and I pulled this great big piece of metal out of
his (sea bag) about this long (gestures), all the cleaning and looking was over when I found that, that uh
gun barrel. (Laughing)
CULLEN: Oh (laughing). My brother Jack had sent into the army, and he got an old rifle and uh then he
bought an extra gun barrel, because they didn’t recommend that gun barrel that was on there. That it
may not be useful, so then Jack bought an extra barrel, and he gave it to me. Well, it’s a, I don’t know if
you know rifles or not, but there are some that have 3 grooves and some of them got 4. Well the 4
groove it shoots a little straighter, it puts a little more spin on it.
BENEDICT: So he has me looking, and I’m not (stutters), I don’t know what I’m looking for. He says,
“Hold it up to the light hunny. I can’t see it real good. Is that a 3 groove or a 4 groove?” Well what on
Earth am I looking for? (Daughter laughs) So I have this barrel… (Interrupted)
CULLEN: Riflemen’s the only ones that have any, uh knowledge of that. You know most people pick up a
rifle and they don’t know…
(Background noise, multiple people talking)
BENEDICT: Dad knew he had it but didn’t know where it was, well they it laid at the bottom of the, of a
(sea bag).
CULLEN: Did you look at that close Donna?
BENEDICT: Yea I looked at it close.
CULLEN: No but there’s something on there I bet you didn’t notice. See that little “C” over there?
BENEDICT: Uh hm
CULLEN: That’s what denomination we are. See I was baptized Catholic
BENEDICT: Oh, ok
MR BENEDICT: Show Ian
CULLEN: And type “O” blood. That’s when I went in 1943.
PAULINE: That’s pretty nice.
BENEDICT: Isn’t that something to put that on there?
BAERT: It is.
BENEDICT: Yea
DAVE: See that was, when I went in, in the 80’s that was uh, you’re religion was a big (16:02 – 16:06
BENEDICT: Oh yes
GUY 1: I bet you it isn’t anymore.
PAULINE: It might be.
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�BENEDICT: But you, but you look at, um the cemetery, um you know Arlington National they all have
record if you are Christian, or whether you are Jewish or…
CULLEN: What other questions you got?
BAERT: Well I was just looking at, uh like, well we already talked about like, if you had any like, where
you saw yourself in 10 years and stuff like that. Did you play any sports when you were younger, when
you were a kid? You remember playing sports with your friends or anything like that?
CULLEN: Well we played sports, uh all, like um when I got out of the service we went my brother; my
brother took over my grandmother’s house right down pretty close to the ball park.
BAERT: Oh ok
CULLEN: On Balt and Temple. It was right on ….street 17:11. There was my older brother Gordon, and
Jack and I and then there was Cullen family across the road (laughing).
BAERT: Yea?
BENEDICT: No relation
CULLEN: (Laughing) Yea no relation, two boys, and then Henry and Mrs. Lawrence would come over.
That’s it. But uh I always ched around with Henry. He had blond hair and his brother had black hair,
Chet. Anyways, we had almost a softball team right there, the three of us with two across the road, and
Henry and Lawrence, they’d come. We’d play softball almost every night.
BAERT: Oh right?
CULLEN: At Naple Field, and we had a short right field fence and, well the street run there, the way the
ball diamond was outlaid. I played short right field there. We was playing black guys. You know they,
they loved to play ball. Anyways, there was one hit out there to me and I caught it, and I threw it into,
Lawrence was catching. He tagged a guy out.
The guy couldn’t make it from third base (laughter). Well it was a short right field wall and all; you know
it never went out very far. You only got a single if you hit it over the fence; you know at a certain so
many posts down. Then it was a double and then there was an entrance way down there and I think if
you had it past that it was a homer.
BAERT: Oh yea? (Laughs)
CULLEN: Isn’t that something?
BAERT: Yea
CULLEN: The way we had it figured single, double, and then a homer (laughs). But uh, it was the bat boy
for the tigers, well Lawrence our catcher he uh went with his sister who was Lawrence’s girlfriend, isn’t
that something? (Laughs)
BAERT: Yea
BENEDICT: Did it get you into the games?
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�CULLEN: uh they never got me into the games. Lawrence’s did, but I mean they called him Tarzan, all the
girls were on there, cause he had long black hair. The only one, you know, that had long hair. I don’t
think I’ve ever had long hair in my lifetime except when I was a real little guy
BENEDICT: How’d you like Stevie’s hair yesterday? Did that remind you of Christopher or what? (Laughs)
CULLEN: I use to cut the boys hair but, then they got so big and they wanted long hair, so I hung up the
clippers.
BENEDICT: And my mom, Christopher had beautiful curly hair and he didn’t want to have his hair cut you
know, and mom didn’t want him to get his hair cut. Here’s dad clipping the other boy’s hair and poor
Christopher, you know he would run and hide (laughs). Well now he has a son and Stevie showed up,
and it was the spitting image. I couldn’t believe it, it was my baby brother right there his child with long
hair, and he’s a hockey player. I said…
(Waitress comes and clears table)
I said I didn’t know if I should call him Justin Bieber or not. He had the bangs all over. (laughs) but tell,
yea, tell him, I want you to tell Ian the story about, um when you guys were cadian and the cadies could
play on Mondays.
CULLEN: Monday mornings. Henry 20:46 and I, we’d be the first ones out there. We’d play 18 holes
before there’d be, uh footprints of anybody else on the course.
BAERT: Wow
CULLEN: We’d play 18 holes and there wouldn’t be no other caddies out there yet. Now, that’s going
around a pretty good time.
BENEDICT: What was the name of the course, um Forest…
CULLEN: Forest Lake
BENEDICT: Forest Lake, and um a friend of mine, son, was getting married and they would come down
there. And so they were going to hold the reception at Forest Lake Country Club. So I said to dad, “Do
you know where Forest Lake Country Club is?” I got to tell you a story about Forest Lake, but anyhow.
Really, it’s very ritzy place now, but what did you say that the course was um private then went public?
CULLEN: Yep, during the wartime cause people didn’t have gas to travel very far. Everybody had a ticket
right on your windshield. You know, when you went into the gas station. You had service men in there,
they’d come out. Well you had to show your card, and then they’d punch it too so you couldn’t get more
gas then what you were allowed. You were only allowed so much gas a week.
I don’t think this country really realized how much the United States dedicated to that war. I mean
everybody it wasn’t just…
BAERT: That’s what we were talking about the difference between, um like, a limited war and like a full
war went. That entire economy, everything was dedicated to the war effort compared to like now where
it’s hardly ever, hardly at all. Was there anything else besides gasoline that everyone struggled at, that
was rationalized? 22:47-22:49
CULLEN: Oh I, I think, uh meat too, I think you had to have, uh food stamps. It was I think everything, but
everybody was into it. I mean I don’t care, the whole family everybody would do certain things.
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�BENEDICT: Uh hm, or gave up certain things, yep.
CULLEN: My sister Joel, that’s, uh older then I am, she was, she worked in the factory. She worked on
the B29’s and I didn’t even know they were making the B29’s. Isn’t that something? Marge she worked
in the factory too. That was my oldest sister. She was 9 years older than I was.
MR. BENEDICT: So did you get drafted Don?
CULLEN: Yes
MR. BENEDICT: where’d you go to base?
CULLEN: San Diego
MR. BENEDICT: Oh yea, Camp Pendleton?
CULLEN: What?
MR. BENEDICT: Camp Pendleton?
CULLEN: No San Diego Base.
MR. BENEDICT: Oh really?
CULLEN: And then you, up north a ways was Camp Pendleton. I was at the rifle range, uh I think I was
there for a week, or two week, I forget now. But uh, you had to go through the rifle range and that was,
you know, when you were in boot camp. But that San Diego boot camp, that (24:19 – 24:22) I bet you is
a mile. I never seen such a thing and the navy was down at the end of it. The Navy uh, I think they had a
boot camp down there at the end of that; but sometimes well I don’t know how many platoons they had
but…
(Waitress comes to table gain bringing something)
I don’t know how many platoons they had…
MR. BENEDICT: You want to eat yet?
CULLEN: What?
MR. BENEDICT: Are you ready to eat?
CULLEN: Well uh I was going to eat with Sherrill afterwards, but I don’t, I don’t turn away food very well.
(Laughter) I don’t, I don’t eat a lot but whatever I take and put on my plate I eat.
BENEDICT: Now how much did you weight when you entered the core?
CULLEN: you’re asking questions I don’t know.
BENEDICT: How much do you weigh now?
CULLEN: well I’m losing weight now, but I was 157 pound for 30, 40 years. I didn’t have to get on the
scale to know how much I weighed, I weighed the same.
(Background noise, joking around, and laughter)
Page
10
�[After returning from the buffet area]
CULLEN: Are you familiar with Muskegon?
PAULINE: A little, I have been here years ago. I haven’t been around here in a long time
CULLEN: What do they call it? The steak and agger.
PAULINE: Oh?
CULLEN: We went there at 9 o’clock in the morning and honestly it’s all, I don’t know how much bigger it
is than this here place, maybe two or three times bigger. Almost all the seats were taken.
BAERT: Oh really? Wow.
CULLEN: At 9 o’clock in the morning. For breakfast.
PAULINE: It must be a good place then.
CULLEN: Oh, you know what? I said Bill, I think, I said, in fact I must be a big man, big eater because
everybody, everybody, honestly the biggest servings you have ever seen. Really I have never seen
anything like that!
[Chuckles from group in the background]
CULLEN: but uh, I talked with a fella that he wants to know about when I caddied. He is with Michigan,
what is it? I don’t know what Bobby is with. What is the topper? What does he have to do with? The
Michigan golf association or something?
BENEDICT: GAM? Golf? Yeah the golf association of Michigan
CULLEN: He was down there at the steak and agger.
BENEDICT: When?
CULLEN: Yesterday Morning. But he left at 9 o’clock. We just missed him.
BENEDICT: And he’s been um he’s been battling severe cancer. He has been at the U of M.
CULLEN: he is getting where he can drive a car. But he called me up every once in a while [in laughter].
One time I told him lets go over and play Lincoln fields. He says where’s that Don? I say it’s like in golf
cars. He said it reminds me of the fields around our house growing up as a young kid. I says it got the
nickname Lincoln fields. Oh he laughed! He has never got over that.
BENEDICT: And his other friend didn’t particularly care for that.
CULLEN: oh no. the guy we played golf with all the time Ken, he didn’t think that was funny at all.
[Laughter from others].
Bill: One time I asked him how his golf game was, and he said a lot better than his dad’s game was!
Page
11
�BAERT: you said you used to play softball with African-Americans in the area? And stuff like that? Were
they treated [cut off]
CULLEN: we didn’t have any uniforms, we just played every night. In the ser time. Not on the weekends.
And it was um, I think I enjoyed playing that softball more than any sport. I think I liked it more than golf.
PAULINE: we played it all the time all day long when I was a kid.
CULLEN: Softball? Oh it gets into you doesn’t it?
PAULINE: I didn’t really have a mitt for the longest time, I finally asked for a mitt for my birthday. I had
one with no pocket in it, the pocket was coming off, and it was the only thing I had to keep my hand
protected.
CULLEN: I had an old black mitt, and you know, I punched holes in it and sowed it and put a string, a
shoe lace across there, to hold my fingers together. I think afterward I see others they put leather on
and around that up there at the top you know? And sowed their fingers together. But I did before they
did I think. But that old glove... we used to play the ford republic. Have you heard of the ford republic?
BAERT: I think I have heard of it.
CULLEN: well Henry Ford had a place for wayward kids and uh, they had a big, what is it, a big farm. They
had all kinds of things there. We used to play them. We used to go and play the Ford republic there and
in softball, or baseball. I was pitching one time, I threw, I was the pitcher, I threw nine curve balls and
struck out three guys. In nine pitches, they never touched the ball. Against the ford republic. But
somebody stole my glove down there. Yeah that black one I had the black lace around it. So I went down
there the next day and told em, I told the coach I said somebody stole my glove yesterday. He said he
thinks he knew who just gone done it. And he went and looked in these guys locker and it wasn’t there,
went in the next one and there it was. He knew the guys that were stealers.
[Laughter in the background]
CULLEN: and the coach he, I said someone stole my glove and he said, I think I can find it. And I couldn’t
believe it.
BAERT: do you remember, like how, when you were a kid, how civil rights were coming up? Or not
really?
CULLEN: nope, there were no, blacks, it was something to see a black person. You just didn’t see em
around our house.
BAERT: that was just one thing that we talked about. Um did you notice how society was starting to
change more technological more uh emphasis on education at all? Did you ever notice that when you
were a kid? How things were changing?
CULLEN: no, not too much. I was... I would play hard and go right home to bed.
Page
12
�BAERT: yeah this ser I worked in a factory, that’s exactly what I did too. I would work a twelve hour shift,
id workout then I was...
CULLEN: you would wanna go to bed!
BAERT: haha exactly!
PAULINE: He may have seen a difference in vehicles over the years being from Detroit.
BAERT: before the war, did you have any presumptions or did you have any feelings about the war
before3 you entered?
CULLEN: oh I don’t think so.
BAERT: you don’t think so? Was it, well it was all around you, but was it, was your family really focused
on it at all with stamps or anything like that?
CULLEN: I remember hearing President Roosevelt when he declared war on Japan.
BENEDICT: but your brother was already in the service before wasn’t he?
CULLEN: no.
BENEDICT: oh he wasn’t?
CULLEN: oh, he went in before I did but not very long before I did.
BENEDICT: oh ok.
CULLEN: I think I got discharged before he did. Couple, maybe two or three weeks but our division was
the first one to break up too when the war ended; of the Marine divisions.
BAERT: um, how were you treated when you came back?
CULLEN: um pretty good, pretty good id say.
BAERT: Pretty good? That was the one difference between each war when people came back, and how
they were treated.
CULLEN: I think everyone was treated the same, I think you got three hundred dollars.
BAERT: oh really?
CULLEN: Must turn out payment. Uh, I don’t think people got any more or any less, it was three hundred
dollars and everyone got the same.
BENEDICT: yeah, but think how the Vietnam vets were treated dad. Think about the Vietnam vets were
treated when they came back.
BAERT: yeah they were harassed and different things like that for a long time.
Page
13
�CULLEN: oh... I don’t think we had any of that.
BAERT: Oh, did you earn any service medals or any ribbons or anything like that?
CULLEN: no.
BAERT: No?
CULLEN: oh, I got some citation for the unit citation; you know the citation everyone in our outfit got
one.
BAERT: oh ok. Um well after the war what kinda like jobs did you have, and uh like where you decided to
settle down?
CULLEN: it was pretty hard for me, I’d take, one year I think I had 6 or 7 jobs.
BAERT: On the west side of the state? Over here?
CULLEN: around Michigan, around Detroit. [Chuckles] I think I worked for the city the longest; I worked
there a couple years. About 3 years.
BENEDICT: and then how did you come up here dad?
CULLEN: How’d I come up here? Well my mother had, lived just out here, on silver crick road. And uh, I
used to come up here. I seen and ended up playing golf at white lake, I used to play at white lake.
MR. BENEDICT: That’s where he met his wife
BAERT: oh ok
CULLEN: I got to meet her, and next thing we got married. It was uh Nina was now Max peach, this is a
story from Max peach she is an old timer out there. But Nina beat all the men down there one Sunday
morning; her golf score was lower than any of the men [chuckles]. And Max, he never forgets a thing. He
knows just how far he hit the ball on number 8! At white lake.
[Laughter in the background]
CULLEN: I even forgot that.
BENEDICT: it was amazing that we are living out there and being out there. Having that be our golf
course and that’s where they met.
PAULINE: that’s pretty neat.
BENEDICT: then Jenna, our daughter, met her husband there; he was the assistant pro at the golf course
and met Eric at White lake.
PAULINE: so how did the men take getting beat by a woman, did they handle it very well?
[Laughter breaks out]
Page
14
�CULLEN: Ma that tickled max peach more than anybody.
BAERT: when you were raising your kids, you rose them on the west side right?
CULLEN: they all went to Montigue.
BAERT: how do you think that was different for them from you, growing up in Detroit?
CULLEN: ohh I think they have way more to offer the kids this day, but uh I think like the, I told Donna
the other day I took two hours of typing in ah, I never monkied with a type writer sense, and the key
board, I still remembered it.
BENEDICT: I showed him my cell phone, the texting, and he knows that they were the same way the
type writer was? And I said yeah. And he rattled off the order of the keys.
BAERT: oh yeah?
CULLEN: and I haven’t picked up a type writer in… I have not been around one sense I was in school, in
9th grade.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page
15
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b3b4bd04e3de773a30524bc505bd2c3f.mp3
30d68b880445b5734a29f13467703995
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Civil rights--Michigan--History
Personal narratives
Oral histories
African Americans--Personal narratives
Gays--Personal narratives
Lesbians--Personal narratives
Bisexual people--Personal narratives
Transgender people--Personal narratives
Veterans--Personal narratives
Women--Personal narratives
People with disabilities--Personal narratives
Muslims--United States--Personal narratives
Hispanic Americans--Personal narratives
Homophobia
Discrimination
Islamophobia
Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Upper Penninsula (Mich.)
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history recordings documenting the history of civil rights and social justice advocacy in Western Michigan. The collection was created by faculty and students as a project of the LIB 201 (formerly US 201): "Diversity in the U.S." course from 2011-2012.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project (GV248-01)
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-02
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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GV248-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1930-2011
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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GV248-01_Cullen_Donald
Title
A name given to the resource
Donald Cullen audio interview and transcript
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cullen, Donald
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Baert, Ian
Taylor, Heather
Description
An account of the resource
Donald Cullen grew up near Royal Oak, Michigan. After being in the 4th Marine division on Iwo Jima, he was stationed in Hawaii before returning to Michigan. Donald now lives in Whitehall, Michigan, near his daughters. His love for the game of golf is as great now as it was back in high school. He discusses war.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Civil rights--Michigan--History
Veterans--Personal narratives
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Relation
A related resource
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-02-26
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1d2c838ae29d67e07635f3c9a23a381e.pdf
251413a7b96e4fca4e33dd8e522c96a9
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Alfredo Matias
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 4/2/2012
Biography and Description
Alfredo Matias is the happy son of Doña Carmen García and a Young Lord going back to the mid-1960s.
Mr. Matias joined the Young Lords during the Month of Soul Dances at St. Michael’s Church Gymnasium
in Lincoln Park. Those neighborhood dances were held for four consecutive Saturdays and the Young
Lords purchased 40, 30-minute advertising slots on the radio to announce the dances. The affairs were
so well attended they were overfilled each night. Monies from the dances were used by the Young Lords
to purchase their club sweaters, which were to be all black with a violet stripe along each shoulder –
colors chosen from the film, “West Side Story.” The film had special significance for young Puerto Ricans
at the time because it was the only public movie of its day that portrayed Puerto Ricans living in the
United States, however problematically. A white, armor shield patch was sewn near one of the side
pockets. The letters “YL” in old English font were marked on the patch as well. Mr. Matias lived in
Lincoln Park and also in Wicker Park for many years. He saw both communities evict their primarily
Puerto Rican residents. For years, one could see Alfredo sitting in the park at Schiller and Damen Ave. or
walking along North Avenue, Milwaukee, Damen, and Division Streets. He would always be humble,
respectful and friendly, and his favorite past time was not whistling but “throwing flowers or
compliments at the ladies.” Mr. Matias has always been dedicated to his heros Don Pedro Albizu
Campos and Lolita Lebrón, and has performed his many poems at the nightclub “Weeds” and several
�other venues for free. A few of his poems include, “El Coquí,” “ El Grillo y La Luna,” “Sin Titulo,”
“Characters of my Poetry,” “Ponle Titulo,” and “Just a Poem.” Mr. Matias says that he was expelled
from school at 13 years of age, from Puerto Rico at age 15, and from the U.S. military at 17. He was
forced from the military because he refused to accept an order that would have sent him to Cuba to
fight alongside other Puerto Ricans in the Bay of Pigs invasion, against the sovereignty of Cuba. He said
then “that he was not going to ever fight in a war against a Latino nation.” The expulsion from the
military has caused him much suffering, including being denied any veteran’s benefits. Mr. Matias grew
up in Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. SabanaSeca is a barrio of Tao Baja, 14 miles west of San Juan. It used to
house primarily a pineapple and grapefruit plantation called the “Stephenson Place,” but the 2250 acres
were acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, the property was turned over to the
U.S. Army and then back to the U.S. Navy. Since the 1898 military occupation of Puerto Rico by the
United States, six military installations have been established in Puerto Rico: one in the offshore island
of Culebra, another in the island of Vieques, and four others including Roosevelt Roads, Salinas, Fort
Allen, and Fort Buchanon. Today Mr. Matias is home in Puerto Rico, content to be by his mother’s side,
and still writing his poetry, “proud to be a Puerto Rican and a Young Lord to the bone.”
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e91315b64b93feb316f1fbb1a4ba8623.mp4
9cf0338c08ee47bf8a93d7435f280b22
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Alfredo Matias vídeo entrevista y biografía
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Veteranos--Relatos personales
Artes, Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago
Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres
Religión
Iglesia Católica
Racismo--Estados Unidos
Relaciones raciales
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65_Matias_Alfredo
Title
A name given to the resource
Alfredo Matias video interview and biography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Matias, Alfredo
Description
An account of the resource
Alfredo Matias is the son of Doña Carmen García and a Young Lord going back to the mid-1960s. Mr. Matias joined the Young Lords during the Month of Soul Dances at St. Michael’s Church Gymnasium in Lincoln Park. Mr. Matias lived in Lincoln Park and also in Wicker Park for many years. He was forced from the military because he refused to accept an order that would have sent him to Cuba to fight alongside other Puerto Ricans in the Bay of Pigs invasion, against the sovereignty of Cuba. Mr. Matias grew up in Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. Today Mr. Matias is home in Puerto Rico, content to be by his mother’s side, and still writing his poetry.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Veterans--Personal narratives
Arts, Puerto Rican--Illinois--Chicago
Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs
Religion
Catholic Church
Racism--United States
Race relations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-04-02
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/91c0b6eddb1b2985f9e9dad5c813f2bf.pdf
4dde4b0c44f5ac2b6df563a5de2b79ca
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Angel “Sal” del Rivero
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 7/11/2012
Biography and Description
Angel “Sal” Del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on
Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field, but he never
left Lincoln Park as he traveled to it daily. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young
Lords in 1959. The other original members of the Young Lords were all Puerto Rican, including Santos
Guzman who moved to Lincoln Park from Philadelphia, Benny Pérez who lived on Halsted, Fermin Pérez
(no relation to Benny), and David “Chicken Killer” Rivera whose regular job later was at a meat market.
Mr. Rivero’s father was the neighborhood barber who cut hair from their home on Fremont and Bissell
Streets, which then crossed each other where they both ended. Mr. Rivero’s brothers improvised a
roller coaster ride made from wooden fruit crates that slid down the railing of their back porch stairway,
racing down into the backyard until the crates finally hit ground on the cement pavement would glide it
on their own. It was exhilarating until the ride ended at the fence. All the neighborhood kids enjoyed it
and the Rivero kids made a mint from the nickles they charged for the rides.The first president of the
Young Lords was Joe Vicente, who had Italian features. Mr. Jiménez became the last president of several
because he was always in and out of jail. Mr. Vicente also lived in the Italian section of Lincoln Park, by
De Paul University, on Sheffield and Belden. His cousin, Johnny Trinidad had moved from New York, to
Indiana Harbor’s Steel Mill area, and then moved onto 95th and Halsted Streets. Mr. Trinidad always
�was free with his opinions, especially before, after, and when he briefly popped into meetings to watch,
but he rarely attended any full meeting, saying that he could not because he lived out of the
neighborhood. Mr. Rivero recalls these early days, noting that the fact that ethnic youth groups lived in
segregated blocks in these early days also played a big difference in their organizing. In 1959, Puerto
Ricans were still scattered throughout Lincoln Park and so the Young Lords did not begin from a
concentrated hangout but were spread out, trying to carve out their own place within Lincoln Park. For
many this meant being targeted by white ethnic youth because they had darker skin, were Puerto Rican,
or spoke Spanish. Mr. Rivero recalls the numerous stands the Young Lords made in their early days. As
more Latinos and African Americans moved into Lincoln Park, Humbolt Park, Wicker Park, and parts of
Lakeview through the 1950s and 1960s, youth began to unite more around national origins. Mr. Rivero
describes an encounter where the Young Lords, Latin Eagles, and a whole range of northside Puerto
Ricans gangs became involved. The Aristocrats were an established white gang that was led by their only
Puerto Rican member, Dulio. They had argued with a Puerto Rican family and had entered into a
primarily Puerto Rican housing project called California Terrace, located by Halsted and Barry near Clark
Streets and threw bricks through all the windows. A war involving about 400 people began and the
white Town Hall policemen hid from view. It lasted an entire week. On one of the days, the Puerto
Ricans walked down Barry Street and broke out all the car windows, from Halsted to Sheffield looking
for and challenging the Aristocrats in their own territory. On another occasion, a stuffed figure of a
person hung by the neck from electrical wires high up in the middle of the street, resembling a lynching.
The war ended when both groups met on their own and agreed to stop fighting, to avoid being arrested
by the police. Mr. Rivero recalls being one of the war counselors with Mr. Jiménez and helping to resolve
the conflict. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr.
Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the
Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first
resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty
policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb0fbf63b71f6e879499cc73be870422.mp4
746487830d8f11961549600761b6eb6f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Angel “Sal” del Rivero vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 1
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Mexicano-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres
Veteranos--Relatos personales
Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65_Rivero_Angel_del_1
Title
A name given to the resource
Angel “Sal” del Rivero video interview and biography, interview 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rivero, Angel del
Description
An account of the resource
Angel “Sal” del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Mexican Americans--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs
Veterans--Personal narratives
Gangs--Illinois--Chicago
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-07-11
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30f6c431e1d4ad985abb3e51b19ba5af.pdf
fc348a471d961203ea3124d833c20c98
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Angel “Sal” del Rivero
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 7/12/2012
Biography and Description
Angel “Sal” Del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on
Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field, but he never
left Lincoln Park as he traveled to it daily. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young
Lords in 1959. The other original members of the Young Lords were all Puerto Rican, including Santos
Guzman who moved to Lincoln Park from Philadelphia, Benny Pérez who lived on Halsted, Fermin Pérez
(no relation to Benny), and David “Chicken Killer” Rivera whose regular job later was at a meat market.
Mr. Rivero’s father was the neighborhood barber who cut hair from their home on Fremont and Bissell
Streets, which then crossed each other where they both ended. Mr. Rivero’s brothers improvised a
roller coaster ride made from wooden fruit crates that slid down the railing of their back porch stairway,
racing down into the backyard until the crates finally hit ground on the cement pavement would glide it
on their own. It was exhilarating until the ride ended at the fence. All the neighborhood kids enjoyed it
and the Rivero kids made a mint from the nickles they charged for the rides.The first president of the
Young Lords was Joe Vicente, who had Italian features. Mr. Jiménez became the last president of several
because he was always in and out of jail. Mr. Vicente also lived in the Italian section of Lincoln Park, by
De Paul University, on Sheffield and Belden. His cousin, Johnny Trinidad had moved from New York, to
Indiana Harbor’s Steel Mill area, and then moved onto 95th and Halsted Streets. Mr. Trinidad always
�was free with his opinions, especially before, after, and when he briefly popped into meetings to watch,
but he rarely attended any full meeting, saying that he could not because he lived out of the
neighborhood. Mr. Rivero recalls these early days, noting that the fact that ethnic youth groups lived in
segregated blocks in these early days also played a big difference in their organizing. In 1959, Puerto
Ricans were still scattered throughout Lincoln Park and so the Young Lords did not begin from a
concentrated hangout but were spread out, trying to carve out their own place within Lincoln Park. For
many this meant being targeted by white ethnic youth because they had darker skin, were Puerto Rican,
or spoke Spanish. Mr. Rivero recalls the numerous stands the Young Lords made in their early days. As
more Latinos and African Americans moved into Lincoln Park, Humbolt Park, Wicker Park, and parts of
Lakeview through the 1950s and 1960s, youth began to unite more around national origins. Mr. Rivero
describes an encounter where the Young Lords, Latin Eagles, and a whole range of northside Puerto
Ricans gangs became involved. The Aristocrats were an established white gang that was led by their only
Puerto Rican member, Dulio. They had argued with a Puerto Rican family and had entered into a
primarily Puerto Rican housing project called California Terrace, located by Halsted and Barry near Clark
Streets and threw bricks through all the windows. A war involving about 400 people began and the
white Town Hall policemen hid from view. It lasted an entire week. On one of the days, the Puerto
Ricans walked down Barry Street and broke out all the car windows, from Halsted to Sheffield looking
for and challenging the Aristocrats in their own territory. On another occasion, a stuffed figure of a
person hung by the neck from electrical wires high up in the middle of the street, resembling a lynching.
The war ended when both groups met on their own and agreed to stop fighting, to avoid being arrested
by the police. Mr. Rivero recalls being one of the war counselors with Mr. Jiménez and helping to resolve
the conflict. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr.
Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the
Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first
resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty
policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c596581aa9b694020f577d4710517808.mp4
c372141b7cc234e8c25f46b8865008cc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
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2017-04-25
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
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eng
spa
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Identifier
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RHC-65
Coverage
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2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Angel “Sal” del Rivero vídeo entrevista y biografía, entrevista 2
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Mexicano-Americanos--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres
Veteranos--Relatos Personales
Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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RHC-65_Rivero_Angel_del_2
Title
A name given to the resource
Angel “Sal” del Rivero video interview and biography, interview 2
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rivero, Angel del
Description
An account of the resource
Angel “Sal” del Rivero was born in Mexico. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he lived in Lincoln Park on Dayton Street. Later his family moved to the Lakeview Neighborhood near Wrigley Field. Mr. Rivero became one of the original members of the Young Lords in 1959. While the Young Lords were transforming themselves into a human rights movement, Mr. Rivero was serving in the U.S. military. When he came out most Young Lords were opposed to the Vietnam War, although many Young Lords also served on the front lines in that war. Mr. Rivero at first resented those who opposed the war. But after Young Lord Manuel Ramos was killed by an off duty policeman, the entire Young Lords group reunited themselves for human rights.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Mexican Americans--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Mexican Americans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs
Veterans--Personal narratives
Gangs--Illinois--Chicago
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-07-12
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7bb38fdc07b797cf3c4580523881c67a.pdf
82a486e39f1a4786c702490a90dabd09
PDF Text
Text
Speaking Out
Western Michigan’s Civil Rights Histories
Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Interviewee: Robert Robson
Interviewers: Kyle LeMieux, Amanda Hengesbac and Tara Yax
Supervising Faculty: Melanie Shell-Weiss
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 10/26/2011
Biography and Description
Robert Robson is a military veteran who was born and raised in Grand Rapids. He signed a contract
with the navy in 1962 and spent 4 years in active duty and 2 years in the inactive reserves. He has a
lot of memories from his time in the navy and talked about his views on the military and being a
veteran in the United States. Growing up in Grand Rapids he had a lot of stories about some of the
things that have been changing in the area including diversity.
Transcript
YAX: Ok here we go. Hey. Ok so I’m here with Robert Robson, Yes? Ok. Here we go. So where did you
grow up? Where were you born?
ROBSON: About a mile from where we’re at.
YAX: Really?
ROBSON: Yeah
YAX: Born and raised in Grand Rapids?
ROBSON: Yep
YAX: How was that?
ROBSON: I started out in Gailwood, is where the first home that I remember. it was a middle class low
income middle class at the time because that’s what everybody made at that time. You know I mean it
wasn’t as the middle class obviously progressed over the years you have the income increase too. But it
was it was just a middle class neighborhood. Everybody was equal. my parents we kind of went
through, kind of went through the depression and everything. when just before I became school age
about four and a half years old and we moved about, about a mile and a half, two miles from where we,
where I was raised. And I stayed there until I left home. and I graduated from Lee High school.
YAX: Oh ok
ROBSON: In 59. So.
Page 1
�YAX: So what was it like going through the depression? Do you remember a lot of it?
ROBSON: Well I was really really young then. I just remember that, I remember more of the war being
over cuz I was, well because I was born in 41, so I, I, but I remember more of the war being over. I
remember, vaguely remember fireworks and guns being fired when the war was over [laughter] Of all
things. There there’s sort of a you know an oxymoron you know. Guns being fired the war is over. but
and, and I remember when we would play we had the tokens and different things. The scrips and
different things that we had, my parents had during the war and, and, and through the depression they
had little tokens that were worth 5 cents or 5 dollars or a dollar or something. Then they had the, the
scrips, which were small little paper chips like and they had values written on them in place of money.
And so it’s, it was kind of like, it, it, it was kind of like a forerunner to the food stamp thing. my parents
had to pay a certain amount, then they would get these chips and then they could go to the grocery
store or gas and buy produce or other stuff with it.
YAX: Oh ok
ROBSON: And I remember running across a book after my mother died of prices that she paid at a
second hand store for, for clothes for us kids. I had two younger sisters and two older sisters and there
was prices in there like a pair of socks for a nickel, blue jeans for like fifteen cents, you know. And I
would just, just page after page in this book, which was about an inch and a half almost two inches thick.
And it was a daily recording of everything that she spent. it just that they had to watch their pennies
that closely.
YAX: Wow
ROBSON: my grandparents actually are the ones that bought the house for my parents. at the time there
was a lot of money. I mean the house that we lived in was a very large two story. It had 3 bedrooms, and
a bathroom full bath upstairs, and then down stairs you had a, a kitchen and a half bath, a sunroom, and
a breakfast nook, and then you had a dining room and a living room. And then the basement was the
basement [laughs]. There wasn’t furnished, but it wasn’t a Michigan basement either. It was just a low
basement made out of cement blocks and stuff. But that house and it sat on a lot and a half, it was on
one of the bigger lots on the street and they paid 5,000 dollars for that house,
YAX: Wow
ROBSON: Which at that time was a lot of money for a house that big, but we had we figure 5 children
and 2 adults living in that house so we needed all the room we could get. And it had a sun porch on the
back, which eventually my parents had made into a closed in room. And my mother moved all of her
sewing equipment up there. But it also, it also served as an extra bedroom and stuff.
YAX: So you lived in a three-bedroom house with five kids?
ROBSON: Yeah it was a little crowded [laughter]. Yeah it was a little crowded. But it eventually as my
two older sisters got out of high school, my oldest sister, she and her fiancé, he was in the army and he
came home eventually they got married and then my other older sister she moved out on her own so
then it was just my two younger sisters and myself at home. But still it was, it was it was tough because
Page 2
�things were starting to change businesses were, my dad really didn’t have a good trade at that time
and he met a man who became a friend and he owned, this man owned the tool and die shop out on
28th street, which is no longer there, the building is no longer there. And he taught my dad how to be a
tool and die maker. And so, and my dad was very good with numbers so he caught on pretty quick. so
he, he he learned how to be a tool and die maker and then from time to time he worked at American
seeding at one time. He worked at Reynolds aluminum, which is now down there on [unintelligible]. It’s
a conglomerate now with smaller, with smaller businesses in there, but it used to be Reynolds
aluminum. Reynolds metals company originally. He worked there as a tool and die maker and then he,
he got, aluminum kind of took a dive for a while there and so he got laid off for a short time and then he
ended up working at Steelcase and he retired from Steelcase as a tool and die man. he quit school when
he was 16 so that tells you, and he was from a farm he was from the wayland area, which is about what,
30 miles south of here, so 25 30 miles south of here. And, and because he lived on a farm it was the
thing for most of the boys to, most boys anyways to go to school until they were about 16 17 years old
and then they would quit school and then spend their time helping on the farm. Well he was an only
child so his extra hands were needed on the farm. But it was you know his, his grand, his parents lived
on this big farm, and they didn’t have a lot of things either. They had a the most modern thing that I
remember down there was that they had a a propane tank and that they had a gas stove. That was
probably the most thing. Because their, their water, they had a hand pump on the sink you know. they
had they raised a lot of their own vegetables and stuff. My grandmother would, would can and they
had a what they called a fruit cellar. And that fruit cellar was actually nothing more than a hole dug in
the ground, under the house, [laughter] and back under the house a ways, so that there was no heat in
it. But in the winter time it acted as cold storage, [laughter] and they would have, she would have all of
her stuff, all of her things that she canned during the summer would be sitting down there and so they
had food all winter long and then they had this big garden and they always had a lot of potatoes and
stuff so they would throw them down there. And there’s nothing worse then spoiled potatoes
[laughter], But they had a small farm. It was an 80-acre farm and they did a lot of bartering. Now we’re
talking, I was born in 41 so this is the end of the 40’s, early 50’s, and they still bartered with the
neighbors. my, my grandmother might have some excess, they might have some excess food out of
their garden so if, and they might want to get some eggs so they would take some vegetables or my
grandmother would do sewing and they would take that to another farmers house and they would
exchange that for say butter and eggs. they didn’t need milk because he had his own milking cows, and
he had, he had, we had, they had some chickens, but they only had like a few. Every once in a while one
of them would upset my grandfather we’d have it for supper [laughter]. So, so the eggs, so the eggs
came out kind of short once in a while. But they had a, they had a pig you know a couple pigs, you know.
It was a typical small, small farm really. He farmed, with horses, he didn’t have any machinery, modern
machinery you know like tractors and stuff. The first time I saw a tractor on his farm was when they
were gonna move from Wayland to Middleville, and what they did was they, they swapped with a man
and his family in Middleville who had an 80-acre farm but it wasn’t farming, and what he wanted was a
working farm, so they just swapped. And my grandfather wanted to get out of the, because he was
getting up there in age, so that’s what they did. And then but they brought over all kinds of people to
help harvest the wheat, and the grain and stuff that summer, and do the baling and all that so that all of
this stuff could be figured into the costs of the farm, and how much of it you know money wise my
Page 3
�grandfather was going to get. Because it was a working farm vs. a non-working farm he had a little bit
more of an investment then this other guy did. So he had to, this guy had to pay him some dollars in
cash. But so when they moved it. But I remember I never saw so many people, I never saw so much
food, [laughter]. And that’s the first time I saw tractors and baling machines. And, and mechanical
thrashing machines.
YAX: Wow
ROBSON: Otherwise my grandfather did everything with a team of horses. He would plow, plant,
harvest, everything with his horses. and I would, I got around five or six, about five years old, four or five
years old my parents would, I would go down on the farm, and when I was about five or six years old I
knew how to drive a team of horses, you know. Which I thought was pretty cool [laughter]. And you
know, how many kids in my neighborhood back home that were older then me, they couldn’t drive
horses, but I could, you know. So, but It was it was that’s the kind of the way the lifestyle was you know.
then, oh and then right across the street there was a lake so they did some fishing. They had fresh fish,
and my grandparents had a well
YAX: Wow
ROBSON: A fresh water well on their farm, which was about four feet, or about, I don’t know, six to eight
feet long, about five feet wide, and about eight feet deep about half full of water. And that water in
there was clear as glass, and it was just as cold as can be, about forty some degrees.
YAX: Oh
ROBSON: And it bull heads in the bottom of it to keep the algae out. They would eat all the algae. So
they kept the water clear. They had Indians that came over that were in the area down there in
Wayland, that picked pickles for some of the neighbors, and they would come over to my grandparents
and get fresh water from them.
YAX: Oh wow.
ROBSON: And these people didn’t have, these people had absolutely nothing to speak of. My parent, my
grandparents were rich compared to them. But these people were proud and they would come over and
get the water, but they wouldn’t just take the water. They’d get something in return for it. They would
do it, and this goes back to the barter thing. they would sharpen grandma’s knives that she needed
sharpened in the kitchen or they would take care of grandpa’s tools for him, you know, sharpen tools
that needed to be sharpened or and then they would, but they had these huge crocks that you see
where they would have the yolks and they would have these two big, on the neck yolks you know, and
they would have these big crocks filled with water. These things held about ten gallons each. And there
would be women that would carry them on their heads, you know, and hey would take them over to the
fields and then they would have that cold water, and these crocks were, would keep that water cold as
long as the kept it out of the sun, and the crocks didn’t heat up. You know. but I remember one of the
Indian families had a death in the family, and my grandparents took some food over to them, and I
remember there was an awful lot of people living in one small house. It was probably, the house was
Page 4
�probably twice the size of this room that we’re sitting in, length and width wise. And it had a loft up
above. That’s where all the children slept, were in the loft. And it had some rooms down below for their
parents and it had a fireplace. That’s where they did all their cooking was in the fireplace.
YAX: Ah
ROBSON: it had a dirt floor in most of the cases, and it was a paper tar shack, but it had real windows in
it, real glass windows in it. But they didn’t have much. Those people didn’t, and but they were good
people. They I mean I thought it was really an honor to know real live Indians, you know, and, and know
the, I, I knew the chief. I can’t tell you their names cuz I don’t remember them it was so long ago. But
they but they were really nice people, you know. but that was how my grand, my great grandfather lived
in the reed city area and I went to his farm one time and you talk about something that would, that was
desolate. I don’t know how he made a living on that farm, but he did. You know. I mean that farmers in,
in, my background being from the farm, these people were, were rugged individuals but they were and
tenacious. They wouldn’t give up. You know. And they, they would just as time went on you know, and
things got better and better my, my mother and father finally after my dad retired were able to have
save enough money and go places. Visit you know, and see some of the world. You know, they and but
it, it all came with time, you know, as, as these things advanced and things got better for us kids. We had
better clothing we could, we could get dress up clothes [laughter] you know, that we didn’t have before,
and so it, it all, it, it you know as, as, as it evolved, as the economies got better and everything after the
war and that things got better. The neighborhood was nice I go to that neighborhood now today and it
doesn’t look any different then the last time I was there as a kid.
YAX: Really?
ROBSON: it doesn’t, it hasn’t changed that much at all. The same houses, and I could go down there and
name the people that lived in the houses you know. It’s really wild. but it but still it hasn’t changed that
much. It’s still a blue-collar neighborhood and it most of the kids still go to Lee. there’s some of them
that go to Holy [unintelligible], which is the catholic school over on Godfrey there’s a few of them that,
that when I was growing up, up on Grandville avenue there was a Christian school called southwest
Christian, and it was a went up to the 7th or 8th grade and then from there they went downtown to
Christian high school, which is now I believe where the state now has welfare offices in there, its on
Franklin I believe it is. at the top of Franklin and its, its that’s, that school up there is was transformed
into a, a welfare office and stuff, and then, because then they built South Christian out south of town,
and then the other Christian school over off in Plymouth.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: So they didn’t need that big building downtown anymore. So the state bought it and that’s
what they use it for. So it’s been a lot of changes and stuff you know,
YAX: Right.
Page 5
�ROBSON: Around, but it but that’s how my beginnings were, basically my, my parents, my grandmother
and grandfather on my mothers side were farmers they lived in Burton Heights right across from Burton
school as a matter of fact, and that house is still there. But they had a huge garden in the back too.
YAX: H.
ROBSON: you know, and you, the amazing thing about my grandfather was he was about 6 foot 3 or 4,
he was a big man, but he didn’t drive. And he got a job at Steelcase.
YAX: Hmm
ROBSON: He would walk everyday to work. From Cutler and Buchanan all the way down to hall and
Buchanan to Steelcase. At, actually he’d walk down there to Century and Hall is where, is where it was.
Everyday, unless the weather was really, really, super, super bad. And then my grandmother might drive
him down or someone would pick him up as he started to walk down there. But, they didn’t have a
whole lot either. Their house is you go into that house and its quite small.
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: It had, I’m trying to remember, I’ve only, I was only upstairs in that house a couple times, but I
think it had a a storage space and a bedroom upstairs and then it had, then downstairs was another
bedroom and a kitchen and a dining room and a living room and then it had a Michigan basement under
it. And it’s, I remember one thing about the house, the stairways were very narrow
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: Really, really narrow. so it wasn’t and course they’d be, being in the city they had gas my
grandmother didn’t have to use a, a coal stove or anything like that. She had a, but it was an old
fashioned kitchen stove
YAX: Mm hmm,
ROBSON: I mean compared to what we have today. But, one of the things I’ll say about my
grandmothers, both of them, they could cook! [Laughter]. They were excellent cooks. and, and my
mother and, and my mother and my sisters, older sisters I think gathered something from those ladies
and the way they did cook you know. these ladies could cook without recipes and the food was you
know, really good. And bake, oh man they made the best pastries in the world. I know my, my dad’s
mother used to make sugar cookies that were probably oh 6 inches in diameter, [laughter] and they’d
just melt in your mouth and then my, my mother’s mother she made the best peanut butter cookies in
the world. And they were just really good. But those, they, both those ladies could cook, so the food was
good. My mother had to learn to do all that stuff. She would go, my mother and 3 of her neighbors
[laughs], this was always room for, they would go through the paper and pick out sales that were going
on, at Kroger, or A and P or, whoever the stores were around, and then the 4 of them would go
shopping together. But what was funny is they might travel, they might spend, use up 5 gallons of gas to
save a dime on food or something, which was kind of funny. But they would do that, I mean that might
be an exaggeration a little bit, [laughter], but, but that’s what they would do. They would go from, they
Page 6
�might go to one store and only pick up 2 maybe 3 items, and then go to another store and get a bunch
more, but when they came home they had all the groceries that they went out to get, but they got them
at, on sale. Also, we, where my, my parents lived over there, off in Gailwood there over by Lee school
there, there was a man named Noel. He lived on the corner of prair [pause to think], what is that
prairie, no not prairie anyway down there in Burlingame right on the corner, I cant quite think of the
name of the street right now, Beverly I think it is, or right near there, and he had a muck farm, a truck
farm, and he would pick fresh vegetables and stuff, and he had a big truck, and he would load it up with
ice and put all these vegetables on it and he would go through the neighborhood and sell these fresh
vegetables. And you could buy bunches, you could buy a watermelon that was as big as you were you
know,
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: For 15 cents. you could buy a dozen ears of corn for 15 cents. You could buy lettuce, either
leaf lettuce or head lettuce, either one for leaf lettuce was maybe 4 cents, and head lettuce was maybe
a nickel. Or you could get he had everything. He had fresh beets, he had just you name it, he had it. He
had Carrots, radishes
YAX: Right
ROBSON: You know the whole thing. And it was all fresh. And you, and he would come down the street
you know, and the women and other, everybody would come out you know and buy stuff, [laughter],
and he’d go on until he sold all of his produce for that day. And that’s how I mean that’s kinda how he
got started. He, he, he evolved, I mean he had several boys, and a couple of daughters I think, and they,
they farmed the land for him and stuff. And their boys, I know a couple of their boys and they all turned
out to be very hard workers. he they, I cant say that they had a lot.
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: but they were all very, very hard workers. Most of them spent a good portion of their life with
produce like that, bringing it around to the neighborhood. So that’s all still part of, of the post war
period, right after, a few years after the war.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: Before things really started to change. And, and you know or big time. It was, you went
through a lot of other changes and stuff in there politically and so forth but it was, it was a whole lot
different then. you didn’t have anywhere near the crime that we have today, mainly because I think of
two things. One everything you wanted you could get at a reasonable price. And, and two I don’t think
you had to be, everybody was equal. You know, they didn’t have, you weren’t you’re neighbors had the
same thing that you did. Ah yeah maybe they, they saved their money a little bit differently and maybe
they were, they might dress a little bit better, but not that much, you know. and their job might be a
little better, but it was all basically on the same plane,
YAX: Mm hmm.
Page 7
�ROBSON: Same scale, same level. So you, so you you were all pretty equal, so you didn’t need to steal
from anybody, or, or anything like that. Its not to say that you weren’t mischievous [laughter], but I, but
yeah. I and my neighbor boy buddies, we got in our share of trouble for doing things we shouldn’t have.
But the for a ling time Wyoming was a township. And so it didn’t, it, its, its police department was a
branch of the Kent County sheriffs department. So even though for a long time it wasn’t a for, it was
quite a few years before they kinda can honestly say they got their own police force. But then, I was
away when I graduated in ’59, and then shortly there after I went to J C for a short period of time and
then I went into service. And then it was while I was in the service that Wyoming incorporated into a
city. and then, a lot of things changed then obviously. a lot of the, the neighborhoods that were
individual neighborhoods now were all one, and if you go down on Chicago Drive between Burlingame
and Godfrey or between Burlingame yeah, well, actually it, its not just between Burlingame and
Godfrey, but if you, you start at Burlingame pretty much and go East on Chicago drive, you can see what
was there. A lot, every, practically every business that is there today was there when I was a kid, but it
might have been something different. some places there’s a used car lot that used to be a standard gas
station. There’s a barber shop where there used to be a Clark gas station. There’s a restaurant where
there used to be a dairy and I don’t know, what’s in that big, at the big store there that used to be a
general store that was run by a woman and it was like a nickel and dime place for us. We’d go in there
you know and if you had 10 cents in your pocket you’d go down there and buy yourself a bottle of pop
or something. We used to sit on her front step and go in and buy a vernors ginger ale and see who could
shoot it the farthest. [Laughter]. But because it was so carbonated.
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: like down through, you could go down through there and you could see the different
buildings. There’s, there was one place that used to make donuts or something like that, I think it’s an
awning shop now. There’s another gas station that does something different. There’s a place that used
to be a bike shop that I don’t know what they do there anymore. There’s a body shop that used to I
don’t know what they do anymore either but right next door used to be a restaurant, well that’s gone
now and there’s a funeral home that took up that whole property. then beyond the funeral home
there’s a drug store that’s been there for years and its gone form one thing to another. and as you go
on down through there and then you work you’re way down Grandville Avenue up Grandville Avenue,
and then down into the city of Grand Rapids. Matter of fact at Clyde Park is where the city of Grand
Rapids and the city of Wyoming meet.
YAX: Oh ok.
ROBSON: And so there on the corner used to be a a hardware store that it was the dpiest, junkiest
hardware store you’d ever seen in your life. But if you wanted anything, if they didn’t have it upstairs
they would find it in the basement. and it burned to the ground one time. And then behind them used
to be Calvinators, which was, they used to make stoves, refrigerators,
YAX: Oh ok.
Page 8
�ROBSON: And things like that. and they that was a big company in there. Matter of fact for the Lee
school district that was one of their big tax people, that was one of the properties that helped Lee
school for many, many years and then they had Calvinators kind of fell on hard times, and then the main
building, which was about 4 stories high they caught on fire, actually it was set on fire by, by somebody
living in there or something, and it burned down, they tore it down so now if you go down there there’s,
there’s quite a big vacant area. But some of the smaller parts of the factory are back in there and they’re
all individual buildings now, but they’re all still parts of the original factory. and then right across the
street there’s a big cement building, it looks like a bank, but that used to be the corporate headquarters
for Calvinator in there. I don’t know what’s in there now. But there’s, it’s changed around there a lot.
There’s some stores in there now and the used to be up on Grandville Avenue it was you’re white
middle class was most of it. And it’s now changed quite a bit too. There’s a lot of Hispanic up in that
area. there’s also some, some of your the blacks are up in that area. and that kinda continues on pretty
much all the way down towards Grand Rapids and to the east toward what used to be South High
School, which is now also a building that, that was a public school but, it has some department of help
of some form in there you know that take care of families and stuff like that in there. and they do do
some educating there too I understand but I don’t know how much. My, my cousins graduated from
there.
YAX: Oh ok.
ROBSON: my mother went to school there. That’s what used to be South High School. Matter of fact I
have a cousin who when he graduated he was the last class that was there. And, they had a chimney
right, and this chimney it was a tradition for many years for the senior class to write their class year on
it. Well when my cousin Russell was there they cancelled that. But somehow his graduating nber got
written up there on the chimney. And nobody knew how it got there.
YAX: Hmm.
ROBSON: So Russell I’m gonna tell on you, [laughs]. My cousin was the one that did it. He went up there
and painted it [laughter]. But, he, he he had 3 brothers, and a sister. they were my mother’s nieces and
nephews, my cousins. 4 of the smartest kids I’ve ever known in my life. first of all my uncle was
extremely smart. Unfortunately he ruined his life because of alcohol, which was too bad. His wife was
just an absolute genius. I, I think that any, any, I mean she was just incredibly smart, and fortunately all
the kids gained that. to be honest with you I don’t know where any of them are today. I know that
they’re all still alive. There’s one of them lived in Hudson, er Byron center. The last I heard my, my
cousin Russell I think lived, was retired from the navy and he was living I think in California or Florida. I
don’t know, maybe he had a place in both. And I don’t know where the other two boys went. One used
to live out on 68th street someplace, but he moved so I don’t know where he went. so I, I don’t keep
real track of my family but I just know that, that most of them are middle income people.
YAX: Do you keep track with your sisters?
ROBSON: Yeah, yeah. Cuz they live close by.
YAX: Ok.
Page 9
�ROBSON: I have one that lives in, well, well, with one exception, which is my sister Martha. She lives in,
in Florida. But occasionally we call once back and forth on the phone or something. and she is, she is
actually my father’s daughter she is not my mother’s daughter.
YAX: Mm
ROBSON: and she was given up for adoption by her birth mother. And the thing about it is, is that she
lived right here in Grand Rapids for a nber of years, and I even knew some of the same people she did.
then my two older sisters, one lives in, in Hudsonville, the other one has passed away. But, they were
my mother’s daughters.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: and then my two younger sisters and myself we all had the same mother and father. And so
there’s quite an intersession of families in there. my, my sisters, the two older sisters they’re father was
in vaudeville. and he knew all of the big names in vaudeville. But, I, I tried to talk to my oldest sister and
she, about what, and she was pretty young then so she didn’t, she couldn’t tell me a whole lot about
them. Which I, I found, which too bad. Because a lot of the people that, that he knew, I mean I’ve heard
them myself you know.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: And some of them might be even heard, they’re, they’re entertaining you know. Fred Allen for
one. Jimmy Durante for another.
YAX: Oh wow.
ROBSON: and a lot of the people that went through vaudeville George Burns a lot of the bands, I don’t
remember all of the band people, but he, he, he knew a lot of the musicians at that time too. so he, he
had you know, quite some connections. And, so it would have been, I wish I could have gotten or my
sisters would have gotten more information you know, but that’s the way it goes. But just knowing that,
that they knew some of the, some of the people that were the starters of the new,
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: Business of show business is quite, quite a shock when I knew about it you know, and I found
it to be quite quite nice. quite interesting. but the family as a whole, my family, myself I’m middle class,
by no means am I rich. I got some money yeah, I worked for a long time to get that money but I got
some money. I have two daughters that I, I help out quite a bit. I would have had more money if I didn’t
have to do that, [laughter] but, but I consider myself the dad and that’s what I have to do. You know, I
have to help my family. I’m divorced. My, my ex wife’s family is all middle class farmers by nature most
of them. They were Dutch they can, they can trace themselves to Dutch immigrants, from from Holland.
I don’t know a lot about them. I just know that, I know her mother and father’s backgrounds a little bit.
And we had a lot in common, you know as far as the background and stuff goes. her brothers were very
smart, all of them. her sister who had a birth defect but it didn’t get in the way of raising three boys, and
teaching school. she was a very good schoolteacher she retired from the white hall Montague area. and
Page
10
�she just passed away here a few months ago. But the boys, one of her sons is extremely smart and he
has a very good job writing programs for computers. He’s self-employed. she has another son that is, he
is my daughters cousins that he lives in Florida with his wife. She is into the medical you know like
elderly, helping the elderly you know as a nurses, as a nurse. and David is a, is very handy with his hands.
He can do a lot of things, but, he suffers severely from arthritis.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: Which is too bad. and their youngest brother lives up around the White hall area, even today
and he has a good job at some company up there, I don’t know which one it is anymore but he has a
good job and his wife is a schoolteacher. their they have some other cousins that, one of them I forget
what he does but he’s got a, it’s a good white collar job, it’s in an office. He has another one that, that is
very artistically inclined. For a long time he went out to Connecticut or somewhere, yeah I think it was
Connecticut, he built furniture.
YAX: Oh.
ROBSON: as a request. You know specialties. You know one of a kind. U, he built some stuff for his
mother and dad that was incredible. Just, and he, he graduated from what’s that design school here in
Grand Rapids?
YAX: Kendall
ROBSON: Kendall. and he’s the one that doesn’t let any grass grow under his feet. [laughter]. He’s
something else.
[Interruption].
ROBSON: Sorry bout that.
YAX: it’s ok [laughter].
ROBSON: but he, and he, he is moved back to Michigan now but he still works, or no he still lives out
east but he, someplace, I don’t know. But anyway he still works with furniture, but he works more on a,
on a, in a design portion of it now rather than a building part of it. And then their sister, their oldest
sister, she graduated from nursing school and then she went on and got a masters degree in nursing I
guess it was and then she, she does transcripts at home. taking and correcting insurance papers and,
and medical papers so that the wording and stuff, and she does that at home. she has, she was married,
she had two boys and now I think she’s got a, I don’t know if she’s married again but, I know she has a
new, a new friend. but her mother and dad, he worked for Consumers, and Mary was a nurse.
YAX: Wow.
ROBSON: So you know, but, out of all of, all of these people that are, I’m related to, we’re all pretty
much at the same level as far as we’re in the middle class I got one cousin that plays in a Dallas
symphony but what his younger brother does I have no idea. but I know he has, he has a family and he
works but I don’t know where it is. I’ve had I can’t say that, that they’re, there isn’t, I know there’s some
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11
�parts of my family that have money, but they don’t flaunt it. They don’t you know, they use it for
whatever and but, we all pretty much stay about the same and I, I tribute that to the way that most of
us were brought up. We were brought up in that middle class white neighborhood you know. I
remember going down to Ann Arbor visit my sister down when my brother in law was going to the
University of Michigan. and that’s where I came in contact with my first black people on a daily basis.
There was kids down there that we used to play on the playground with all the time. Come time to go
home they’d go their way, we’d go ours. Next day we’d come back, and we’d play on the playground.
YAX: How old were you at this point?
ROBSON: At that time I must have been 8, 9 years old. but, I never, I don’t ever remember racial things
being spoken in my family. or disregard for anybody. we had my, my, one of my older sisters, one of her
best friends was a black girl that lived out West of, out off of West Chicago Drive. The street isn’t even
there and neither are any of the 6 houses that were on that street. [laughter]. But they all used to be,
when I, when I delivered the paper, the Grand Rapids press, they were all my customers. And I knew this
family really well. They were really nice people. so you know, racially I didn’t, I was really quite ignorant
about what was going on around me. we had some black kids at school. I didn’t, one of them was in the
band played a saxophone I thought, and he was really good. I don’t, I remember when we had minstrel
shows at, in high school.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: but I don’t remember being actively aware of racial discrimination in those days. it just never
occurred to me. or I don’t, and I don’t know if my parents were or not. I don’t know cuz I, like I say it was
never and all my sisters and everything it was never discussed. They had, they had black, a black
girlfriend. She, she had been to our house so it, I, that portion of relationships never bothered me until I
got to be much older. then I found out what was going on and studied it more and, and I think I waffled
between being a racist and a non racist like everybody else did and started, until I got to the point where
I could really start rationalizing what was going on and so, well for heavens sakes all this time I thought
we were already equal.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: And it didn’t turn out that way obviously. Ha still hasn’t as far as that goes. But it, it was, it was
I mean I played football with, with guys that were, we played against at the time we played against
Reese Puffer from Muskegon area.
YAX: Yeah
ROBSON: And at that time Reese Puffer was primarily a black school. It was another football team. We
didn’t care what color they were, we went out there and played football.
YAX: So you had a mixed high school? Or
ROBSON: Yeah it was. It only, was only one black family but they had I think they had, it was the Jones
family. They had a daughter, and I think the two boys.
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12
�YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: And that was primarily it. Now the school is, is integrated with Hispanic, black, everything
now. I think. I don’t know, I haven’t been over there in years but, it’s pretty much integrated to, to all of
that today, that, a lot like I said earlier a lot of that, that area now is Hispanic and black mix. so that’s,
that’s in the school over there now but my kids are, are both of my daughters went to Rogers and they,
that was a mixed school. and I don’t know that they had a lot of problems there. Matter of fact one of
the stars of the Rogers football team when Becky was a senior was a black kid.
YAX: Hmm.
ROBSON: and, and I know that, that he was, he was thought of very highly by everybody. I don’t know if
it was because, if it was more of his talents or whatever, but he was a good kid. I mean I met him. I
talked to him. He was a good kid. We had, then both of my daughters were in the band and they had
mixed races in the band. and the black kids that they had in the band, I, were really good people. matter
of fact I was in the band in high school, I played football, and ran track and stuff, and, but we had a, I
remember one time we had three rivers band came up here. and we were gonna march in the tulip
festival and enter into a competition at the, the Holt College football field over there after the parade
and they were too. And it just so happened that we found out later on that we were both in the same
flight. And but they needed, they were gonna come up here and they played a concert at our school and
they, they were a pretty good-sized band, and they needed places to stay. Well at that time we had a
house trailer
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: For going camping with and we had all kinds of room. I mean that house that my parents lived
in was pretty close to a hotel [laughter]. I mean we had, I don’t remember how many kids we had there.
But three rivers had several blacks in their, in their band. And some of them didn’t come up here
YAX: Hmm.
ROBSON: But one of them did and he stayed with my parents. they didn’t have an assigned family for
him and my mother says he will stay with us, and he did. The kid was more fun than you could shake a
stick at. He played piano by ear,
YAX: Wow.
ROBSON: And my mother had a piano in the house so we had a great time. We had all of these kids, all
of these girls, we had some of the, some of the kids from my daughter, er my sisters classes along with
these girls, you know to help show em things and we had a great time. and this, out of all the kids that
came up here the black boy was the only one that came over to my mother and father and hugged my
mother and shook my fathers hand and thanked them for the hospitality. The rest of them said thanks
but it was like you and I would say thanks to somebody.
YAX: Right.
Page
13
�ROBSON: But he went out and he, he emotionally got involved with them by shaking their hands and
hugging my mother. And that was quite a bit. Quite something. but it still didn’t, it didn’t dawn on me
personally that there were still problems.
YAX: Yeah
ROBSON: You know. Until we got into the what, the ‘60’s and stuff when the marches and things started
to take place and, and it, it, it came around then and I was, by that time I was in the service and that.
But we didn’t even seem to have that much problem in the service. [clears throat]. Our ship when I was
aboard ship, we had blacks and Hispanics, and whites,
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: And Jews, and everybody else. We’re all kinda you know, here’s Heinz 57 variety and we had
one, one goal and that was to protect the United States.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: You know. And so I didn’t think too much of it. I didn’t really didn’t think too much of it until
after, actually I came home from California. Is when I seem to, maybe because it was, more people were
talking about it. I had a supervisor at work make, make a, a remark one time in a meeting about equality
and he said that in a meeting that he was in someone asked that if if I was a, if we were asked to work
with a black guy you know that’s the way it had to be but they said what if a black guy refuses to work
with a white guy. And my supervisor said well then you discuss it, and he used the n word. And and that
was the first time that I can honestly say that I got kicked between the eyes when that, when I really
started to pay attention to what was going on.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: but even then I can't say that, that we had a problem with it blatantly, in other words out in
the open, but it was there. it was obvious. Certain things that would happen at work you could see it.
But what you did is like everybody else at the time, you just went about doing your job and let,
YAX: Yeah
ROBSON: Kind of hope that if you closed your eyes to it, it’d go away, you know.
YAX: So how old were you when you went into the service?
ROBSON: 18.
YAX: So just right after high school?
[Mood changes with change of topic from childhood to military]
ROBSON: Yeah, yeah. I, I went in, I went, well, I was, yeah, yeah cuz I graduated on my 18th birthday, so
I I went to J C for a short time to the first marking period. Well I played football down there too and then
the grades came out and then I decided I wasn’t really going to be much good at college [laughter], at
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14
�this point in time so, a friend of mine he and I, and he, I used to run against him in track. He went to
Rogers but he was a friend of mine. [clears throat]. And we went down and signed up in the navy
together.
YAX: Why did you choose the navy?
ROBSON: Well the Air Force wouldn’t take us cuz they wanted college education,
YAX: Mmm
ROBSON: And neither one of us wanted to be a ground pounder and neither one of us wanted to be a
marine, so we just decided we’d go in the navy. [laughter]. And when we talked to the navy recruiter he
made good on some things that we could go to school and stuff and get some education there too also.
Not realizing that what he meant was they were navy schools for navy work. But still, they were good
schools and he, he guaranteed that to us.
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: And the other ones didn’t do that. So, with the exception of the Air Force that they wanted
you to have a four-year degree. But, and I understand. But, so we went in the navy. He ended up on
nuclear submarines.
YAX: Ooh
ROBSON: on the Polaris submarines and I ended up on the ships that look for submarines [laughter].
And so that’s the way, and you know I got, I got a lot of electronic schools and training while I was in the
service leadership schools and stuff like that, that were valuable for military and stuff. and then and he
got a lot of computer training, working with the, the polar, Polaris missiles and stuff.
YAX: Mm hmm
ROBSON: So he, he had he had a good education and I, and I got a good background to do what I did
when I came back and joined a phone company. And he, he ended up last I knew about Ron, he was
working for IBM. Now where he is today I don’t know. I haven’t, I haven’t heard from him in a long, long
time.
YAX: So how long did you serve in the navy?
ROBSON: 4 years. 4 years active duty and then 2 years in the reserves but that was inactive reserve so I
didn’t go to meetings or anything.
YAX: Oh ok.
ROBSON: The contract that I signed was a 6-year contract so I had to, I had to decide how, what I
wanted to do you know.
YAX: So that was early ‘60’s?
ROBSON: That was 1962 through 64 was my active duty,
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15
�YAX: So nothing,
ROBSON: So I was officially out of the army, er out of the navy in 1966. In February ’66 is when my, is
when my obligation to the navy ended.
YAX: So there was nothing going on then was there? like,
ROBSON: Yeah, there was.
YAX: Was there, was there Korea or Vietnam?
ROBSON: well I was in when, when Kennedy was killed,
YAX: Oh!
ROBSON: Matter of fact we were out in the pacific on an operation when the word came over that
Kennedy had died and had been killed, had been assassinated and that a radio tower had been blown up
in Arizona. And the, the group that we were working with were given immediate orders to head for the
Panama Canal.
YAX: Ooh.
ROBSON: And we just made a u-turn and headed straight south.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: by the time we got on station and got everything organized and everything, word had come
that there was a single person that shot Kennedy and that that person had been killed. and then, but
they, what we did is they asked us to stay on location for I think it was 32 hours, 2 days roughly.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: A little over 2 days, day and a half, something like that. And so we did. And then we went back
to our exercises and stuff. But, we immediately set to getting the ship war ready. Cuz we, no we didn’t
have any, you know, the, the group did not know all of the details and so it just became straight go to
this and be ready for anything.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: So that’s what we did. And that was kind of nerve-racking. but the ship that I was on had been
blown up during world war II, I mean it had hit a mine so. But it was ok. It floated. [laughter]. But
YAX: You’d think they’d get new boats for that.
ROBSON: Yeah. No they rebuilt this one. [laughter]. Put a new bow on it and everything. But yeah that
was and then I think, [pause], I was stationed in Pearl Harbor when the first rangers quote advisors went
to Vietnam.
YAX: Mm hmm.
Page
16
�ROBSON: These guys were, were something else. They were, they were, I remember seeing some of
them go over on the, on the beach of liberty and stuff and you could comb your hair in the buttons on
their, their uniforms. These guys were spit and polished. And they never went anyplace alone. There
was at least two or maybe three of em together at all times.
YAX: Hmm.
ROBSON: but they were, they were the first Green Beret’s that went over there and we, I was, at the
time I was stationed at the submarine base and 5:00 in the morning you’d hear those clowns running
through the base [makes sounds to imitate the running], you know doing their calsenic’s or running
through the base. But, they were good guys. They really were. All of them were, had to rank a sergeant.
YAX: Mm
ROBSON: And but they were really good guys. Yeah, you go to talk to these guys and you could talk to
them anytime you wanted to, you know. if we’d meet, if we’d meet them on the, on the beach or
something we’d sit there and I’d, I don’t know about the guys with me but I always liked talking to them,
finding out where they were from and stuff. And, these guys were, were good guys. They were they
knew that, where they were going, they knew what their job was gonna be and, and they knew that
some of them probably wouldn’t come home. But they they were really good people. and they were
very military people. I’ll say that much for them. [laughter]. But they were, their uniforms were spotless.
I mean absolutely spotless. You couldn’t find a lint on their uniforms anyplace. Their boots, you could
see your face in them, in their boots.
YAX: My goodness.
ROBSON: But they were, they were really, really squared away people. and they didn’t get in any trouble
nobody gave them any trouble either. but they were good people.
YAX: So you said you were in,
ROBSON: I was stationed in,
YAX: California?
ROBSON: California when, when Kennedy got killed and I was stationed in Hawaii when Vietnam started.
YAX: Now did you ever have to go over to Vietnam?
ROBSON: No. No. No. when I was in Hawaii we went to what we called west pack.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: Which was Western Pacific and that included a 6 month tour over there where we would go
to, where did we go? We went to the Philippines, we stopped at the Philippines. We stopped at Hong
Kong and then Japan. And and then back home to Hawaii. Well, I was also in when they did the atomic
bomb test. When I was stationed in Hawaii they did the atomic bomb test in the South Pacific and blew
up an island.
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17
�YAX: Did you get to see it?
ROBSON: Oh yeah. That is one thing that having seen an atomic bomb go off, is that I don’t ever, ever,
ever want to see anyone, another one go off. I saw 2 or 3 of them go off and the best place to be if one
goes off is right there underneath it because you won’t even know what hit you. It’ll, you’ll be a cinder in
a blink of an eye.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: [pause]. The first one we saw was set off at night and we were, I don’t know how far away we
were. I know we were beyond the horizon. Horizons are 10 yard, 10 miles.
YAX: Ok.
ROBSON: Cuz that’s, the earth curves every, about every 10 miles. And, when that mushroom cloud
came up over that horizon, first of all it was one of the most spectacular, and beautiful things I ever saw
in my life.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: The colors in it were so vivid, it was just hard to explain. And then you think about, that was
the energy that was released, I mean that wasn’t all the energy that was released. That’s just the energy
that burn up.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: it was scary. It really was. It was scary. they dropped, the biggest one that they dropped
turned out some of the lights in Honolulu, from the flash. It was in the newspaper out there that, that
some of the traffic, er some of the lights were affected by it, which is incredible that man could make
something like that. And the last one that, that went off they dropped from a B 52, and it went off 500
feet above the ground.
YAX: hmm.
ROBSON: And, when they let us come out topside it looked like daylight but, it was green. The, the color
was green. Cuz it was overcast.
YAX: Mm hmm.
ROBSON: And it actually was about 4:30 in the morning. [laughs]
YAX: Wow.
ROBSON: There wasn’t supposed to be any sun. And then it slowly faded away, and I mean really, it was,
it faded away so slowly that your eyes didn’t really realize what was happening.
YAX: Mm hmm.
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�ROBSON: until all of a sudden it was dark again. And, we were quite a ways away from that but the first
one was enough for me. I, I know, I know I’ve, I’ve thought about it many time. About an atomic bomb,
and every time I see the ones that were dropped during World War II I, this is gonna be hard to explain
but I, I think how lucky the people were that were at ground zero versus the people that were 10, 15, 20
miles away.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: Because those people are still suffering
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: From the radiation burns and stuff.
[phone call]
YAX: So why were they setting them off, I mean if it was after World War II?
ROBSON: In World War II they were setting them off to end the war.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: They were setting them off to make the Japanese surrender really.
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: Because if the allies had invaded Japan the loss of life would have just been catastrophic. And,
Truman made the decision to drop the bomb, and they dropped the first one but the Japanese wouldn’t
give up so they dropped the second one, and the Japanese instantly decided that enough is enough.
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: And that’s why. And then, in the sixties when they were doing it, when they were testing
them, it was because it was before the nuclear test ban treaties and stuff went in.
YAX: Oh, OK.
ROBSON: So everybody was testing. And then we tested some out in Utah and some of the other places
in the silos, and in underground bunkers. They were blowing them up under there.
But there underground, less radioactivity was released into the air.
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: And they dropped a couple of hydrogen bombs also. But the atomic bomb, people talk about it
like it’s a pill. And it is. It is a very deadly pill. Like I say, the best place to be if one goes off is right at
ground zero. Because at least it will be over for you, but the people who are out at the fringes will suffer
for years and years and years. As a matter of fact, the one island, Christmas Island, out there where
they had people that used to live, and they moved the people off the island to another island. And they
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�won’t let them go back there because it’s still radioactive. And the half-life of radioactivity is twenty-five
thousand years. That’s the half-life. So when you reach twenty-five thousand years, that’s half-life
you’ve another twenty-five thousand for another half-life, and another twenty-five thousand for
another half-life. In other words, nobody will live long enough to see that radioactivity be nothing.
YAX: Wow.
ROBSON: That’s why it’s so dangerous, that’s why it’s terrible. Nasty, nasty stuff. But yet, you can
harness it and do good things with it. But at the same time it’s just [moment of silence] Yeah every time
I think about it I don’t wanna see one go off.
YAX: So do you disagree with the decision to drop them on Japan, or what are your thoughts on that?
Since you’ve seen what it can do.
ROBSON: Well, what I saw in the sixties, that one bomb was more powerful than both of those put
together in Japan. However, the bomb that they dropped on Japan wouldn’t fit in this room.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: It was hungous. Because of all of the electronics and everything that had to go inside of this,
in order to set it off and to get the chain reaction going inside of it. And those bombs never touched the
ground. They went off above the ground. Because it sent the force down and then the shock waves
went out.
YAX: Oh, OK.
ROBSON: And everything went with it. I mean that’s why, if you’ve ever seen some of the videos from
the cameras where they had a simulated village, and they dropped on and it looks like a wind storm.
And that’s all of the radioactivity, carried with all of the power of this thing. And, it just blows things
over. I guess, I mean I was just a child at that time, when they dropped the bomb. I know that I had a
brother-in-law that was in World War II, I had an uncle that was in during World War II, both of them
came home. My uncle trained pilots, even though he was an enlisted man, he trained pilots. In
propeller planes, because they didn’t have jets to speak of. And my brother-in-law worked in an
ammunition depot. Well he only had one eye, he had a glass one. He got shot by his dad hunting, it was
a hunting accident. And he accidentally got shot by his dad and it put his eye out. So they couldn’t send
him overseas so they kept him on, and I had a brother-in-law who served in Korea, and he was on a gun
crew. He was a spotter for a gun crew. They were all killed except him and the other guy who was him
down below. And they said he was a different person when he came home, cause I didn’t know him
previously. I had a brother-in-law who was in the air force during Korea. But he had a desk job. But it
was handling important stuff. And I had a brother-in-law who was in during Korea, or just towards the
end of Korea. And he was at a supply depot, because that’s what his background was in. And he was
good at it and they needed people who were good at that for logistics and stuff. My cousin, that I told
you about from high school, he was an officer in communications and he had a top secret clearance.
And when Vietnam broke out he was called back to active duty. And that was when he retired, he was
from the Navy. These guys, none of them had, none of them, witnessed an atom bomb. I don’t know all
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�the truth about the atom bomb in World War II. I do know that one of the biggest reasons was to end
the war, they knew it would end the war. It killed thousands of people, innocent people. And it maimed
even more. Ground zero is still there, they haven’t restored it. It looks just like it does in the pictures. It
did end the war that’s what they wanted them to do. That’s what both bombs did. They ended the war.
One of the stories was that because the allies were getting closer and closer to Japan, they had pretty
well beat up their air force, and had pretty well beat up their navy. But they had hundreds of thousands
of people that they could put in as infantryman. And the casualties to invade Japan, like I said, based on
history, would have been catastrophic for both sides. It probably would have gone on longer, obviously,
if they hadn’t dropped the bomb. But the allies probably would have won out. Because we had
everything the Japanese didn’t have. We had more resources than they did. Based on history, I didn’t
have to make that decision, but I’m sorry, to a point, that it was the United States that used it the first
time, but it was the United States that used it the first time. Because if any of these other dictators or
countries that have or want to build a nuclear bomb want to see what it does, look at the films. As far as
a nuclear proliferation goes, I agree with that. I mean we have guns that can shoot an atomic bomb
shell fifty, sixty miles or a hundred miles. I mean it’s stupid. We got ships that can launch thirty-two
missiles. Each one of them could be equipped if we had to. It’s stupid, what do you gain by blowing up
half the world? Then you can’t live in it anyway. You know? So you go the biggest and the loudest toys,
big deal. I don’t see a single conqueror that wanted to rule the world ever succeed. I don’t think any of
them succeeded. And had they, the Roman Empire was probably the closest anybody came because
they controlled so much of Europe. And look what happened, they folded from the inside. The British
Empire, for years the sun never sat on the British Empire. It does now.
YAX: [laughs]
ROBSON: Because most of those countries are now independent. So you don’t gain anything by ruling
other people. I don’t see any positive stuff coming out of it. All I can see, is thank God that the bombs
that we did drop are not the bombs we have today.
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: So you know we got ships floatin’ out there all over the world. We got airplanes, we got so
many ways of delivering atomic weapons. Just conventional bombs, for crying out loud, will kill
hundreds or thousands of people. We don’t need atomic weapons to do that. And the fact that people,
Japan is a good example of that when they’re, when that powerhouse got hit by the tsunami. We really
don’t know all there is to know about atomic energy. We know it can be useful. But at the same time,
it’s kinda like how long before it turns around and bites you. It’s kinda like a rattlesnake, you can pick it
up for a long time but eventually you’re gonna get bit. And then you hear that the United States has one
hundred and four of them built over faults, and they knew the faults were there when they built them.
What does this tell you? You know? The newest one that was built, that I know of, in Michigan was up
north near Charlevoix. What is it Flat Rock or whatever they call it? Little Rock. The other one, they
tore it down because it was too small to serve the area, plus it was one of the first ones built. And it was
falling apart anyway. So they built a newer one, bigger one, more efficient one, to feed a bigger area up
there. A B-52 crashed in Lake Michigan, making a bomb run. On that one up there. Strategic air
command used to practice bomb runs, and it crashed up there off of Lake Michigan. The said there
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�were no nuclear weapons on board that plane. Nobody ever bothered to argue about it. But they did
get all the weaponry off the plane. Even though it was laying in the water. So they’re vulnerable, you
can’t protect them all. South Haven, for crying out loud, it’s built right on the beach for Pete’s sake.
YAX: [laughs]
ROBSON: The reason why is it was built so close to the water was just for that reason, it was close to the
water.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: They could pump the fresh water in, keep it cool, pump the hot water back out. Well they’re
doing the same thing with the power plant over by Grand Haven. The Conser’s plant over there, it’s a
coal operated plant, but they’repumping water in, and they’repumping water out. And it’s changing the
environment in the Great Lakes. You have the big one up by Ludington up there, where they pump all of
the water up into the reservoir, which is humongous, it’s one giant lake. But it goes up through big
screws, kills all kinds of fish. And then when they want to generate electricity they release it and let it
flow down, spin the turbines and generate electricity. We have power that comes from up there. So we
got a lot of things we got to try and answer. But nuclear bombs are probably the one answer I don’t
want to see anybody use.
YAX: So what are your thoughts compared to when you went into the service to now, on the U.S. as a
country? Did you have more patriotism when you went into the service, and then lost it as the U.S. has
developed?
ROBSON: No.
YAX: Same thing?
ROBSON: I don’t feel any different. I mean, it’s like anything I’ve done in my life, there are always things
that I don’t like. Decisions that people have made that I don’t like. When you’re in the military you may
not like the decisions, but you kind of, sort of, have no choice but to follow the laws.
YAX: OK.
ROBSON: And especially if you’re in the navy, the shortest distance to land from that ship is ten miles at
any given time. And it is usually straight down. So you don’t have a lot of choice[Both laugh.] You know?
But, I get very upset when I see Americans destroy the American Flag. I get very upset when I see
Americans cuss the government. I get very upset when I see people, in our own country, disrespect our
president and even our congress. And I don’t like anything that’s going on right now, but that doesn’t
mean I have to disrespect the people that are there. And I probably do. [Both laugh.] By some of the
things I say, you know? But, basically it’s not the people, it’s the position that they hold is what deserves
the respect, you know? The president of the United States, that job doesn’t come with a hand book.
Congress, to be a senator doesn’t come with a handbook. To be a representative doesn’t come with a
handbook per say. But, what it comes with is an expectancy to be an adult at all times.
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�YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: You know? And to understand, to make it a point to understand what the constitution says
what you can do and can’t do, what the laws read. There was a discussion the other night on T.V. about
when Ford pardoned Nixon. I understand why he did it, I didn’t agree with it, but I understand why he
did it. The thing is, is that there is nobody that I know of, in this country, that’s a citizen or a non-citizen,
that is above any of those laws in this country. I don’t care how much money they have, or how little
money they have, nobody is above the laws of this country in my opinion. And I feel the same way as I
always have, it’s my country, if I want to kick it I’ll kick it, but at the same time, don’t try and take it away
from me. And that’s kind of the way I felt when I was in the service, it’s my ship, I live on it. And I’ll fight
with the guys aboard my ship, but if you fight with one of the guys aboard my ship, you’re going to fight
with me.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: I think that’s the way it should be. I don’t expect everybody to like what’s going on, but I
expect everybody to be respectful of the people. Just like I don’t like what the cops are doing, or the
local governments are doing about these people that are, peacefully, demonstrating. Using tear gas and
things to get people to move. I also don’t think that if they were told “you can’t be in this section of
town because it hinders the business of the overall town.”
YAX: Like downtown?
ROBSON: Yeah. I don’t think they, well I mean, in some places like in Chicago they used tear gas and
stuff.
YAX: Oh, like the recent protests?
ROBSON: Yeah. They used the recent protests because they I agree that there was a lot more that
should have been done, when the crash came. There is obviously some things that were not done
according to Hoyle. They may not have been outright crimes. But they definitely should have been
looked into, to make sure that what they did was out of stupidity, and not out of want and disrespect for
the law. That any one of those CEO’s, or CFO’s, companies, any one of them I think should have been
taken out of office. And I think some of those big banks should have been broken up. They broke up
AT&T because they were afraid of AT&T, they were making a billion dollars every quarter. They were
huge, and they broke them up. But, they made kind of a mistake. They made seven AT&T’s.
[Both laugh.]
ROBSON: And they didn’t put anything in the restrictions about getting back together. In other words,
buying each other out to make them bigger. And that’s what has happened, you don’t have the seven
operating companies, per say, anymore. Ameritech, or SBC as they were then, bought AT&T for sixtyfour billion dollars or something like that, it was a steal. Because we paid four hundred million dollars,
or billion dollars whatever it was, for Southeast Bell, just to get the cellular part of it. Because that’s the
way the deal was. And also, the CEO, at the time, of SBC was a true in the wool AT&T man. And at the
time the present management of AT&T was running them into the ground, and he couldn’t stand it. And
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�that’s why we bought AT&T. And that still isn’t complete, that’s still going on. In fact, I used to laugh
when I looked at my pay check because it said up in the corner “Michigan Bell”. [Both laugh] And it was
drawn out of a bank in Louisiana. But what it comes down to is that, all of the franchises and stuff were
in Michigan Bell’s name. Even though you change the name of the corporation, you still have all of these
individual things that don’t change because it would cost too much and take too much, you wouldn’t be
gaining anything anyway. But, I always used to laugh and say “ah I’m still working for Michigan Bell”.
YAX: So, going back to like service and stuff, a couple years it was really big, people protesting service
peoples funerals.
ROBSON: Well, that particular group, I don’t know if they had any of their members die in the service or
if their members had objections to going into service, I don’t know.
YAX: Well what they were protesting…
ROBSON: I didn’t agree. I knew what they were protesting. They were saying God was allowing
Americans to die because of homosexuality and other things, but I think homosexuality was the biggest
thing they were using at the time, or was one of the things. And I’m thinking to myself, “what’s that got
to do with it?” But, I don’t, as far as the first amendment goes, the freedom of speech and the right to
assemble, yeah OK do it. But remember that you and I have a right to bury your dead in a peaceful
matter, as much as I have a right to demonstrate. But, even if I demonstrate I don’t have the right to
interfere with what you do. Because then I have crossed a line. Or vice versa. And when you’ve crossed
that line, then I think it’s time that you, that one should have legal sanctions. I don’t care how much
noise they make, as long as, if they have got to stay on that side of the side walk. I don’t like it, I don’t
like it at all. I think it shows total disrespect, and I think what it is, it’s one man it’s another Waco, Texas
all over again. The way I look at it.
YAX: another what?
ROBSON: Another Waco. Where they had the one guy, he got all of these people in there and then the
house caught on fire and they all burned up; in Waco, Texas.
YAX: When was that?
ROBSON: Just, not too long ago. A few years ago.
YAX: Oh, I don’t watch the news very often [laughs].
ROBSON: I forget what this guy’s name was. But anyway, he thought that he was the messiah or
something, was God or something, and he got all of these people in there and all of these girls in there
and was having relationships with young girls, and all the children that were in there. But they had fifty
caliber machine guns and they were armed to the hilt. Well I don’t know that the people in this church
are that way, but this is the same guy that was going to burn the Quran. This group that’s been
protesting the cemetery, or the funeral, and he was the same guy that was going to burn the Quran.
And he didn’t do it. I think there was a lot of pressure put on him not to do it, and because he thinks
that these people are all heathens and everything else. I don’t agree with the war, I didn’t agree with it
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�when Bush started it. I thought it was a case of trying to save face because his father was, when his
father was in war he was forced out, you know, and he didn’t finish the job or whatever.And personally
I’m getting a little sick and tired of the U.S. going into these limited wars and letting the people in
Washington run them. It has been that way since Korea. Truman wouldn’t let MacArthur go beyond the
thirty-eight parallel, which divides the country so we ended up with two Koreas. And in Vietnam,
Johnson didn’t want to blow up the country and go after it full hawk the way they should have. And that
was an unpopular war just like the ones were going into now, the only difference is, is that were
welcoming the soldiers back now with a little more enthusiasm and appreciation than we did for the
guys and gals from Vietnam. And that’s too bad because I had some friends in Vietnam, and I know what
they went through over there, I was glad they came home in one piece.
YAX: Right.
But I wish people would go back to the days of civility and honoring your neighbor. I know it sounds a
little biblical, but it doesn’t take that much, it really doesn’t. I don’t like everything that I do. This sounds
like a self-incrimination, which it probably is, but if I haven’t hurt anybody when I did it, then I don’t feel
too bad about it. Because most of the things I do, I do more to just break down some stress, it’s my way
to deal with stress. And I figure if I go down I’ll take everybody with me, and we’ll all have a good time
doing it.
[Both laugh.]
ROBSON: But I don’t like the way they did it, and you haven’t heard too much about them lately. But
they’ve had some pretty serious losses filed against them recently here, and it has kind of quieted them
down here. Kind of like the abortion issue I think is one that can really become a sticky wick. We got the
law that abortion is legal. OK, fine. We’ve got laws that say that you can’t use federal government
money. OK, fine. That’s the law. And now everybody else wants to add their two cents worth to it.
Which, to me, is nothing more than duplication, and time wasted. I don’t agree with what happened
out west, when that guy went into the church and killed that doctor. I don’t, I can’t even condone that.
That guy had no right to take that doctor’s life. Just like I have no right to take yours or any other. I don’t
believe that destroying a person’s private life by publishing their phone numbers and their address, and
their children and everybody else. I don’t believe that’s the way to deal with an issue. These people are
trying to put themselves above everybody else, using the old quotation, they’re holier than everybody
else. And they’re not, they’re not different than you and me. They put their pants on one leg at a time,
you know? So I don’t know where they get off trying to be so radical. In the paper, recently I read about
a young boy, nineteen years old, killed an eighteen year-old. Because he thought that the eighteen
year-old had taken advantage of his ex-girlfriend. So what does he do? He stabs the guys twenty-five
times, but that isn’t what killed him. What killed him was when he cranked him in the head with a
shovel. So what did the kid gain? Not a thing. Like the boy’s father said, “all you have to do is call the
cops if that’s what you think”, it would have solved the problem. You know? Your family wouldn’t be
feeling the way they do because you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison, my family wouldn’t
be without a son. And there’s a girl out there no that can’t feel too proud of herself, because of what he
did. So there’s a minimum of three families that have been affected by this. Anytime the radicals decide
to do something it is narrow, and I don’t think they look at it from a broad picture point of view. And I
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�don’t think they intend to. Just like the animal rights people who burned down that laboratory in
Michigan State a few years ago. That’s a crying shame they did that. They destroyed a lot of medical
information. We were here to be put in charge of the animals, and whether it sounds right or wrong to
use animals as guinea pigs, no pun intended. [Both laugh] I didn’t create the animals with some of the
DNA that they’ve got in them, and that’s close to you and me. But, if it helps to make my life easier, and
if one of those little critters dies, I’m sorry, but that little critter can take credit for saving a lot of lives. It
might seem inhumane, but take one of those people and do one of those experiments on them once.
And if they think it’s inhumane, look what they’d have to go through. And chances are, the human body
being what it is, they’re not going to find a cure out of the human body anyway.
YAX: Right.
ROBSON: Although there are people out there that have certain strains of DNA in them that do have
some positive things that could be used. I understand radicals have their place, they have their rights
just like I do. But, I don’t agree with all that they do, especially when it comes to taking life. And when it
comes to, I brought up about the abortion thing, I think that a woman should be able to go to her
doctor, with her husband, and say, “We don’t want this baby. It wasn’t planned.” And it’s early enough,
I think abortion would OK that way. And I think the husband should have a word in it as much as the
wives do. And maybe that’s why so many men are the radicals, I don’t know. [Both laugh.] But,
tomorrow my opinion of that could change, I don’t know. I’ve had sisters who have had miscarriages.
My ex-wife had a miscarriage. I know what it did to my wife, mentally for a while. And, I know what it
did to my sisters, mentally for a while. And, if they had, I know my sisters well enough, I don’t think they
would have had an abortion if their child could have lived. I don’t think there was anything wrong with
the child, it was just that their body wasn’t ready to have a child. I don’t know. And, in the case of
nowadays, I think spina bifida is one of the things that if they catch it early enough in a fetus they can fix
it, and the child will be born without it. That hole will be taken care of and the child will progress
through pregnancy normally. I read that in the reader’s digest, or someplace, I don’t remember. But
they can do that, if they know that the baby has that problem. And there’s other things that they can do
with the fetus, that if they’re aware of it, they can fix it while it’s still in the mother’s womb. And the
child will be born normal. One of the things with abortion is that people want a perfect child. When you
decide to have a child you always flip a coin, and it always lands on the edge. It doesn’t land on heads or
tails, it lands on the edge. And that is just the coin’s way of saying “I don’t know either.” You know? I
remember when my wife was pregnant; they asked us, “what do you want, a boy or girl?” And we said
that we didn’t care, as long as it was healthy. So we had two girls. Which just adds the toll up of people
in my life that are female. [Both laugh.]
ROBSON: So it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.
YAX: So you should understand women fairly well then?
ROBSON: No I don’t. [Both laugh.] I sat one day and figured out all the women in my family and all the
women on the outside of my family. And I sat there, looked myself right, square in the eye and said,
“You know, I have absolutely no idea what women are about.” [Both laugh.] And I’m not going to lie, I
don’t know. I mean I know some of the things that women like, but I don’t know what goes on in a
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�woman’s body or in her mind. I know a lot of things that go on in a woman’s body because I went
through it went I was married, and I have five sisters and two daughters; two mothers and two
grandmothers. I mean, mother and mother-in-law. I can’t even count all the nieces I got. And all the
young ladies in my life and all the young ladies that I’ve known up at Applebee’s, you being one. But, I
don’t know there’s things about you ladies that I don’t know, and there’s things about you doctors don’t
even know. [Both laugh.]
ROBSON: So I don’t feel too bad. Sometimes it’s true, you can’t live with you and you can’t live without
you. You know? And it works both ways. So there’s when women can’t live with men and there’s times
they can’t live without them. Women can’t figure out men, and don’t feel bad because we can’t either.
[Both laugh.]
YAX: Alright last question; it’s kind of a big one. Looking back at your life what are some life lessons that
you’ve come up with, and is there anything in your life you wish you could take back or do over.
ROBSON: Oh boy. [Both laugh.] There are so many things that I would do over. But, I think [silence and
indiscernible words]. I remember there was two young girls in my life who I really cared for. One of
them got pregnant by another guy while we were going steady, so that hurt, and then another girl that I
was going with, when I went into the service, I told her not to wait for me. Because I didn’t know where
I was going to go, or when I was going to come home. I knew I was going to be in for four years, but
that’s a long time to ask somebody to wait. And I wish that I had, in a roundabout way, I had asked her
to stay for me. But I didn’t. And one of the mistakes I made was when I got married right after I got out
of the service. And that was a bad mistake. I wasn’t any more ready to get married than the man in the
moon.
YAX: So you were twenty-two or twenty-three?
ROBSON: Yes, I was around twenty-three, twenty-four somewhere around there. And that marriage
ended in a divorce, I left her and came back here. I was single for four years, so I played the field quite a
bit. That’s when I did a lot of stupid things. When I finally met my wife I thought, when I first met her I
didn’t know she was married. She was going through a divorce and I didn’t know that, it was a couple of
months before I found out. So we kind of played it sort of cool. I like her mom and dad. The amazing
thing is that I knew one of her older brothers, I knew him from high school.
YAX: And you guys met in California?
ROBSON: No I met her when I came back here.
YAX: Oh, OK.
ROBSON: But I knew him from high school because I ran track against him. He went to Comstock Park.
But my first marriage I did a lot of dumb things; a lot of dumb, stupid, immature things. And the best
thing I did was when I left her, I did her a favor and I’m sure she knew that. And, for four years I just sat
around, I kind of played the field, but I did a lot of thinking. In the meantime I had gotten a good job
with the phone company. I was living at home, I was the only kid at home, both my younger sisters
were married by then. I had a lot of time to think and do things on my own, and I decided it was about
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�time to grow up a little bit. The military helped me a lot, to grow up, it did a lot of good things for me.
But anything you do in life, I’m sure that if you meet any of your high school friends who didn’t go to
college, you can feel a difference. You feel different. Not about them, but mentally you know there’s
something different between the two of you. And that’s how I felt. So I made up my mind that I was
going to do everything I could not to make the same mistakes that ruined my first marriage, when I
married my second wife. And, I honestly, truthfully don’t know why she left me. Because I was working
really hard not to be a pain in her neck, but I know I became one, just out of frustration. So we got
divorced and we had the two girls. Well fortunately, the two girls, one was out of high school and I think
on was a sophomore or a junior then. But one thing I learned about divorce was that the older the
children are the harder it is on them, it makes no difference. It’s hard on young kids, but time will heal
youngsters I think a little better. Unless there’s a lot of physical things involved, or a lot of abuse,
physically or otherwise. I know a lot of the decisions my girls made was based on what they felt they had
to make, because they didn’t know if they could trust my decision, or their mother’s. And I know, based
on that, is partly why I do what I do today for my kids. But, it’s also because my mother and father
never asked me any questions, they let me stay at home, they didn’t ask me why I broke up with my first
wife, they didn’t make over demanding demands on me, they left their door open for me, and I have
done the same thing for my girls. Up at Applebee’s I do a lot of listening, if you watch me, I’m not
always talking. And I’m just watching and listening to what is going on around me, and it has helped me
a lot. Knowing that the way they were talking is the way I was headed that same way so why don’t I
change? Or, “I wonder if I was to ask this person a question, would I get an honest answer?” or “why
don’t I just tell them I’m your friend and I’ll be here if you need me.”
YAX: Yeah.
ROBSON: I’m finding out that, as I get older, that means more than anything. And the mistakes I’ve
made I can’t really correct them. But, I can do my damnedest to not make them again. And, sometimes
I get a little carried away, but overall I try hard. That’s one of the reasons why I do some of the things I
do in church. I like doing the sermons when they ask me to, I like doing the readings when it’s my turn.
I don’t know if I like being on the church council or not. [Both laugh.] Because I was on it before and I
found it to be a small, you know, it’s good, good things happen. And I’ve always said anybody that
belongs to a church, should be involved on their church council somehow, if they want to know anything
about their church. I’ve had a couple of pastors here that are good friends, one of them, his wife was a
good friend of my wife’s. The pastor that’s in the nursing home right now, is a retired colonel from the
army. He was a chaplain. I consider him a friend of mine and the present pastor we got is a friend of
mine, I consider him a friend of mine. So I do like that, and it helps me sometimes to remember.
YAX: Very cool. Well, thank you so much Bob.
END OF INTERVIEW
Page
28
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/05e8e38e9243d22c5d94c0e2ddeab3b0.mp3
7228e6e9ba7e061ed824f60fca4ec970
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Civil rights--Michigan--History
Personal narratives
Oral histories
African Americans--Personal narratives
Gays--Personal narratives
Lesbians--Personal narratives
Bisexual people--Personal narratives
Transgender people--Personal narratives
Veterans--Personal narratives
Women--Personal narratives
People with disabilities--Personal narratives
Muslims--United States--Personal narratives
Hispanic Americans--Personal narratives
Homophobia
Discrimination
Islamophobia
Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Upper Penninsula (Mich.)
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history recordings documenting the history of civil rights and social justice advocacy in Western Michigan. The collection was created by faculty and students as a project of the LIB 201 (formerly US 201): "Diversity in the U.S." course from 2011-2012.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Grand Valley State University. Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project (GV248-01)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-05-02
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
GV248-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1930-2011
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
GV248-01_Robson_Robert
Title
A name given to the resource
Robert Robson audio interview and transcript
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robson, Robert
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
LeMieux, Kyle
Hengesbac, Amanda
Yax, Tara
Description
An account of the resource
Robert Robson is a military veteran who was born and raised in Grand Rapids. He signed a contract with the navy in 1962 and spent 4 years in active duty and 2 years in the inactive reserves. He has a lot of memories from his time in the navy and talked about his views on the military and being a veteran in the United States. Growing up in Grand Rapids he had a lot of stories about some of the things that have been changing in the area including diversity.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Civil rights--Michigan--History
Veterans--Personal narratives
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Relation
A related resource
Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2011-10-26
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/da992deaaef65ddf71e39ad0762d27f0.pdf
bdbebc471b4a958d13a1b7a85eb24575
PDF Text
Text
Young Lords
In Lincoln Park
Interviewee: Antonio (Maloco)” Jiménez Rodríguez
Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez
Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections
Date: 6/25/2012
Biography and Description
Antonio (Maloco) Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of
the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, which some believe
was the city’s first Puerto Rican gang. It definitely is the most well-known group of that era. The leader,
Juan Hacha Vieja, came from Barrio Mula in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. He was a World War II veteran
with a lot of heart. Several witnesses describe one time in 1982 when a Puerto Rican landlord in Wicker
Park pulled out a .32 Colt automatic pistol and pointed it directly at Juan “Hacha Vieja”’s face as Hacha
Vieja was walking in a small passageway between two garages, approaching his building. The landlord
wanted to embarrass Hacha Vieja and make him run, or at least get scared. But Hacha Vieja just stood
there and pulled a .38 snub nose revolver from his pocket and, even while the .32 automatic was being
pointed to his face, started loading bullets into his gun. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez also recalls that the
Hacha Viejas had no gang colors. In fact, they had no real gang name and bore little resemblance to the
groups of today who sell drugs or hang out on street corners. The Hachas Viejas drank mainly beer or
rum at the saloons or at the homes of members in places like the Water Hotel or the social clubs that
their own members owned. Juan “Hacha Vieja” had been given that nickname when he was just a boy in
Barrio Mula of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. At the time he was working for Tio Gabriel Jiménez as a
farmhand in a mountain farm that also produced coffee. The name was given to him because “he was
�very good with the machete at the farm.” When times were bad economically, he and Tio Gabriel’s sons
would move from farming to construction or to other farms, doing odds and ends to survive. Hacha
Vieja became close friends with Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez and his other brothers and cousins. After World
War II, many of them moved to Chicago, mostly to the La Clark and Lincoln Park areas. The more they
located meat packing, factory and restaurant and hotel jobs near Wells Street and Chicago Avenue and
around downtown, or at the steel mills south towards Indiana, the more they contacted their friends
and family from Aguas Buenas and Caguas. Other Puerto Rican families did the same and pulled entire
families from their cities and towns, setting them up in Chicago. Juan “Hacha Vieja” was loved, feared
and respected all at once. If he liked you he would turn your last name into “Hacha Vieja” -- Pablo
became Pablo Hacha Vieja and José would be José Hacha Vieja. On the weekends when they drank at
the Clark Street saloons or by Halsted Street and along Madison. Often they would usually get into a
brawl and spend the night in jail for disorderly conduct or loitering. By Monday, they would all be back
to work. Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez recalls wanting to get along with everyone, but there were other
minority gangs that hated the Puerto Ricans with a passion. They had to get their respect or they would
be pushed around and slapped or beaten up. He explains that they had no other choice but to fight, and
carve out territory; the police did not defend them. And many times the police would join these other
gangs against the Puerto Ricans. By the early 1960s there were three taverns that were owned by the
Hacha Viejas: one at La Clark close to Grand Avenue, another on Western, about one or two blocks
north of Division, and the third by the Hotel Lincoln on Armitage Avenue and Clark Street. One day Mr.
Jiménez Rodríguez remembers coming from the west side club on Western Avenue to the Armitage
Avenue and Clark Street Tavern. The Italians and Irish were hiding, waiting for he and his friends. A mob
converged on the Hachas Viejas and started beating them with chains and bats. He, Hacha Vieja and
some others got cut very badly ending up in the hospital for a couple of months. Still on another battle,
they also got cut up by a Mexican gang from Taylor Street near Halsted .It also put them in a hospital.
But Mr. Jiménez Rodríguez explains that this is how they learned their lessons, the hard way for not
paying attention. They needed to be prepared at all times. As time went on they did less fighting and
could just socialize and enjoy a good time. It was no longer just them; more Puerto Ricans were moving
in.
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df27a23641e7119349dc545ab010bf46.mp4
8dd30633e1da51f1b7a2fa3973818e9e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Description
An account of the resource
Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives.
The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Format
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video/mp4
application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
spa
Type
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Moving Image
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
2012-2017
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Título
Spanish language Title entry
Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez vídeo entrevista y biografía
Sujetos
Spanish language Subject terms
Young Lords (Organización)
Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos
Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales
Idioma español--Relatos personales
Justicia social
Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago
Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago
Puertorriqueños--Illinois--Chicago--Vida social y costumbres
Veteranos--Relatos personales
Pandillas--Illinois--Chicago
Source
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RHC-65_Rodriguez_Antonio
Title
A name given to the resource
Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez video interview and biography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rodríguez, Antonio
Description
An account of the resource
Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jiménez, José, 1948-
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Subject
The topic of the resource
Young Lords (Organization)
Puerto Ricans--United States
Civil Rights--United States--History
Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.)
Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives
Spanish language--Personal narratives
Social justice
Community activists--Illinois--Chicago
Gangs--Illinois--Chicago
Puerto Ricans--Illinois--Chicago--Social life and customs
Veterans--personal narratives
Gangs--Illinois--Chicago
Language
A language of the resource
spa
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Moving Image
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2012-06-25