549 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c4e0c23d70da9cf39c5d5ed55844d912.mp4 1c0d57dbfb0c44b98baccf05e56c0113 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/425d8c8b794e32147573183e5f57e512.pdf d34a28e31ac5b5b2cc60c74c6d8d430c PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Richard Meyer Length: 56:59 (00:15) Background Information • Richard Meyer was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1922 • Both his parents had been previously married and had lost their spouses • He was their only child they had after getting married, but combined had 14 children • After graduating from high school in 1940 Richard spent 6 months in metal training school and then worked in the metal trade for about a year • Richard received his draft notice in November of 1942 and on December 29, 1942 he was sent on a train to Fort Dix in New Jersey and then later shipped to Camp Carson, Colorado (5:00) Training • Richard trained with the 49th Engineers near Colorado Springs at a relatively new camp • They were up in a very high altitude and it was very cold; some of the men got frostbite while they were out on hikes • They went through maneuvers in the mountains, had weapons training for 6 weeks, spent 6 weeks working on rigging, 6 weeks on demolition, and another 6 weeks on bridge building • Richard got sick at the end of the Fall and had to go to the hospital • The 49th Engineers was shipped out while he was in the hospital and he was later transferred to the 60th Engineers (9:10) Further Training • After recovering Richard had been sent to Tennessee in 1944 to work on more maneuvers • He received an emergency furlough because his father had died • He was then sent to Camp Sutton in North Carolina where he went through radio training • The weather was much nicer than Colorado and he really enjoyed it �• Richard was in North Carolina from January 1944-May 1944 and then sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. (10:40) England • Richard traveled with many other ships in convoy surrounded by destroyers; it took them 15 days to cross the Atlantic • Richard was part of a Combat Engineer Battalion that landed in England in early May before D Day • They took a train to Plymouth and then stayed in Land’s End for 6 weeks in an old British barracks • There were many rumors going around about what was going on for D Day and no one was quite sure as to how it would turn out • They did however all know that something was going on because the MP began tightening security and being more strict (14:15) France • The men were loaded on LSTs and it took them 8 hours to cross the channel • There was an electrical storm on the way over and one of their ships was hit • Omaha beach was loaded with broken down vehicles and there was much activity • Many tried to unload supplies while shells were going off all over and others were digging fox holes • There was much damage to the French countryside from shells of ships • They were camping in the hedgerow area near many farms • His battalion was assigned to the 35th Infantry Division (19:40) Radio Operations • Richard had been working communications operating a switchboard 24/7 • They occasionally came under artillery fire, but were never hit with mortars • They spent time laying and deactivating mines, creating maps of their locations �• At one point a whole truck carrying mines blew up and about 40 men were killed • Operating the switchboard allowed Richard to get an idea of the war’s progress and of what was going on around him (26:50) Metz, France • Richard kept busy laying telephone lines and working with radio communications • They traveled through France from July through September, moving very quickly • Most felt at that point that the war was going well, but things began to get more hectic in October • They had been staying in deserted civilian houses and shops, which was much better then camping in the countryside • Richard set up a switchboard in Southern Holland where he met a man in the Dutch Underground; they remained friends for many years after the war • They did not get to see much of the French population because they were usually traveling through wooded areas and the countryside (35:11) Battle of the Bulge • They had been traveling through Luxemburg during a very cold winter • They usually traveled during the day, driving 2.5 ton trucks and sleeping in abandoned buildings at night • Richard was in Luxemburg for about 2 months • They traveled to Holland and then later crossed the Rhine River into Germany • The entire unit had been mobilized, looking through the territory for Germans • They were not able to find any and made it almost to Russia [to the Russian lines] searching through the woods • Many German cities had been completely leveled and there was much destruction • They were not supposed to talk to any German civilians, even after the war had ended (45:05) Leaving Europe �• Richard left Germany in July of 1945 • They spent time cigarette camps near La Havre for about 4 days • They took a ship from Cherbourg to a British base in England where they stayed for an additional 3 days • They finally boarded the Queen Mary and landed in New York in only 3 days • The men were all given a special steak dinner and issued leave for 31 days • Richard had been gone for 3 years, but everyone in town seemed to still be overseas when he got home • He was very bored and thought about reenlisting, but his mother talked him out of it (49:40) After Service • Richard was given back his old job at the electric company; he worked there for 2 months and then quit • He worked at a few other jobs and within 15 years he had started his own machine company • Richard had 4 children and they all moved to Michigan to go to Calvin College • Richard and his wife decided to follow their children to Michigan and they have been living in Holland ever since � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MeyerR Title A name given to the resource Meyer, Richard (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meyer, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard Meyer was born in Patterson, New Jersey in 1922 and graduated from high school in 1940. After high school Richard worked in the metal trade until he was drafted in 1942. He started training in December 1942 in Colorado Springs with the 49th Engineers. Richard also trained in North Carolina and Tennessee before being sent to Europe. While in Europe Richard worked with the 35th Infantry Division, working on communications and operating switchboards. He traveled through Britain, Holland, Luxemburg, Germany, and France. Richard left Germany in 1945 and later started his own machine company. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-04-07 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7f1a9842c3d138027c3ec6ceaf5edb62.mp4 431135cede7807e0e09c94ee1afc5b5e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f41d8c6365fe0e6b05c24546bfbb1372.pdf 78bb6ad88800f404f1d03d3973770412 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Tom Meyer Vietnam War 1 hour 18 minutes 36 seconds (00:00:44) Early Life -Born in 1945 in Oak Park, Illinois -Grew up in Cicero, Illinois -Father was in the garbage business -Helped his father clean the offices -Father was a WWII veteran -Flew with the Marines in the South Pacific -This influenced him (Tom) to join the Marines -Graduated from high school and went to college (00:02:13) Enlisting in the Marines -Enlisted in the Marines in 1964 -Didn’t think he would ever have to see combat -Flew out of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago -Landed in San Diego, California at 2 A.M. (00:03:50) Basic Training -After being bused to the base they were ordered to stand at attention -Eventually got led to barbers to have their heads shaved -Initial adjustment was somewhat of a shock -Issued physical training outfits -The next day they were brought to Quonset huts that served as living quarters -Training was a matter of being disciplined -Everything had to be done by the book -Taught about the history of the Marines -Had lots of physical training -Drilled that having a good attitude was key to completing basic training -Adjusting to military living wasn’t too difficult for him -In good physical shape when he enlisted -Accepted the fact that you had to follow orders -Taught hand to hand combat -Won a hand to hand combat championship (00:13:13) Firearms Training -After three weeks they were brought to Camp Pendleton -They had to qualify with a rifle -Taught how to shoot at targets using only the iron sights (no scope) -Trained with the M1 Garand rifle from WWII (00:15:05) End of Basic Training -After Camp Pendleton they returned to San Diego to complete basic training -At the end of training there was a graduation ceremony -Recruits from the area could have their family attend �-At the end of basic they were given base liberty -Allowed to go to the PX (general store) and have some free reign (00:15:45) Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) -After a few days they were taken to Camp Pendleton again for AIT -Training consisted of crawling through obstacle courses -Had to go hiking in the mountains -Tarantulas were extremely prevalent in the mountains -Learned how to live in the field -Taught how to properly use explosives and high powered weapons -Trained with mines, bazookas, and the M60 machine gun -AIT lasted eight weeks (00:17:52) Bronchial Pneumonia during Basic Training (pre-AIT) -While at Camp Pendleton for firearms training contracted bronchial pneumonia -Lived in tents on the firing range and most likely caught it there -Had a momentary bout of blindness in the mess hall at Camp Pendleton -Corpsman said that he was healthy enough to continue training -Returned to San Diego and started having chest pains during physical training -Corpsman there told him he had bronchial pneumonia -Got sent to Balboa Hospital (Bob Wilson Naval Hospital) in San Diego -Spent three weeks in the hospital -Afterwards completed basic training and went on to advanced infantry training (00:21:30) Radio Repair & Operator School -Completed advanced infantry training in early 1965 -Upon completing AIT they were issued deployment orders -His orders were to go to San Diego for further schooling -Sent to radio repair and operator school -Given weekly tests -Courses focused on mathematics, learning basics about radio, and troubleshooting -They were given weekends off -Went snorkeling in La Jolla (near San Diego) -Went to Mexico once -School lasted a year (00:26:56) Camp Lejeune, North Carolina -After completing radio school he was sent to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina -Remote area -Boring deployment -After six months there he received orders to return to Camp Pendleton -Had to train to prepare to go to Vietnam (00:27:50) Training for Vietnam -Given thirty days of leave and then had to return to Camp Pendleton -Part of training was a field exercise involving crossing the mountains -Had to reach a rendezvous point in three days -Had to work in three man groups -Marine Reservists were used to mimic enemy soldiers hunting them -On the first day his group members were captured -Connected with other soldiers �-They found, caught, killed and ate a rattlesnake -Second day they stumbled onto a Reservist camp -Raided it for rations and water -Eventually reached the rendezvous point -Taken to a simulated prisoner of war camp -Trained how to deal with being interrogated -They broke out of the camp and hid in the hills -Eventually had to return to POW camp to continue exercise (00:37:37) Deployment to Vietnam -After returning to Camp Pendleton they went to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California -February 1966 -Boarded C-130 transports there -Island hopped their way across the Pacific -Given dinner on Guam -Landed in Okinawa -Stayed there for three days -After Okinawa flew to Da Nang, Vietnam (00:40:25) Arriving in Vietnam -Upon arriving in Da Nang they were assigned barracks to sleep in -Had a good first impression of Vietnam -Thought that Da Nang was oddly big and well organized -Felt that his arrival was fairly civilized -Got assigned to the 4th Marines Regiment Headquarters at Phu Bai -Had to get there on his own -Recruited an Air Force helicopter pilot to take him there (00:43:02) Overview of Phu Bai -Arrived in Phu Bai and got introduced to the other technicians -Got sick for three days -Pulled basic duties on base -Perimeter guard, radio repair, radio operator in the field, filling sandbags -Occasionally went out on patrols -Sometimes took mortar fire from the Vietnamese -Airfield was a prime target for the Vietnamese -Primary duty was to set up communications -Usually worked out of a command post -Sometimes got recruited to be a radio operator (00:47:11) Living in the Field -Remembers accidentally opening fire on a water buffalo during Operation Prairie -Thought it was an enemy patrol trying to breach perimeter -Marines had to pay for the dead water buffalo -Sometimes went out with company commanders to call in coordinates -Had to take a weapon everywhere he went -Opted for the .45 pistol because it was lightweight -Didn’t spend much time in the field -As a result didn’t have to see a lot of combat �(00:52:02) Daily Life in Vietnam -Daily duty consisted of sending coded messages out to units -Didn’t think about the danger of the war -Aware of how dangerous the war was -Could hear firefights on the radio -One night remembers an incident on perimeter duty -Heard shooting down the line -In the morning found that his foxhole partner had set up claymore mine wrong -Blast would have gone towards them, not the enemy (00:57:26) Relationship with Vietnamese Civilians -Not allowed to leave the base and fraternize with the Vietnamese -Young Vietnamese girls would do laundry for the troops though -Command eventually prohibited that too -Civilians weren’t used for manual labor at Phu Bai -Vietnamese barbers were employed at Dong Ha -Didn’t go out on civic action patrols (patrolling villages) -Did travel through villages with convoys -Threw gum and rations to Vietnamese children (01:00:07) Drug Use & Morale -Some soldiers did smoke pot -Rare occurrence though -Had morphine in their med kits -Saved for when they were wounded -Morale was good -Stayed close with the friends that he made -Played cards off duty and had one record to play -He was in charge of setting up speakers for the USO shows -Martha Raye was the most memorable performance -Amateur groups would come in and sing for them as well (01:03:37) End of Deployment -Wound up spending a total of eleven months and twenty six days in Vietnam -Returned home in February 1967 -Had only had twelve months left in enlistment upon being deployed -Superiors pressured him to reenlist -Offered promotion, $5000 bonus, and a thirty day vacation to anywhere -He turned it down (01:04:55) Morale and Downtime -Enjoyed the camaraderie that he had with his friends -He left a little earlier than they did -Spent the majority of their tour together though -Remembers a bar in Dong Ha with saloon style doors -Everyone in the bar carried a gun of some kind -General atmosphere felt like something out of the Wild West -Assumed that the U.S. was winning the war by time he was ready to leave �(01:08:25) Leaving Vietnam & Coming Home -Got on a convoy to go to a catch a helicopter to Da Nang -Had to return to base camp to talk to top sergeant -Got on another convoy and eventually got on a helicopter to Da Nang -Flew out of Da Nang on a chartered TWA airliner -Good morale on the flight home -Stopped in Honolulu, Hawaii -Flew back into Marine Air Station El Toro, California -Remembers that it smelled like roses -Got processed out of the Marines at El Toro -Visited cousin who lived in Long Beach -Got denied admission to a local night club because of being ex-military -Flew back to Chicago -Got free drinks at O’Hare airport bar while he waited for parents to pick him up (01:13:16) Life after the Marines -Didn’t feel discriminated against upon returning home -Got invited to be an honored guest at the Cicero Chamber of Commerce -Went back to college on military benefits -Attended Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan -Didn’t get hassled at college for being ex-military -People were actively interested in his experiences -Was able to enroll in college quickly and easily -Got a degree in social studies -Taught through Kellogsville Public Schools in Michigan -Never experienced trouble readjusting to civilian life -Only major issue was that he missed his friends -Didn’t suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (01:17:21) Reflections on Service -Marines allowed him the opportunity to go back to college -The Marines taught him how to be disciplined -Being in the military earned him respect from people (both civilian and military) -Looks back on his service fondly -Strengthened bond with father -Able to swap stories about their time in the Marines -Being in the Marines opened up a lot of opportunities for him later in life � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MeyerT1553V Title A name given to the resource Meyer, Thomas (Interview outline and video), 2013 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meyer, Thomas Description An account of the resource Tom Meyer was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1945 and grew up in Cicero, Illinois. After high school he attended college briefly before enlisting in the Marines in 1964. He went through basic training in San Diego, California and advanced infantry training in Camp Pendleton, California. He would go on to specialize in radio repair and operations. After a brief stint at Camp Lejeune he received orders to go to Vietnam whereupon he returned to Camp Pendleton for pre-deployment training. He was sent to Vietnam in February 1966 and was assigned to the 4th Marines Regiment Headquarters stationed at Phu Bai where he spent his deployment both in, and out of, the field. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-10-17 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/020ff314a4414f57bc1df92cee101b52.mp4 876ab503e61d08b442c8eac9f4f10818 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/46173e0abc0d8f115d9ea98f8758aa8a.pdf 84b845152572a22d6255f8e2f7e2d986 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Vietnam War Uwe Meyer (1:02:23) Background Information (00:12) • • • • • • • • • • • Born in Germany on November 8th 1949. (00:14) Uwe moved to America on July 3rd 1951. (00:15) His father worked on railroads in Germany, and wanted to farm in America. (00:35) Uwe has one older sister and one younger sister. (1:00) His father bought a farm in Montezuma, Iowa. (1:26) Uwe’s father served in the German army at the age of 16 on the eastern front. (1:51) He graduated from high school in 1968. For most of his high school life, Uwe worked on his father’s farm. (2:20) There was some awareness of the Vietnam conflict. (3:03) Uwe received his draft notice in June of 1969. His father didn’t like that he would lose his only male son working on the farm. (3:46) A physical was administered in Des Moines, Iowa, in December of 1968. (4:33) Uwe was picked up by a bus to Des Moines. He was then taken to Fort Polk, Louisiana, by plane. (5:30) Basic Training (5:58) • • • • • • Right when the men were unloaded, the drill instructors were yelling at the new trainees. (6:42) The men were processed the morning after their arrival. Uwe was given the task of showing around new men who arrived at the base for several weeks. (7:40) Uwe did not think he was working as hard in basic as he did on his farm back at home. (9:17) Uwe’s training group was fairly diverse. The African Americans soldiers often had trouble with the authority and discipline of the service. (9:55) Uwe found basic training easy. His father was strict, so discipline was not an issue. (11:18) Before AIT [advanced individual training], Uwe knew he would be sent to Vietnam. (12:00) AIT Training (12:59) • • • • • • • Attended AIT in Fort Polk, Louisiana. (13:03) The men marched, but not like in basic. (13:17) The men had a little more freedom in AIT, they were allowed to go off the base occasionally. (14:08) AIT lasted aprox. 8 weeks. Uwe also did not fight this training challenging. (14:30) There was some training given that was specifically given for jungle combat. Uwe often trained in Tigerland [the simulated Vietnam environment at Fort Polk]. (16:32) Uwe graduated AIT in November of 1969. (18:11) He was given a 30 day leave before being sent to Vietnam. (18:26) �Early Service in Vietnam (18:30) • • • • • • • • • • He flew from Seattle Washington, to Hawaii, to an island In the Pacific (Wake island), to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam (18:31) Vietnam was warm. When Uwe got off the aircraft, Vietnamese civilians gave the soldiers the finger. (20:51) The men were in Cam Ranh Bay for 3 days before being assigned. Uwe was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. (21:20) An Aircraft took Uwe to Da Nang. He was with approx. 20 other men who were all assigned to Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Regiment (22:42) Uwe was sent to Camp Evans where he joined his unit. He was received very well by his new unit. (23:44) Uwe recalled working bunker guard while serving at Camp Evans. The men then went out in the field. Uwe walked point for the first 6 weeks. (25:38) He knew not to walk on the main trail because of the threat of booby traps. (26:37) The men were given flak jackets and flak pants for protection. Uwe threw them aside and left them because they were unbearable to wear in the heat. (27:00) Uwe’s unit was in the lowlands around Camp Evans from January of 1970-March of 1970. (28:41) Uwe’s platoon rarely encountered enemy fire. They would set up ambushes, but the men they were suppose to intercept the unit never encountered. (29:33) Ripcord Campaign (30:04) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • In April of 1970, the men were helicoptered into Rip Cord. (30:04) Here is where Uwe had encountered his first heavy enemy fire. The men were ordered to e move at night due to enemy fire. (31:00) Judging by how the hill was cleared, Uwe knew that his unit was not the first to be on Ripcord. The men were not given any background information before arriving on the hill. (32:34) The unit soon ran out of foot. They found green bananas and caught crayfish to eat for several days. (33:42) Wet weather contributed to the difficulty that helicopters had resupplying soldiers. (34:55) The men were moved to Eagle Beach for a stand down. On June f1st 1970, Uwe had 10 days R&R in Sydney Australia. (35:31) When he returned on June 11th his unit was on Ripcord. (36:37) Air strikes were frequently called in. The men on point were often hurt when air strikes were called. Uwe was carrying a machine gun at this time. (37:55) In the summer of 1970, naval gunfire was also called in form 27 miles away. (40:13) He recalls 3 helicopters being down at one time on Ripcord. One helicopter crashed on the ammo dump. Uwe rescued several men from the crash. (41:20) Uwe was aware that the bombardment of Ripcord was getting worse over time. (43:52) Most machine gun fire was used as suppressive fire. (45:09) Uwe was evacuated from Ripcord via helicopter. (45:55) Being on the helicopter over Ripcord was terrifying. (47:44) Service after Ripcord (49:08) �• • • Uwe was sent on leave to Hong Kong for 10 days. When he retained he was placed on bunker guard before returning home. (49:21) There were some racial problems in the rear. (50:27) Though he was not an officer, Uwe was able to get into the officer’s club after stealing a Lieutenant's shirt. (51:30) Discharge and Life After Service (54:30) • • • • • • • The flight back to the US stopped in Japan then to Seattle, Washington. (53:12) Uwe was told that he would encounter protesters and that he should take his uniform off. Uwe did not recall seeing any protesters. (53:32) After return home, Uwe was given 30 days leave and then was sent to Fort Hood, Texas, where he would spend the remaining 3 months of his service. He worked in military intelligence. (54:12) The men were trained on how to use ground radar. (54:58) The moral of the troops on the base was fairly good. (55:24) Uwe was given an early out after 3 months because the spring was coming and his help was needed on the farm. (56:19) He spent a month in Germany visiting with his parents. During this time they convinced Uwe to be a farmer. (56:50) Thoughts on Service (57:33) • • He believes that the war was political. He was happy that he didn’t avoid the draft and that he survived his infield service. (57:37) Though he was ever taught any Vietnamese, after a while he could make out some parts of the language. Uwe did not trust any of the Vietnamese civilians. (58:50) � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MeyerU1448V Title A name given to the resource Meyer, Uwe (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meyer, Uwe Description An account of the resource Uwe Meyer, Born in Germany in 1949, moved to Iowa as a child and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1969. After training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was sent to Vietnam. Upon arrival, he was assigned to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 506h Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division. He spent his first few months in Vietnam in early 1970 patrolling the area around Camp Evans, and was then moved into the hills to the west and participated in the fighting on and around Firebase Ripcord. He participated in his company's failed attempt to establish the Ripcord base on April 1, 1970, and from mid-June served as a machine gunner on the base until it was evacuated in July. Upon returning to the US, he spent the rest of his enlistment at Fort Hood, Texas, working with ground radar units. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-10-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0e4337a6ade039832eeecd756cc3497e.m4v 60c9aed763b961a0182a81132d3142ed https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c52035392aaf43cd357ef4e5ddc1462e.pdf d626b464a2d72ed908fc9f45e7a11f2b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Name of Interviewee: Leslie Meyering Name of War: Korean War Length of Interview: (00:19:30) Background Information Shows a map of Korea while the war was going on (0:30) Gives a brief history of the war (2:00) General MacArthur wanted to bomb North Korea, but the UN did not want that, so General MacArthur was fired (5:30) Eisenhower was elected on the platform of ending the conflict (6:00) After the war ended, North Korea stayed agrarian while South Korea became an industrial nation (7:00) Korean War was fought by the UN, so there were many countries represented in the conflict (7:30) Pre-Enlistment Was drafted into the Army (9:15) Had friends going into the military, and thought it was the best thing for him (10:15) Training Had basic training in Fort Bliss, Texas (11:30) Part of training was living in tents (11:45) Basic training was harder than anything they ever did in service (12:15) Spent 6 weeks in basic training (12:30) Stayed at Fort Bliss for Anti-Aircraft training (13:00) Came home for 10 days, then was shipped to Korea out of Washington in 1952 (14:15) Enlistment The ship dropped them off in Pusan, Korea, then took trucks to his station (2:15) Worked in close contact with the soldiers of the Republic of Korea (3:15) Had to use howitzers, because they did not have anti-aircraft guns (15:15) Always had the artillery behind a large hill, and infantry would radio back the positions (16:30) Had 5 guns, and would shoot once with the center gun to gauge accuracy (17:00) Would keep adjusting until they got the right location, then each gun would fire 10 rounds each (17:15) Became another job after a while (17:45) Moved around every 2 weeks, but stayed in the same general area (19:00) Had bigger guns stationed behind them, but they never really did much (19:20) � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MeyeringL Title A name given to the resource Meyering, Leslie (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meyering, Leslie Description An account of the resource Leslie Meyering was drafted into the US Army in 1952. After completing basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, he completed additional training on Anti-Aircraft guns. He was shipped to Korea, and was stationed with an artillery unit. The interview was cut short at 19:45, so additional information was lost. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryskamp, Lindsey (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-05-28 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f2441f8e47457b36aeb0755d80bacf0d.m4v 96363b8c478746192431faf0e759d8ea https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/35c0fb55099a41fb638926dd191dd4a3.pdf 4a8e13e888652303cc21960cde3925a1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of Interviewee: George Meyers Name of War: World War II Length of Interview: (00:23:02) (00:15) Background Information  George was born in Coloma, Michigan on August 6, 1926  George spent his younger years on his parents farm, but they eventually lost it during the Depression  His father then began working on contract work for construction and actually made more money than he had on the farm  In 1942 both of George’s older brothers were in the service in Europe and Asia  George was still in high school when he received his draft papers in 1944  He was no longer interested in school and left for the Army before graduating (2:20) Pacific  George went through basic training at Camp Hood, Texas  He went through extended training after that and then was shipped to Luzon  They boarded a troop ship in San Francisco that held 3,000 troops  It took them 31 days to make it to their destination because they had to take a zig zag course to avoid enemy submarines  Traveling on the way home on a normal route only took 6 days  George and others were sent as replacements for the 32nd Infantry Division  He was very confused when he had first arrived and had not been trained properly  He was lucky to arrive near the end of the war and was glad they he did not have to fight for years (5:00) Luzon  George had spent 18 months in Luzon � He did not come into contact with many civilians, but the ones he did meet were very friendly  George had been injured by a grenade and had to go to a hospital in the capital of Luzon  He only had 60 points when the war was over, but 165 were needed to be discharged  His brother was able to travel around in Japan and see the ruins from the bombs (7:50) After Service  George was shipped back to California and then took a train to Port Sheridan  He was allowed 60 days leave to go home and then called back to Illinois to be discharged  Both his brothers had been back from the service when he got home  George got married in 1949 and later had 6 children (12:40) Business  After the service George had began working with his father repairing and building septic tanks  He later decided to start his own business and did well  One of his sons now helps him run the business and George has been living in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans since 2002 � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MeyersG Title A name given to the resource Meyers, George O. (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Meyers, George O. Description An account of the resource George Meyers was born in Coloma, Michigan on August 6, 1926. George spent his early years on his parent's farm, but they had lost it during the Depression. Both of George's older brothers were already in the service and fighting when he received his draft papers in 1944. George went through basic training for the Army at Camp Hood in Texas and then went through extended training before being sent to Luzon. George served as a replacement in the 32nd Infantry Division and was later sent home after being injured by a grenade. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-07-30 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/09531863643402be3aaa73e01b593d39.mp4 7a81cdb042844a007a3efa19772903d6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16625d0c283e30188ba4f751445a1650.pdf b2e3a254468aaed7d3728d6162ed2cc6 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Frank Micele (1:02:38) Background information (00:05)             Born in Grand Rapids Michigan in 1923.(00:10) His full name is Francesco P. Micele. (00:15) His parents were immigrants from Italy. (00:28) His family had 3 boys and 2 girls. (00:46) His father worked for the railroad repairing air brakes. He was able to keep this job during the Depression. (00:55) He attended high school at South High school in Grand Rapids Michigan. He also completed 2 years of junior college after returning from service in 1946. (1:17) On December 7th 1941 he was on a date when he heard about Pearl Harbor. (1:37) He knew very little of what was happening in Europe. (2:06) He accepted that he would be drafted. He joined the military in 1943 after finishing high school. (2:33) He graduated from high school in 1943. (3:26) He decided to join the Marine Corps in 1943. (3:42) He was sent to Camp Pendleton, California in 1943 (4:02) Basic Training (4:15)               He was sent to basic in California via train. The men were in a Pullman car. The trip took 3 days. (4:26) He was treated very well in Basic. (6:05) The physical training as well as the work on the firing range was seen to be very difficult. (6:34) He doesn’t recall any men being disorderly while he was there. (7:05) His company was compiled of men from all around the country. (8:12) He enjoyed life in the Marines and it was easy to adapt to. (8:25) He had never held a gun before his military training. (8:52) Some of the drill sergeants were men who have been in combat and some were just out of boot camp. (9:38) He believes boot camp lasted 3-4 weeks. (9:58) He was then sent to Camp Pendleton after boot camp to do field exercises. (10:19) He was trained on his rifle and the bayonet for his rifle. (10:37) Marksmanship was also practiced at Camp Pendleton. (11:03) Some men returned home on furlough after completing training. He had to stay in order to attended clerical school. (11:29) Clerical school was short and consisted of work on a typewriter. (12:21) �   He was moved from trucks to tanks to infantry. He had 2 days of training with the tank. He didn’t like it because it was too loud. (13:22) After arriving at Camp Pendleton he was given a furlough. (14:28) He did not receive any training in landing craft. (15:10) Voyage to the Pacific (approx. early 1944)(15:44)        He was seasick while traveling across the Pacific. He and other men were given medication to help with the sickness. (15:44) His transport stopped in Hilo, Hawaii. (16:08) Here they had more training. The area was very sandy in order to prepare them for the sandy conditions they would be exposed to. (16:40) After in Hilo, he was sent to train on volcanic mountains. This was to prepare the men for battle at Iwo Jima. (17:18) After Hawaii the ship stopped at 1 more location to load he ship with supply and ammunition. (18:13) He recalls being told that the men were going to hit Iwo Jima. They were told the island would be bombed every day and every night for 3 days. The men had no idea that the battle would be so difficult. (19:48) The sand was very thin. This caused difficulty in movement. (21:10) Battle at Iwo Jima (February 1945) (21:25)                 He charged the beach using what were like amphibious tanks or amtracs. (21:48) The men were forced to exit the amtrac when it was still in the water because they did not want to drive it ashore. (22:41) When arriving on the beach the men came under light fire. (22:55) After the 3rd company came in that’s when the Japanese began using heavy fire such as artillery (23:34) The men were surprised but at the same time were expecting the worst. (24:03) During the Battle of Iwo Jima, his company was assigned to attack Mt. Suribachi. (25:00) His company took a lot of loses. (25:30) The men were able to dig into the ground and make foxholes at night. (26:29) It took about 2 days to take Mt. Suribachi. (26:45) His company secured the back of the mountain. At the time the front of the mountain was already secured. (27:10) He didn’t experience any heavy fire when taking the back of the mountain. (27:26) The company had already received reinforcements at this time in the battle. (27:52) The men did have food and water during this period. (28:00) His company had the original flag that was placed at the top of Mt. Suribachi. (28:34) After placing the flag at the top of the mountain, there was still a lot of sniper fire as well as Japanese attacks at night. When the men thought they heard something at night, they would often throw grenades into the brush. (29:37) He stayed on Iwo Jima until the Japanese surrendered there. (30:04) � After securing Mt. Suribachi the men were assigned to go and aid the capture of the air field but by the time they got there it was already captured. (30:37) Combat experience on Iwo Jima (31:24)                     He was wounded on his first day on Iwo Jima. (31:26) While taking cover, he was told by another man that he was bleeding. He was told that he could go back to the rear of the unit, however he didn’t believe his wound was that bad, it was just a small hit from shrapnel. (31:55) He decided not to go back because he thought it was more dangerous to make the trek to return to the beach than it would to travel inland. (32:54) The beach was being bombarded by Japanese planes but no kamikazes struck ships this early in the battle. (33:11) Several men got lost and joined the second company until they rejoined their own. (33:47) He was on Iwo Jima for 10-15 days. (34:44) The men took such heavy casualties that they couldn’t even keep track.(34:57) Less than 10 of the original company were still alive [and unhurt] when they left Iwo Jima. (36:09) Sergeants were left running the company because most of the officers were casualties. (36:35) He used a flamethrower for 1-2 days to attack pill boxes. (37:04) He had an M1 Garand for most of his service. (38:10) He was able to advance on the island due to artillery that was shooting from the ships off shore. (38:54) He had a friend who took on 14 Japanese soldiers all at once. He survived and killed all 14 Japanese but he lost mobility in both his arms and his legs. (39:40) During the night men stayed in there foxholes and never got out. (41:20) He was lucky and was never attacked by the Japanese at night in hand to hand combat. (42:34) They did not set up any trip wires or noise makers to warn of their position. (43:12) They didn’t take any prisoners, due in part to language differences and the fact that they couldn’t handle traveling with prisoners. (43:49) (44:36) He and his unit were occasionally attacked from the rear. (44:55) Movement of men between units was very difficult during combat. (46:15) Leaving Iwo Jima (46:34)     He received orders from his sergeant that he was to leave Iwo Jima. (46:44) When he left Iwo Jima there was still fighting occurring on the island but mostly just light rifle fire. (47:00) He was happy to leave Iwo Jima with his life. (47:20) He and the reaming 6 of the remaining men from his company left together when leaving the island. (47:56) �    He was placed on a transport ship and taken to another island where he received orders for where he was going to go next. It was in the works for him to be sent to southern Japan next. (48:55) Between the end of Iwo Jima in February of 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August of 1945, he spent his time training for the attack on Japan. (50:10,) During this period of preparation and training the men were not given “days off” (52:00) He was out in the field when he heard of Japan’s surrender in August 1945. (52:20) Service in Japan (52:30)         Soon after the surrender he was sent to Sasebo, the Japanese naval base. (52:43) When he arrived in Japan, he was greeted by 1 police officer. The rest of the citizens had run to the mountains. (53:10) The men had trouble with Korean Laborers that were taken by the Japanese. (53:35) He was in Japan for approx 2-5 months doing policing. (54:04) When the Japanese did return to their town the civilians were kind to the soldiers. They didn’t want any part of the war any more. (54:40) The people were afraid of the Americans at first because they thought they were ruthless to their prisoners. (55:29) He stayed in Sasebo for the entire duration of time he spent in Japan. (55:50) Many of the Japanese could speak English but they didn’t converse with the Americans much. (56:06) Arrival in the U.S. and post war life. (56:55)           He was sent home via a troop transport. (56:59) The trip home was very good. The men were fed well and aloud to shower regularly. (57:00) He arrived in the U.S. in early spring. (57:29) He was sent back to Chicago where he was discharged (approx 1946) (58:55) After returning, he wanted to travel around the world. (59:14) He was encouraged too reenlist and was offered more money. (59:50) After returning home he attended Grand Rapids Community College in fall of 1946 until spring of 1948. (1:00:28) He then got a job at Kelvinator (a company making refrigerator and stoves) as an office worker. (1:00:40) He stayed with this company till he retired. (1:01:15) He learned a lot about reality as a result of being in the Marine Corps. He also found the amount of team work and comradely rewarding. (1:01:30) 2 hour 16 min. � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MiceleF1170V Title A name given to the resource Micele, Francisco (Interview outline and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Micele, Francisco Description An account of the resource Frank Micele was born in Grand Rapids Michigan in 1923 and served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1943-1946 in the Pacific Theater during World War II. During his service, he fought in the entirety of the Battle of Iwo Jima and was involved in the taking of Mt. Suribachi. After the end of the war in 1945, Frank spent several moths policing Japan while stationed in the Japanese navel base at Sasebo. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-07-21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/987838e02546828bcb138dbd56a92152.jpg de9f93828123529b39b6940b16eda6a9 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</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 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1970s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_001066 Title A name given to the resource Michael Abrams Description An account of the resource Michael Abrams, All-American wrestler, NAIA National Champion 1978, NCAA II National Champ 1979, NCAA I, 6th place 1979. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) Universities and colleges Sports Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30323e7d854f1716e9e8d9a4c30017dd.jpg 65da54e17db8bbd0df65edac588016f7 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 Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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-183_K169-0019 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970-07-18 Title A name given to the resource Michael Davis, Wayne Kramer, and Dennis Thompson of MC5 Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of bassist Michael Davis, guitarist Wayne Kramer and drummer Dennis Thompson of the band MC5 performing at the WCFL Big 10 Summer Music Festival in Chicago, Illinois on July 18, 1970, by Douglas R. Gilbert. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource MC5 (Musical group) WCFL (Radio station : Chicago, Ill.) Concerts Soldier Field (Chicago, Ill.) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> 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 Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Chicago (inhabited place) 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/892daa01be0d58ca2e155127a4c65b0c.mp4 963dd92afca4133b0b7b14718c29dab5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3e456dd3eb84a9acfcb9d5d124bd8207.pdf a3ad50f8ce12abc300e55bdcc6206ca4 PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Michael DeWilde Date: 1984 Part: 1 of 2 [Barbara] Anytime you want to start. You could talk about where your education failed you, and where it worked for you, or whatever you want to talk about. [DeWilde] Maybe I should do a thumbnail sketch first and go from there. Yeah. My name is Mike DeWilde, I was at Grand Valley… I was at William James from seventyseven to eighty-one and came originally to do Arts and Media. And took about two classes with the Liberal Arts people and I never did get around to Arts and Media. I've since gone on to do a couple of years of graduate work in Boston and I’ve just come back visit. [Barbara] Are you sorry you went to James? [DeWilde] There were a number of interesting… it was a roller coaster ride and I tend to view it more dispassionately now than I did when I was there, of course. But I think I have a sort of love/hate relationship with it that when it worked, it worked very, very well. And I felt that the collegiality that people talked about was happening and was possible, and that it was very inclusive, and you could do what you needed to do and you could do that with support. And when it was bad, it was very bad and there was no such thing as collegiality, and that the rhetoric was just that. Not just rhetoric but empty rhetoric, and that it was perhaps not unlike Christianity in that it kept vision alive of something very grand, yet was unable to structure itself in a way that could reach any sort of possible fulfillment. So that it did some empowering and gave people some confidence, but when it didn't work, all the empowering and confidence were not helpful because it wasn't…you weren't being educated. [Barbara] Can you speak about it in terms of specific experiences? In other words, classes, or tasks, or something, you know? What were the variables? When did it work and when didn't it? [DeWilde] So long since I've thought about that. Trying to think of… I think for me, I ended up doing a lot of independent study my last couple of years, with a couple of different people. When I got here, I was very gung-ho, I did all the committees, and history of the college, and what was William James about, and it was very exciting and I was very involved. Through, I think a certain disillusionment with perceiving the unable to do advance sort of work in classrooms and there wasn't �the possibility. The kind of students that were filling classrooms, and this is the classes I was taking my last couple of years here, it was just impossible to do any sort of advanced work that faculty was teaching to, if not lowest common denominator, then certainly a very common denominator. And that was very frustrating, so I was doing a lot of independent study and working with a small community of friends who were all looking beyond college to work or graduate work and with two or three faculty people. And those were the relationships that I really treasured. It was no longer so much the relationship with the school as an institution as it was with those individual folks and spending a lot of time in people's offices talking, you know, putting bibliographies together. And that sort of thing became the focus of my education which once I got to [inaudible] and Harvard, both worked for me and against me. I knew how to interact with those people, I knew how to ask the right sorts of questions. I didn't have the kind of basic nitty-gritty skills. I didn't have a lot of the broad general education that a lot of my colleagues had. I didn't have CIV 101 and all that sort of thing that was picked up through primary sources and through reading other revolutionaries and counterculture people. And it was… so I think my perspective was somewhat different. I found it very hard to find a community – I think, well, probably until I got to Harvard – that was interested in broad questions, that was interested in the underpinnings of an institution, that was interested in the assumptions upon which institutions were based, that was at all interested in challenging methodologies and pedagogies and it was very hard to fight that. I had a couple of faculty people in graduate school who at times would yell at the classroom: "This is religious education, why are you people allowing yourself be to graded?” And of course, I was right there at the forefront, I said "Of course, you know, that's absolutely ridiculous!" At the same time there was a resignation and I wonder sometimes if it wasn't at James too, among the students, if not among the faculty. That, well, we are playing a bit of the game, that you do get graded, and money is important, and this is nice and its safe, and I can do what I want for a while. But essentially what I need to get out of it is a career skill because my performance and how much money I make is finally going to be of importance. It's very hard in a few years in an alternative college isolated in western Michigan, I think, to erase protestant, capitalist work ethics and all that sort of thing. And I don't think there were enough students. I think William James worked very well for a relatively few people. Because of the discipline involved and because of the assumptions made about students, that students would take responsibility for such a large part of education; because it was difficult to get the faculty because of committees and meetings; because the place spent half of its waking life defining itself. There was… if you weren't in class talking about alternative education, then you were on a committee talking about alternative education. And how to present yourself and what the image was. The changes that took place in William James from – in the four years that I was there – are not unlike the changes that I see in the skyline in Boston. They've taken what's… it's charming, it's livable, it's old world… let's just say that about William James. �But and it dumped a lot of concrete and steel on it and the changes have been dramatic in a few short years. And William James got dumped on a lot in the… when I was there. I think it existed one year after I left, as a separate entity. It got dumped on by students who didn't understand alternative education, who weren't interested in philosophy or the theory behind alternative education. It got dumped on by burned out faculty. And it got dumped on by the institution. And there are times that… that pissed me off an awful a lot at the time because I'm committed to alternative education. I mean, I keep an eye out toward what Goddard is doing and what Evergreen is doing, because that's important to me because I never would've made it through college if it hadn't been for a place like William James. I can survive at Harvard taking tests when I'm there – I’m not there right now, but when I'm there, when I go. I can survive there because they're secure enough as an institution to let people do different sorts of things. You can… you don't have to do regurgitation. I mean they're not, for all the other nasty things you can say about them, they're not insecure. There's an intellectual freedom there. Which certainly gets interpreted and gets manifested differently than it did at William James. But there's a kinship, nonetheless, I think. And if it's elitist, then it's elitist. [Barbara] Excuse me, can I ask you a question? [DeWilde] Yeah. [Barbara] You're going along beautifully, but you said, something I've heard from most students, and I want you to explain it: "I wouldn't have survived at another institution." What do you mean by that? [DeWilde] High school was a very, very bad experience. I was the editor the paper and had to deal with lots of censorship issues. And I was not necessarily the part of a clique. I was not the genius math type and science type and the people who are on the four-year college prep program – I wasn't that. I wasn't among the people who are going to be janitors, you know, for the rest my of life – that was clear. But there seemed to be no place to go. There were some of us just in the middle, and there wasn't anybody addressing people who are profoundly dissatisfied with education but couldn't be shipped on one hand into vocational school, or shipped into… you know, and that's [inaudible]. I don't mean to sound pejorative about those but those were looked at pejoratively, certainly in the high school I was at. But there was a certain number of people you had to get rid of, there were certain people that were going to go on and do professional stuff, and then there were a few of us who said: "Wait, the whole thing is wrong.” Your premise… start by rejecting the premise and then have nowhere to go because there isn't anybody there who's equipped with dealing with premises. So, I went to a community college for a year and just looked through the catalog and anything that said alternative or non-graded, I went to that. I had no idea what alternative meant or any of that, but it certainly sounded right. If it was an alternative to what I had �experienced so far then I had to go on and do that. And through them heard of William James. And, I don't know, I had trouble with authority. I mean, there was no way I was going to… I knew that I, you know, in a dorm situation, in a typical college dorm where people are… I just didn't feel like I was interested in the kinds of things that those folks were interested in. And that may again be elitist, and I just have to plead guilty I suppose. But, doing tests and multiple choice, and regurgitation and reading nothing but secondary sources, and all my assumptions about what I would be doing at a major university, and getting lost in shuffle, and that sort thing, was not all appealing. So that William James was a beacon and when I read all the catalog and the rhetoric, you know… this place is run by God, you know? That was the feeling from the catalog. Certainly, that impression changed quickly, also. It's clear to me, without the freedom to pursue the interests that I had, and without the support. That was most amazing thing to me when I got here was that if you were serious, if you seem to be able to think at all, people took you seriously. And people were tolerant, people were forgiving, and supportive. And it all worked – especially faculty and students across the board. When I first came here, I was absolutely astounded. People who had been here for four years, and who knew far more than I did, were taking me seriously when I talked. And this was the first time that had happened. So, I began to take myself seriously and began to take your sources seriously, and you begin to do more serious work. I think that's what made it possible for me to not just survive through four years of college, but to cherish it. And I think that even if it's not William James… and I say sometimes, I'm ambivalent about the closing because I don't know when I left how many people it really was working for. But the idea and the ideal seem to me absolutely necessary. Because I'm sure that there are younger people, like myself, who, again, are outside the clique, and outside the mainstream, and have fewer and fewer places to turn. There are fewer William James; there are fewer alternatives altogether culturally. Certainly, you can see it in Boston, as the crowd grows more homogeneous all the time. And so, I don't know if I feel, at this point, more angry or sad. My commitment, right now, is to… I'm working as a carpenter and there's a commitment there. And when I go back to school my commitment is to my graduate work. But I don't see myself shaking the William James. It's not like giving that up, I've not become reactionary about it. I'm still committed, like I said to that idea and that ideal. And even if it only works for relatively few, there have to be options like that… that vision. Same way I feel about Christianity. You know, even if it doesn't always work, that vision has to be kept alive. Because that's an important part of who we are, it's an important part of Socratic method. [Barbara] Can I stop you for a minute because it’s about to run out of tape? That's totally lovely. Would you go on for about another five minutes? Is that all right? Do you feel that? I have a question. [DeWilde] Sure. �[Barbara] If my crew shows up. [Inaudible] � 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 William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng 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 GV016-16_GVSU_44_DeWilde Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeWilde, Michael Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Michael DeWilde interview (1 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Michael DeWilde by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Michael DeWilde was a philosophy student of William James College who went on to become a longtime professor at Grand Valley State University and the Director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative in the Seidman College of Business. In this interview, Michael discusses his experience as a student of William James College from 1977-1981 and his commitment to alternative education. This interview is part 1 of 2 for Michael DeWilde. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> 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 Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff7d4527e5cccca66b8168e0d07a150b.mp4 77076d503ff97403daa7d31654f0070d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6e68d3175eafc9f048f3887f166718e.pdf 1a0a363db774c3bb0f4ec7083ab615fb PDF Text Text William James College Interviews GV016-16 Interviewer: Barbara Roos Interviewee: Michael DeWilde Date: 1984 Part: 2 of 2 [Barbara] When you speak, you know, it all makes sense except it sort of doesn't because you started out in one frame of mind and then changed to another by the end of the tape. Do you have a comment on that? Did you feel a [inaudible] of anything? Do you know what I mean? [DeWilde] I'm not sure, like I said, it's been a long time since I’ve thought articulately about William James. [Barbara] Yeah. [DeWilde] What was your sense of the change? [Barbara] Well, I guess, I'm not really asking a question, don't worry about it. It's just that when you started talking, over the process of twenty minutes, the school seemed to have become more, well it did become [inaudible], but it also became more valuable, in the way you were talking. [DeWilde] I think it… well, it was valuable and that's just the… [Barbara] I guess you can record anytime. Record anytime. [DeWilde] Say more. [Barbara] I was talking to them [inaudible]… [DeWilde] I guess, I really do feel a strong ambivalence about its continuation. That the spirit, the [inaudible], the rhetoric which was prevalent, strong, and had something to do with the practice of the place when I first got there, seem to be diminishing and weakening and that was taking its toll on everybody. And it’s not that the faculty were any less committed. I didn't sense that they were less committed. I felt that there was just less understanding and less interest in understanding what it was that the place was going to be about… what it was about, what it had been about. But at the same time, feeling a strong commitment to alternative education, to alternative pedagogies, and that I don't know how you get back to that given this tenor of the times and all that. �[Barbara] Okay, I guess my real final question is something about… my presumption and my personal program in life is that alternative education keeps cycling, and you keep hopefully learning a little more each time and doing it better the next ten years when it cycles up again and you get an opportunity to participate. Do you have any views on what we could do better or what we did wrong? Or was it just the tenor of the times? Which is so amorphous, it just frustrates me [inaudible]. [DeWilde] [Laughter] Yeah. The tenor of the times was actually a bit before my time. I'm more a child of the seventies, I suppose. So, I understand, you know, times being tolerant of experimentation, alternativism and things like that. But I can't get a handle on when people say this a gestation period or if people say, “Well it's going around, it's coming around again.” I don't know what that means. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't see that. I don’t see it coming around. It doesn't look like it's coming around. I mean, perhaps it will. What it did well, it seemed to me, was this [inaudible] attitude… was manifest an attitude of genuine commitment to educating the individual as a whole. Educating the individual to be an individual. To a commitment, not just to learning a lot – any number of disciplines – but to be Socratic and to teach individuals about themselves. It sounds a little corny, but I think when it worked and when it was doing… when William James was being William James, it did that and people experienced that, and it was real. You could see the consequences in the people you talked to; that you knew when somebody was from William James and when they weren't. [Barbara] But what could it, in the next era, what could it better do? Because you’re also a Grand Valley professor. You also didn’t get enough. [DeWilde] Well, I was… � 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 William James College Interviews Description An account of the resource Videotaped interviews of William James College faculty, students and administrators by Barbara Roos. William James College opened in 1971 as the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. Curriculum was organized around three concentrations that were meant to be interdisciplinary career preparation offerings: Social Relations, Administration and Information Management, and Environmental Studies. The college was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV016-16 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng 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 GV016-16_GVSU_43b_DeWilde Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource DeWilde, Michael Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Michael DeWilde interview (2 of 2, video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Interview with Michael DeWilde by Barbara Roos, documenting the history of Grand Valley State's William James College. William James College was the third baccalaureate degree granting college for Grand Valley. It was originally designed to be an interdisciplinary, non-departmentalized college consisting of concentration programs, rather than majors. The college opened in 1971 and was discontinued in 1983 during a reorganization of Grand Valley State. Michael DeWilde was a philosophy student of William James College who went on to become a longtime professor at Grand Valley State University and the Director of the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative in the Seidman College of Business. In this interview, Michael discusses how the spirit of William James College diminished over time and how the "tenor of the times" affected alternative education during that period in Grand Valley history. This interview is part 2 of 2 for Michael DeWilde. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Roos, Barbara (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Universities and colleges Oral histories Alternative education Interdisciplinary approach in education Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/69">William James College faculty and student interviews (GV016-16)</a> 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 Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7f6390a72cffce4a07cc2066465a76ef.jpg a02e42a1f2db59dd438e848039472efd 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. 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Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1980s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_000927 Title A name given to the resource Michael Dukakis visit to the L.V. Eberhard Center Description An account of the resource Michael Dukakis visit to the L.V. Eberhard Center, 1988. Subject The topic of the resource Events Facilities Grand Valley State University Michigan Allendale (Mich.) 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Lemmen Library and Archives black and white photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/578d84c3e207eb36b8478c39ed9fe494.pdf 28eb236eb1efb14536f6cfdc5a355566 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Michael Gaylord James Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/14/2012 Biography and Description A resident of Chicago’s Roger’s Park neighborhood, Mike James was the first leader of Rising Up Angry, a white, working-class group formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that sought to organize residents of Lakeview/Uptown and offer a range of free or low cost services to the community including a free legal clinic, free health service, a women’s discussion group, occasional free pet-care clinic, and a variety of community events. The group also published a newspaper, the only underground newspaper aimed specifically at white, blue-collar greaser youth in Chicago at that time. The paper presented a combination of international news with news from local Chicago neighborhoods. Rising Up Angry members were also known for their distinctive way of dressing – dark banlon shirts, leather jackets, baggy pants, and pointed toe shoes. The group modeled its efforts off community-based programs run by the Black Panther Party, Young Patriots and Young Lords. They also sought to convince white, working-class youth not to fight with other rival groups but to unite with the Panthers, Young Lords, and others to fight racism, injustice, and the forced displacement of poor and working-class families from their homes in Uptown, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and the other near downtown and lakefront areas of Chicago. The organization lasted until 1975. Today, Mr. James owns and operates, a theatre, a journal, a general store and the Heartland Café in Chicago’s Rogers Park Neighborhood and features a progressive Saturday morning live Radio Program on WLUW 88.7 FM. �yl_James_Michael JOSE JIMINEZ: Give me your name, date, and date of birth, and then we can start from there. This is an oral history project. MICHAEL JAMES: Well, good morning. I forget that we don’t know what time of day it is. Hi, I’m Michael James, actually Michael Gaylord James, and I was born in 1942, January 16, 1942 in New York City. JJ: Okay. And Gaylord, that’s your -- MJ: Middle name. JJ: That’s your middle name. MJ: I got a lot of nicknames. But that’s my whole -- Michael Gaylord James. I’ve gone by Michael Gaylord James, I’ve gone by Michael James, by Mike James, and then I had some aliases over time. JJ: So okay, your parents, were they active at all in the movement? Who were they? MJ: My dad is Hal James, born in St. Joseph, Missouri. My mother is Florence James, she was born in the Bronx. They got married a few years before I was born. They had both worked in [00:01:00] advertising in radio production. My father I would have to say was a liberal Democrat. My first political campaign, I remember, was Adlai Stevenson, who was a very distant relative of our family. But that was -- my dad was real active in that campaign. I know that my dad had a number of friends who were activists in the Communist Party because when I became involved in the movement he basically said, “This is serious stuff and you just want to be really careful.” And he knew people who were blacklisted 1 �through the 1950s through the McCarthy Era and he would not buy any products from Wisconsin during the McCarthy time. That’s Senator Joe McCarthy back in the 1950s. JJ: And he was from Wisconsin. MJ: So his favorite beer was Miller High Life, he stopped drinking that, etcetera. Later he had a beef with Lyndon Johnson [00:02:00] over some TV deal that he was involved with and he wouldn’t buy anything from Texas, which probably was really good. My mom? I don’t think of my mom as political. My mom passed away in October of 2011, she was 97 and a half. I think she had really good values and was principled, certainly around race and the gay issues as it came up in our family. She had -- her mom, my grandma, was a Republican in the old school sense of Republicans, but my mom was, as far as I know, always a Democrat, and was quite supportive of our work in Civil Rights, Anti-War Movement, that kind of thing. My dad played more of a devil’s advocate. I remember him when the Montgomery Bus Boycott [00:03:00] was happening in 1956, which would have made me fourteen, I remember my dad kind of asking what I would call challenging questions. I could have even called them racist. But I think that was pretty much helping me in his sense of how to get me to think more. Because we -- in our family is an adopted brother who is an African American and my dad I think in the times of the 1960s, he was out of work -- JJ: What was his name? MJ: Hal James. He was out of work and he produced -- JJ: I mean your brother. 2 �MJ: Jim Arden is my brother and he was a hot shot -- he is a hot shot weight lifter. He’s in his seventies. He was Junior Mr. Connecticut fourth over forty Mr. America. My dad did produce a concert I remember with Odetta in the 1960s and then he produced a play called Hallelujah Baby with Leslie Uggams. And so I think in his way [00:04:00] he was trying to stay in tune with the times. My mother actually when Dr. King was killed, she and some other women started a daycare in the Saugatuck Congregational Church in my hometown of Westport, Connecticut. She always prided herself on doing Civil Rights kind of oriented work and helping with fundraising for Tougaloo or Tuskegee, one of those colleges. So that’s my folks. JJ: And what about your -- you mentioned that there was a gay issue in the family. MJ: Actually the gay issue is my son Jesse, who was around in the early days of Rising Up Angry, when he was thirteen or so he came out. That was interesting for me. I was certainly already aware of gay rights and basically supportive. [00:05:00] But then when you have it in your own family it’s like ooh, you do a double-take, and that -- there was some challenging moments for Jesse growing up and some situations he got into. He ended up marrying his boyfriend, whose dad was a Greek communist, and they have a daughter. They live in New York City. He was married in California back when it was legal to do that. I guess it is again. Then I have a daughter, Coya Paz who teaches at DePaul in the theater department, and she was the co-founder of the Teatro Luna, and is quite a playwright, and a good actress herself. And she married her girlfriend, Nina, so it’s my daughter in law. I don’t know if they’re legally married, but they have a 3 �baby, Coya actually carried the baby, Ida Rocket. I have two of my [00:06:00] six blood -- my five -- how many blood kids? Five blood kids are gay, three aren’t, and then my other kids from my marriages are not gay either. JJ: What are the other names? What are some of the other children? MJ: My first son was Jesse James, Jesse Hampton Nathaniel William Floyd Robin James, and then Coya Paz is my daughter, and those are my two gay kids. And then Casey Blue James, who just graduated from Yale, and is in New York looking into the publishing industry. She’s quite a good poet. Then I have a son Hal James, Hal Coltrane Cadien James, his name is, and he toured with a band that was getting a lot of play, the Smith Westerns. He toured Europe, Japan, the United States, a bunch of times in both the States in Europe. He didn’t really enjoy the life of the road and he wants to be a screenwriter, [00:07:00] so he’s taking screenwriting classes, working on some screenplays, and works at the Heartland Café, which is a restaurant I co-founded in 1976. Then my youngest son is Cadien Lake Jack Henry James. He’s eighteen. He just graduated from Jones Commercial-- excuse me, Jones College Prep -- it used to be Jones Commercial -- in Chicago. He has a band called Twin Peaks and they are currently on the road. They played in Tacoma last night. They’re in Seattle and Redmond, Washington today, tomorrow, which will be the 15 of July they’re in Portland, and then they go down the coast. They go across to Austin, Texas, and then they go up to Topeka, Omaha, Lawrence, Kansas, back to Omaha. I’m going to join them for the last four days of the tour. They had a kick-off concert last Sunday here in the backyard. It was quite a scene, the police only came 4 �once. They’re quite good, so you might [00:08:00] want to go to Twinpeaksmusic.blogspot.com to see his stuff. I always thought my kids would be athletes, but they’re musicians and poets. I also have, through my first wife Stormy, I have two stepsons Chuck and David. Both of them were around during the Rising Up Angry period. Then I have my wife Paige had a daughter Molly Cane is her name, now she’s married, her last name is Dodin, and she’s a teacher in New York City, and about to have a baby, it could happen today. JJ: What about your brothers and sisters? MJ: Oh, my brothers and sisters. JJ: Who are they? MJ: I’ve got -- beside my adopted brother Jim Arden, who I talked about. He adopted our family. He and I had met in the weight room in the YMCA in my hometown. [00:09:00] I have a brother Beau James and he is in the toy business. He’s not a political activist but is certainly a good thinker and would have to be called a Democrat of some sort. Then I have a sister Melody James, who is an actress and a teacher. After all the stuff that went on at San Francisco State in the old days she came to work with JOIN Community Union, which was a predecessor to Rising Up Angry, which is an organization I founded. Melody has a daughter and a husband. She was there for a number of years in the San Francisco Mime Troupe, so she did a lot of political plays, she wrote and acted in both. JJ: Okay, you mentioned Rising Up Angry. We’re going to get to that. How [00:10:00] long -- New York, how long were you there? MJ: I was in New York for the first two years of my life. I grew up in Connecticut. My 5 �dad was in advertising at that point. He had been an actor. He came out of St. Joseph, Missouri, grew up in Chicago on South Shore, went to the University of Chicago, went to Reed out in Oregon for a while, I guess he had screwed up at U of C. Then he went back to U of C, got involved in theater, knew Edgar Lee Master, Thornton Wilder, a number of people, Sherwood Anderson, and ended up producing Man of La Mancha, Hallelujah Baby, etcetera. When I was two -- I don’t really remember anything about New York City except that I think I was born in a hospital near the UN, which for me was always symbolic that I was near people from different places, and getting along, and working together. We moved to Westport, Connecticut [00:11:00] to a little house on a place called Red Coat Road. One of the most distinct activities I had beside helping the farmer down the road butcher cows and pigs, and riding around on a Harley Davison at the age of ten with his son who had just come back from the Korean War, Victor, I remember really being hostile to New York. I kind of took New York as wealth because there were wealthy New Yorkers in our town and people who would come for the summer. And when people would ask directions from a Cadillac with New York plates, we would always give them the wrong stuff. We had a little group called The Night Riders. Actually, we were kind of -- this was before I was ten, so we were really young juvenile delinquent types, because we would try and sabotage construction. I don’t think we ever did anything that mattered, but sabotaged construction of new houses that went up in the area. The other thing I remember very distinctly has to do with the notion of revolution. Growing up in New England, [00:12:00] there was a lot of attention to the Revolutionary 6 �War, and in my hometown down at the beach there were some cannons on the beach. And we had always heard how the British troops marched up what is now Route 7 to Danbury to burn the hat factories. The road I grew up on was Red Coat Road, which is the Red Coats were the British, who were the enemy at the time. And so we basically saw ourselves as defenders of the good people, the small people, the regular folks, and anti to colonialism and imperialism at an early age. JJ: When did you move to Chicago? MJ: Well, Cha-Cha, the first time I came to Chicago was in December of 1942. I would have been eleven months old. I came to visit my grandparents who lived on Euclid Avenue along South Shore. I’m not sure of the exact place. I went by there [00:13:00] a couple of times in my life. I came back to Chicago when I was thirteen or fourteen with my father, who was in radio and TV advertising business, and we came out, and while he was working, I remember we stayed at the Executive House down on Wacker Drive, and I took a bus up -- JJ: What year was this? MJ: Well at fourteen, let’s say I’m fourteen, so it’d be 1956 or so. I was already in hot rod cars, which took a lot of my time. Football, girls, hot rod cars, and early political consciousness. I took a ride on a bus up Lake Shore Drive to Irving Park, and I took a bus west on Irving Park to a place called Ray Erickson Speed Shop, which I do not believe is still there. But it was a shop where you would get equipment for your hot rod car. I remember as a kid [00:14:00] walking in and kind of looking at the stuff. So that was my second visit to Chicago. I had been 7 �with family, I think, in Michigan. I don’t know if we came to Chicago earlier than that. But I came back to Chicago in the fall of -- into the Chicago area in the fall of 1960 to go to Lake Forest College. I ended up there kind of by accident. I had applied to -JJ: Where are you living? By Lake Forrest? MJ: I lived in Lake Forest in a dormitory and then I lived in some wealthy folks’ home doing work for them in exchange for room and board. I did that at two different places. And I also lived at Arden Shore Home for Boys, which were kids who were smart but were a little troubled or wise ass. It was up in Lake Bluff, just south of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. And I worked there -- JJ: Were you sent there or did you -- MJ: No, I worked there. (laughs) I worked there. We would -- and I also worked at Lake Forest Academy [00:15:00] washing dishes in the fall of 1960, I believe. The first time I lived in Chicago was in the summer of 1964. I had graduated from Lake Forest with honors. I got a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to the University of California Berkeley, is where I took it. I could have gone to -- I had applied to U of C, to Columbia in New York, to Brandeis, but I was interested in -already then I think I was kind of interested in the more radical sociologists. JJ: So you were studying sociology? MJ: I was studying sociology. So I got a job in the summer of 1964 working for a guy named Mel Diamond who was working with Notre Dame Anthropology Department. They were doing a study on Southern White Migrants. I didn’t know a lot -- I don’t know what ever happened with that study, I’m not in touch 8 �with Mel Diamond, [00:16:00] but I spent that summer in Uptown not too far from where I saw you one time on Montrose, on Kenmore Avenue, and I would hang out with these people. An old guy named [Penny Menzer?], who taught me how to roll cigarettes. Which I have not rolled many cigarettes in my life, but I’ve rolled a lot of other things, but I learned that skill when I was there in Uptown in 1964. I also remember drinking Jim Beam from little bottles under the L Track and learning to do various picks on the guitar. I learned how to make biscuits and gravy. I would just hang out, and then go home, and then write notes for these guys. What they did with them I’m not sure. JJ: When did you -- you mentioned political consciousness -- I know it was in the family, but when did you start to do that? MJ: I think I always had [00:17:00] an inclination to stick up for the downtrodden and poor people. I remember at the age of ten being in Florida with my relatives. My dad’s family, a lot of them lived down there, they had moved down there. I remember we were playing with two of my cousins, maybe more of them, and the maid -- they had a maid who was African American -- and the maid’s daughter was there. We were all playing together. I remember my Aunt Helen telling us to go play in the backyard. I asked her why did we have to play in the backyard. She very matter-of-factly said that the neighbors wouldn’t like it in the front yard. That was my first kind of awareness. On that same trip with my father, we went to a business partner of his and a good friend whose stepmother and I guess father had a [00:18:00] turpentine plantation up near Jacksonville -- up there Tallahassee, Florida. We were out on this plantation and I remember driving 9 �around with the foreman in a pickup truck with a rifle in the back. There were all these literally shacks where the Black plantation workers lived. And just being kind of aware of that. That same time on that trip, I think it was probably sitting around, it could have been at a restaurant somewhere, or somewhere with my father, but I think it was actually on this plantation, I referred to the African American waiters, the help, as, “Sir”. My dad called me out on that and of course I held it against my dad for a long time. He said, “You don’t call people who are waiting on you, sir.” And maybe you don’t. I did as a kid. [00:19:00] So that was a real kind of an eye opener. When the Montgomery Bus Boycott started, I was totally involved in that as a young kid, reading about that, following that. In a lot of ways, Black people were my heroes. It took me till much later to realize there were plenty of Black people who were not so noble and all that. But I remember following the Civil Rights Movement. JJ: How -- through books or? MJ: Through the news. My dad was in radio TV so we had a TV from 1948 on. Then when all the stuff was coming down in the South, watching that. I actually as a kid started reading The New York Times. We got The New York Times on Sunday and I would look at the sports section and the ads in the back of that and I obviously read some other stuff. [00:20:00] I also -- my first hero I remember, it was Jackie Robinson of the Dodgers. My dad was a Dodger fan and we went to a guy named Barney [Carlin?] who worked for Castro Convertible Sofas in New York, who was one of my dad’s clients. They took me to a Dodgers game in probably 1947 or 1948. Maybe 1949, I’m not sure, but I could look it up. It was 10 �nine to eight going into the second inning, or was nine to nothing, nine to eight, when the Cardinals were beating the Dodgers, and the Dodgers came back and won it by a run. So Barney Carlin considered me to be a good luck charm, so I got to go to a lot of Dodgers games and they always won. He took me to a game in I think 1952 when Bobby Thompson of the Giants hit the homerun off [00:21:00] of Ralph Branca and the Dodgers lost the pennant. I remember as a kid crying. I had eaten about ten hot dogs, I had my Dodgers hat, I had my Dodger flag, pennant, and I was just totally devastated. Then I was the jinx in my mind. I was even hesitant to go when the Bears won the Super Bowl down in New Orleans, I had tickets, I went with my business partner Katie Hogan, took the train down there, it was a hell of an adventure, and I remember being really kind of worried that I would jinx the team. But the jinx was off, the Dodgers won - excuse me, the Bears won. Since then the White Sox have won, the Bulls have won, I’ve been to some games, I don’t think I have much to do with the determination or the outcome of these great sporting events. You asked about becoming politically aware and socially conscious. I have to say that in high school I had some teachers who were pretty good. I had a guy [00:22:00] named Gordon Hall who -JJ: What high school? MJ: Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut. I graduated in 1960. I was head of the -- I lost the run for the president of the high school, so I was head of the hall patrol, and I think we were a little corrupt because I think we probably smoked in the parking lot. I also was involved in hot rod cars, and to me that was 11 �kind of a class issue. I remember writing these kind of -- I look back on them now, I might be a little critical -- but it was talking about how we built our own cars, and we raised money to fix our cars, and that kind of stuff. Clearly I was a middle class or upper middle class kid, but there were kids in that town who were a lot wealthier, and there were people who had sports cars that their parents bought for them. We saw that as a cutting-edge issue. A little bit later, I don’t know if you want to address it, but I did go to Mexico on a motorcycle trip during 1962, and that a big [00:23:00] eye-opener. JJ: What happened there? MJ: Well even before I get to that, let me go in chronological order. In 1960 I’m applying to colleges. My dad had these great notions that maybe I would go to prep school for an extra year and then I’d play football at Stanford. I don’t think I was that good. I applied to University of Virginia on my dad’s insistence. His friend, the same one whose relatives had this plantation in Florida, had a daughter named Joan Bennett, who married Teddy Kennedy. While we were in - I’m going back to the Florida trip -- I remember hanging out with Joan as a kid and she had skinned her kneecaps while falling through a cattle crossing. My dad -- I’m getting a little lost here. In the summer of 1960 -- [00:24:00] we’re talking about my college. You’re going to have to edit it. JJ: We can move back and forth. MJ: Okay, so my dad wanted me to go to the University of Virginia. I got a nice letter from Joan Bennett Kennedy telling me what a great place it was, how they had tennis, and golf, and all this stuff. And I was just totally turned off my it. On my 12 �application I put down what books had you read, I put Native Son by Richard Wright, I put Strive Toward Freedom by Dr. King, in a lot of ways I think I did sabotage my application. I was on the waiting list to go to University of Virginia. I wanted to go to University of Connecticut where my girlfriend Susan [Lumm?] was going to go. My dad didn’t really want -- he wanted me to go away to school, leave Connecticut. I had applied also to University of Arizona and Arizona State, but I applied to the College Placement Service. It was an outfit that takes a single application and sends it to a number of places. Lo and behold I got accepted at many colleges here in the [00:25:00] Midwest. I had never heard of any of them. But on a Saturday morning when the letter came from Lake Forest, my dad said, “Oh, that’s a great place. I used to go to dances up there.” Okay, dad. Having graduated from high school, not sure where I’m going to go to college, got in my 1940 Ford hot rod car with its 1953 Olds engine with another guy named Buzz [Willouer?], and we took off to work in a cannery. My dad had set me up with this job. His dad had worked for Libby, had come out of - my dad was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, had come to Chicago. JJ: Libby, Indiana, right? MJ: Libby Food. My grandpa Roy had gotten my father jobs at various places, so my dad had the same notion that he could get me jobs. He did. He got me a job in Sunnyvale, California, just outside of San Jose, working in a Libby plant in the summer of 1960. [00:26:00] I leave home, I drive across to Lake Forest where I just gotten this acceptance letter, I stopped in late afternoon, I meet the director of admissions, took off, that night we crossed the old bridge going across the 13 �Mississippi River at St. Louis and into Missouri -- or into Iowa -- no, into Missouri. Iowa is another trip. And I headed west. I had a lot of adventure on that trip. That was an eye opener too. The car overheated in Joplin, Missouri. My friend Buzz got left there in the hospital because when it overheated, I was taking the cap off the radiator as he came bopping over to say what’s happening, and it exploded, and he got burned. I then drove on myself. I stopped in Oklahoma City. I had just seen the movie Psycho with my girlfriend in Connecticut, so I thought that was the same road to California that I was on [00:27:00] in that movie. I distinctly remember being in a shower at a motel with my back to the wall with my fists ready if any mother came after me. (laughs) I drove -- I picked up some hitchhikers, people going to join the Marine Corp in San Diego. I went through some towns in Arizona with Native people on reservations. I remember being at a truck stop in California as you come out of the desert, not too far from Mexicali, where there were Blacks, and Latinos, and whites, and it was the morning. I remember driving up the coast. Then I ended up letting another hitchhiker, a migrant worker who was going to pick peaches in Fresno, he wanted to get off -- I was taking the cut off to San Jose. I pulled over, the car apparently stalled, and we had to jump start it. I think we had just jump [00:28:00] started it, he was out of the car, I jumped back in the car, the lights were not on, I got rear ended by people coming home from a wedding on a Sunday night. I was pulled out of a burning car by a truck driver. I remember waking up on the other side of the road. This would be Highway 101. There’s a song back in the time called The Fool was the Terror of Highway 101. I 14 �remember saying, “There’s a guy in that car!” And I started to go run across the street and the truck driver grabbed me and said, “If he’s in there now, he’s dead.” Turns out he was okay and the police had talked to him later. That summer though I worked for just a number of weeks because I wanted to go back and see my girlfriend, which was an issue. My dad was disappointed I didn’t stay longer. But I did work at the Sunnyvale Cannery for a period of time. I have my union card still. I joined the teamsters, the Cannery Workers Union. I worked with a Black kid and a [00:29:00] Mexican kid and we worked with the garbage dump. I had to go into these vats in the giant freezer buildings to clean out the sludge of the antifreeze in these big moon suits kind of gloves keeping us warm. It’s twenty below zero in there. It was an eye opener for me. Because the main thing, the distinct thing I remember was I showed up to work and there were lines of lines of people waiting for jobs, Mexicans, Blacks, white, probably some Filipinos, that was the nucleus of what formed the Farm Workers Union later, so I’m assuming there were Filipinos there too. Maybe, maybe not. But I showed up to work and I had a job. I got to walk right in, I got to fill out my papers, pay my union dues, all that stuff, and all these other people are waiting for a job. That’s a distinct [00:30:00] memory that I have talking about that and saying I really understand privilege and in this case probably white-skinned privilege, which is a term [Nolan Nathan?], who we both knew, he used to -- he’d bring up and it’s probably still really relevant today. So that summer was kind of an eye opener for me. I went back to home. My dad picked me up at the airport, the car had burned up and was in the junk yard. I do have photographs of it. My dad 15 �gave me that kind of look that dads give their kids when they’re disappointed. I got to see my girlfriend Susan and then my parents and I drove out to Lake Forest College where they left me. My first distinct memory at Lake Forest College was someone coming up to me and telling me I’m supposed to wear this beanie. They had the little red and black thing you put on your head. I had been voted the coolest in my high school. There’s a photograph in my high school yearbook of Casey Cutmore and myself shivering [00:31:00] like we’re the coolest. But I thought of myself as a cool dude and I certainly was not going to wear this beanie. Then my dad said to me, he said, “I don’t think things have changed that much in twenty years. You should wear it.” I said, “Maybe thirty years, dad, or forty.” I don’t know how long ago. But Lake Forest was a great place to go. I went there by accident. They were recruiting kids from the east who didn’t get into probably better prep schools or better colleges, but had come out of prep schools, so there were a number of those folks. There were a number of what I would call North Shore screw ups, people from some wealth and money from the North Shore who had gone to eastern schools or other schools, and were living at home for some reason, or had screwed up. Then there were a number of people who were kind of upwardly mobile working class. One example was a beer truck driver’s kid who I knew. [00:32:00] Lake Forest was sort of changing its vibe. They had a number of young teachers out of University of Chicago, older teachers, all kinds of interest-- I’m sure at every school there are really interesting professors. A guy named Dr. [Roose?], Jerry Gerasimo, [Tomasovic?], there just were a lot of people that I think gave me 16 �some direction. Because I wanted to be I thought at that time -JJ: You had conversations or -- MJ: Oh yeah. And there was a lot of opportunity to hang out with your teachers at that small school. I had gone off to college thinking I was going to be a minister. I had grown up in the congregational church. I guess I looked up to a minister named Ted Hoskins and kind of wanted to be a minister. The only hitch was I couldn’t get the Jesus part. I would say, “Why is Jesus --” [00:33:00] This is me in high school, “Why is Jesus anymore the son of God than Dr. King or Ghandi?” And the only answer they would give me is I just know. The other thing I was interested in was social work, helping people. I wanted to help people so I figured social work. JJ: And major, that was the major for you -- MJ: Well I’m still figuring out -- I ended up going into sociology because that’s what I thought was going to be social work. I had a professor named Dr. Roose who really broke my heart when I came back a few years later from Berkeley, and was involved in the movement, and the Anti-War Movement, and maybe he was being a devil’s advocate, but he was challenging me around the War in Vietnam. But before that, he really gave me a lot of direction. He basically said, “So you want to help people.” He said, “All right, that’s great, but who’s going to concern themselves with the structural forces that shape peoples’ lives? The social, the economic, the political conditions, the environment in which people are reared that leave them to end up [00:34:00] one way or another. Or at least influence it.” So that was how I ended up wanted to be a sociologist or a minister. I ended up 17 �in sociology at Lake Forest. Over the course of a few years I definitely think I’m going to become a sociology professor. I liked the participant/observer in sociology where you go into a situation and kind of are one with the people. I certainly read about sociologists studying poor communities in Chicago and other places. I did a lot of anthropology. I did end up getting a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. I went to Berkeley. That’s another segment we can get to. But I also did still entertain this minister notion. I believe I was offered a Danforth’s Fellowship [00:35:00] to go to divinity school. It was designed for people who were open to being a minister but weren’t planning on it. I think there was the Peabody Divinity School at Harvard, I think I was thinking about going there. But when I got into Berkeley, I thought that would be the hippest of all of sociology, and I ended up going to Berkeley. Now in this time one of the things I haven’t addressed yet was taking a motorcycle trip to Mexico. As I had mentioned earlier I was into hot rod cars. I also liked motorcycles. I had driven all over eastern Connecticut at age ten on Saturday or Sunday mornings with Vic [Birchy?], who would have been as the third on the back of a Harley. He’d have one woman in the morning and then he’d have another date in the afternoon. He had warned me not to mention the morning to the afternoon. So I was being introduced to the conniving [00:36:00] sneaky ways of men. Which I try not to do too much of. But at Lake Forest I bought a motorcycle up at Sunset Cycle Sales in -- what’s that little religious town up to the north here? JJ: Zion. MJ: Zion, Illinois. It was yellow. It was a 1956 Thunderbird. It kind of had the license 18 �plate on the front wheel, had a kind of a windshield on it. I had wanted to, as I say, help people, and one of the things that -- I did apply to the Vista and the Peace Corp, that kind of thing, but they weren’t really happening yet. I remember also looking at American Friends Service Committee actions that were going to happen or activities in Mexico. Anyway, I ended up [00:37:00] applying to Mexico City College, which is now Universidad de las Américas. I think it’s in Puebla. But it was kind of a school for hippies and gringos up on the Carretera México Toluca outside of Mexico City. I rode my bike down there. I drove from here to Peoria where my girlfriend Lucia lived and then the next day I drove to Little Rock, Arkansas. The next day I drove to Victoria, Texas. The next day I drove through Brownsville-Matamoros to Ciudad Victoria. And then the next morning I ended up -- by the afternoon I ended up in Mexico City. Obviously for a young kid once you cross the border it’s just complete contrast. Everyone trying to sell you Chiclets, kids with their hands out, beggars, [00:38:00] people, you know, it’s just a border scene. You can probably find that in a lot of borders on both sides in many ways. But Mexico really opened my eyes up. The Cuban Revolution had just happened, so while I was certainly a supporter of President Kennedy at the time, I also dug the Cuban Revolution. While I was there, Kennedy showed up with Alliance for Progress, where they let all the Latin American countries except Cuba in. It turns out Lopez Mateos, the President of Mexico, and their policy was they cleared the streets of the leftists, there was a big welcome for Kennedy. I took two photographs of that that I have, as well as the scene, more of those, and lots of pictures in Mexico which I have put together 19 �over the years in an exhibit called Mexico ‘62. That was fifty years ago this summer. [00:39:00] Actually on this date, the 14th, back in 1962 I think I had been in San Miguel de Allende, and I wrote some notes about it. I have a lot of writing. I have these beautiful photographs. Tonight at a gallery called Phantom Gallery over at Berteau and Damen is an opening of some of my photos, a selection from that show, along with other peoples’ stuff. So that just happens to be happening tonight. That kind of covers the Lake Forest years. One of the other really important things I guess I should mention is we would go to -- we would go down to Chicago to check things out. We’d go to the University of Chicago. I remember seeing the great socialist Norman Thomas at the University of Chicago. I remember the book The Other America by [00:40:00] Michael Harrington, who I got to meet later and hang out with a little bit at a party at Berkeley. But that book had a big impact on me. I saw him speak at the University of Chicago too. I remember dropping people off. I couldn’t go because I was in a play, they needed a big guy to play the executioner in Anouilh’s The Lark, and I was a football player at Lake Forest. I was six-two, I was in better shape than now. I didn’t get to go to Washington to the first big peace march, but I did drop people off down there who were from Lake Forest who were going. So obviously at Lake Forest we had a lot of things starting to happen. One of the things that really popped for me is I had wanted to join the Marine Corp and I had applied -- I had grown up wanting to be a Marine. You know, we played Marine crawling on our stomachs and all that. There was a guy named Buzz [Bailey?] I think his name was, worked at the [00:41:00] Sport Mart. 20 �It was a local independent in the old days called the Sport Mart. He had come back from the war, and Iwo Jima, and these kind of images, and I just wanted to be a Marine. At Lake Forest I joined the Platoon Leader Corp, which meant I would spend summers at Quantico training to be a Marine, and then I would be an officer in the Marines when I got out. Fortunately, I think, in the course of those probably around 1962 or so, 1963, maybe 1962, a group of demonstrators called the Moscow to San Francisco Peace March who were a lot -- I think there were a lot of Brits -- came through. They had just been up to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, which is just north of Lake Forest. They came to campus and they talked about -- that’s the first time I saw the peace symbol. You know the -- and they talked about war [00:42:00] and they talked about peace. And that was it. I flipped. I was not going to be a Marine anymore. I didn’t go through with it. That was -- from then on I was consciously part of the movement. I was reading about the Civil Rights Movement. I was SNCC, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee showed up in Chicago to do a benefit or to raise money with the Freedom Singers. I remember we invited them to Lake Forest College. We had them perform at the college and I was the guy who got to drive them back down to Hyde Park. So I met James Foreman there, Willy Peacock. I remember people asking for money to get back to Mississippi and the performance gives them twenty-five bucks a piece. One of them says -Bernard Lafayette or Willy Peacock, somebody says, “We can’t get there on that.” He says, “You have to.” And I’m not sure who the family was that was having it there, some socialist that I know I have the same somewhere. 21 �[00:43:00] But that was big influence on me. I remember when Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were killed. I followed the SNCC people all along. It was only a couple of years later till I would start meeting a lot of these people coming out of Mississippi and working in other projects in the north. I don’t think I have any more great stories at the tip of my -JJ: What about -- where does SDS come in? MJ: The first time I heard of SDS was at Lake Forest College because we had taken over the school newspaper called the Stentor. The Stentor were always a rahrah college paper and we started putting challenging the sororities and the fraternities. There was a service called the College Press Service. College Press Service came out of [00:44:00] the National Student Association, which later we learned was implicated in working with the CIA and bringing foreign students over here. But we did get their weekly releases. I remember reading about a conference in Hazard, Kentucky of unemployed miners, SNCC workers, Northern Student Movement people, which was another group that Danny Schechter the News Dissector, who does a lot of media stuff in New York, he was the leader of that as I recall, and also Students for Democratic Society. You had these people meeting together talking about students, and Civil Rights, and unemployed white workers, you know, miners, and it captured my attention. I go off to Berkeley summer of 1964. As I say, I worked in Uptown that summer, finished up, got in my -- I had a 1957 Ford convertible. I got it from a guy at Lake Forest [00:45:00] named Richard Simon. And I drove that car across the eastern sector back to Connecticut and then I headed back west to Berkeley. I showed 22 �up at the University of California Berkeley and when I went to register and get all squared away, there was a police car sitting in the middle of the campus surrounded by students. The guy in the car was a guy named Jack Weinberg, who was a long-time activist, and I think he may still work with Green Peace, and lives over on the shore somewhere of Lake Michigan in Indiana. I haven’t see Jack in a while. I think he probably was in -- I don’t know if that’s true he was in the International Socialists. That was one of the first things at Berkeley, all of the sudden there were a million tables. There were the SNCC people, there were the DuBois Society, [00:46:00] there were SDS. Not so much SDS right away. But there were all these political groups out there talking to you in Sproul Hall in the plaza. And I showed up and there was already this police car was surrounded. And what happened was the university was trying to say you could not raise money on campus for off-campus activities. I had believed in the Civil Rights Movement, I believed in SNCC. SNCC captured my heart. Bob Moses or Bob Paris, you know, who was really -- did a lot of the key voter registration, leadership stuff. These were my heroes. So what do you mean you can’t raise money to support off-campus activities? From the first moment I got to Berkeley it was going on. I’m living out in a little town called Canyon with it’s little hippie town a few miles out of Berkeley. [00:47:00] A guy name Skip [Richeimer?], who was -- I had known. He had a motorcycle, he took a lot of photographs, he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and I had met him through some people at Lake Forest. And I had gotten into the motorcycle stuff, Danny Lyon, the famed photographer who did the book The Bikeriders and a lot of Civil Rights 23 �stuff was one of those guys. Skip was a contact I had at Berkeley, so when I got out there, I stayed with him and his then wife out in Canyon. Soon after I met Davey Wellman, who was the president of the Graduate Sociology Club, whose father was a commissar in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, was the head of the Communist Party in Michigan. Davey had over the next course of time shared a lot of information about having a -- his mother was from Canada, which he was from the States, being followed around by the FBI. [00:48:00] I was learning a lot about the left pretty quickly. I moved in with Davey at 5600 Telegraph in Berkeley, in Oakland, there was a bar downstairs next door. I remember meeting Lou Rawls there one night. Around the corner I saw Little Junior Parker play. It’s not there anymore, but we had our crib there, and while I was starting graduate work in sociology this police car was still there surrounded by these students. We ended up having the Free Speech Movement. Every day there would be a rally on campus and there would be a speaker. Whether it was Willie Brown, who was a state rep. JJ: You were there when it began? MJ: I was there when it began. I remember -- you asked about first hearing about SDS. Besides reading about it in the College Press Service, I remember someone saying -- sitting around in this demonstration scene, someone saying, “Oh there’s the SDS.” [00:49:00] And I found on the ground a little pamphlet in the course of that first period of time at Berkeley. The pamphlet had an older Black gentleman, not old, was a lot younger than I am now, with a box with apples. He was selling apples. The pamphlet said, “Build the interracial 24 �movement of the poor.” I had always had this kind of -- from college at Lake Forest I had written a paper where I envisioned a world where you would be wearing a Dutch shoes, a kimono, a yarmulke, eating Chinese food while listening to the John Lee Hooker sing the blues. I was always into this kind of rainbow coalition notion. SDS talked about building a movement in poor communities in both Black and white [00:50:00] and I assumed Latino, although that wasn’t -- there was a Puerto Rican community in New York, there was one in Chicago, Toledo, obviously there were some Puerto Ricans who had been taken to Hawaii, but the Latino thing was not like it is today where the Mexicans have come everywhere, and the Puerto Ricans have expanded, and you’ve got a lot of other countries too. This is my dog Che. (laughter) JJ: Che? Che’s (inaudible). So what you’re saying, it sounds like it was they were there, it was just that they weren’t speaking out or? MJ: I don’t think there were as many Mexicans. You had a small Mexican community in Chicago, or not that small, 18th Street, and you also had down by the Bush, who actually were silver miners that were brought from Colorado to work in the steel mills. Or after silver closed up, or however it worked. [00:51:00] That’s where -- I remember reading this. You certainly had Mexicans. But you go anywhere in this country today and there are Mexican restaurants, there are Mexican kids in school, there are Mexican lawn people. You didn’t have that in the 1950s and 1960s. You had it in a few places, I’m sure California, Arizona, but it wasn’t widespread. And this was before the Brown Berets, before Caesar Chavez, that kind of thing. However, correcting myself. When I first drove to 25 �Berkeley in 1964, I stopped in Delano -- is that where -JJ: Delano, yeah. MJ: Delano, Delano. Delano is a Roosevelt. Delano. We knew about the farm workers. Obviously we did know about them then because I stopped there and I had a meeting with Caesar Chavez. I had my Lake Forest College football jacket, which I remember leaving as a donation. I’d love to have it back. I got one later from a guy [00:52:00] who was selling it on the street near here and it was a little small on me. So the farm worker stuff was already starting to happen and I was aware of it actually. I did meet Chavez again. Later, as you know, during the Rainbow Coalition, we all did a lot of work around the Great Boycott, etcetera. But Chavez showed up at the Heartland Café one time. He told me he was interested in jazz. I have, you’ll notice here I have, I don’t know if anyone wants to pan on it, but I have a lot of jazz and a lot of other music. But this was all in my office. I took him in the back and I showed him my jazz collection. There are records here from the 1950s on. (laughs) He said, “Would you make me some tapes of some of these?” I said, “Sure.” He made a pile literally three feet high of my records that he wanted me to convert to tapes for him. Whether or not I would have done that, who knows. [00:53:00] They have technology that does that these days. But unfortunately he passed away. I don’t think I have any pictures of him at the Heartland, but he was there. We were talking about SDS and we were talking about first getting involved with SDS. I heard about SDS. I found the pamphlet that said, “Build the interracial movement of the poor.” I was already trying to figure out how you would bring Black, white, Latino, Asian, 26 �American Indian together. I really had this notion, this melting pot notion, of America. This Rainbow Coalition notion of America. I wrote to SDS and said, “I would like to build the interracial movement of the poor. How do I get involved?” I got a letter back I think from Paul Booth, who has been an activist for a long time with AFSCME Union, and he wrote back, “Well, you have to build it.” [00:54:00] I remember a guy named Mike Davis showing up and Mike Davis has written a lot of interesting books. And he was an SDS traveler. He was the guy that signed my card, my SDS card, and we joined up. My interest in studying sociology was beginning to wane. We had the Free Speech Movement happening, we had the Vietnam Day Committee happening, we had massive marches into Oakland, and I wanted to start a project. So a number of us who were in the Sociology Department who were forming this little SDS network, we ended up moving into West Oakland. I think it was the wrong time for mostly whites. There was one African American guy who had been involved in SNCC a little bit. [00:55:00] I think his name was John Thomas, I’m not sure. I somewhere have a photograph of him. We moved into a place at Seventh and Henry Street in West Oakland, not too far from the Southern Pacific Yards. I remember a band of people from the Peter Maurin House, which is the Catholic Worker Anarchists, and they were mostly Black, and mostly drunk, and they were coming around, and wanted to know what the action was, and what was happening. I remember walking around with an older Black gentleman who would try and shield me from the young kids and the younger tough people. “Oh, you don’t want to talk to those people.” He saw these white kids coming in to try 27 �to help. We worked in an issue in Peralta Village, which I think was public housing, about them tearing down fences or putting up fences, I’m not quite sure what it was. But it was not really the time to be [00:56:00] necessarily working in a Black neighborhood when you were mostly white. We did go to the Newark Poor Peoples Conference, which was all of the SDS projects. So the Oakland people, we drove across country. We drove across with a guy named Doy Gorton, who had worked with SNCC a little bit, a white kid out of Mississippi who is now married to Jane Adams, who was an SDS national officer at one time. They were living in Carbondale. He was a young kind of SNCC photographer, a connected guy. We all drove to Newark for the Poor Peoples’ Conference. I think the JOIN people were probably there, there were some other projects. I met a woman on the way there who was here at JOIN, we stopped at JOIN, named Casey Hayden. Now Casey Hayden was married to Tom Hayden. She was one of the first white woman working in the South and one of the white people who were moved out of SNCC at the end when Stokely came on with Black Power. [00:57:00] I met Casey in Uptown and we hitchhiked to Cleveland and we stayed at the Cleveland Project for a few days. Then we hitchhiked to Newark. So I drove as far as Chicago with Doy Gorton and some people, after that we hitchhiked. After the conference, she and I and a sociology student named Nigel Young from England and his wife Antonia, had a drive away car that we drove -- we were driving back to Berkeley. We did go through Idaho, and we saw a lot of the country, and took some pictures. Casey was really in a place where she was kind of mourning leaving SNCC. She wrote a lot of poetry 28 �[00:58:00] along with Mary Varela about that time. That’s what was occupying her time. I was a graduate student and I also had this Oakland project and we were going to move back into Oakland. Myself and Barry Kalish, who had worked in Newark, and I think a woman named Robinson, a Black woman who had worked in Newark, they were a couple, and myself, and Vivian Rothstein. She had a different name then. She’s been active in LA for years. We moved back to another place in West Oakland. But it just wasn’t happening because what was going on even that summer was the Anti-War Movement and stopping the troop trains. So you had a situation where those of us working in West Oakland were always going to these demonstrations with lots of other people from the Bay Area trying to stop the troop trains. [00:59:00] I remember these trains coming through very slowly as they cleared us off the tracks. Later some guys lost their legs, years later, trying to stop troop trains going to Iraq or -- this was Vietnam. So there’s been a lot of people trying to stop troop trains. I remember these shaved head white kids in the train just kind of laughing but with this fearful look as we were slapping these signs against the window and saying, “No, Vietnam! Get out of Vietnam! Bring the troops home!” Whatever we were yelling. But clearly the move was to the Anti-War Movement. And then the antiuniversity oppression movement, schools as factories movement. There weren’t a lot of people at the time, the Civil Rights Movement was going on, but moving into poor neighborhoods. I went to a SNCC benefit at the Filmore in San Francisco. It was a Bill Graham kind of [01:00:00] production. Richard Pryor was there, the Grateful Dead were there, the Jefferson Starship were there, 29 �Airplane were there, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Richard Pryor the comedian, the great Black comedian, and Stokely Carmichael. I remember talking to Stokely and I said, “Stokely, I’m going to leave graduate school. I’m going to go get involved in one of this SDS project, not Oakland, that’s ended. I’m either going to go to Newark and work with Tom Hayden or I’m going to go Uptown and work with JOIN Community Union, Rennie Davis,” and people who were here then. Very clearly he says, “Work with whit e people.” He says, “We’ve got a lot going on in the Black community, we need more happening in the white community.” And that was my decision to go back to Uptown where I had [01:01:00] worked with this anthropologist in the summer of 1964, it’s now the spring of 1966, and I decided to do this. I was in the middle of writing a paper at Berkeley. As I say, I was already trying to figure out before I got involved with the interracial movement of the poor, I was always trying to figure out how you brought people together. I was studying conflict theory and try to figure out how you would overcome peoples’ negatives, bring them together, find the positive things. I was writing a paper on organizing the poor and I was comparing three attempts. I was comparing the government efforts with the war on poverty, Alinsky’s work with the Woodlawn Organization, [01:02:00] and the SDS projects. Of course the SDS projects came out the best in my writing. I basically completed enough work, all I had was a couple incompletes I think, to have gotten a Masters, but the decision of the department was that in order for me if I wanted to continue to get a PhD at Berkeley, I would 30 �have to write another paper about something other than poverty. I was not up for that. In the spring of -- April of 1966 I think I turned in this paper on organizing the poor and I drove back in that 1957 Ford convertible back to Chicago with a guy named Burt Steck, who was already working in JOIN, to work in Uptown. And I showed up on a summer -- I had a few adventures [01:03:00] traveling across country, but basically end up in Uptown. Well, the only real adventure I’d like to share is we stopped in Des Moines. There was a guy named Fred Stover at the United States Farmers Association. Stover had been the -- whatever you call -- the Secretary of Agriculture under Roosevelt. He had come out as opposing the Korean War, so that probably ended his career. But he had this kind of radical farmers organization. We had set up to meet him and talk. Carl Davidson of SDS, he’s an active dude to this day, thank you, Carl. He I think had made the initial contact with him. I ended up waiting for his office to open, and we were sleeping in the car, and the police rousted us, and they [01:04:00] -- we had kind of longer hair and they wanted to know if we had dope or marijuana. I said no way. It was -- I always get along with cops pretty much. Not always, but I have with a lot of them. We had a little chat and then Stover took us out to eat. We talked about farming, and agriculture, and the Anti-War Movement. Then I drove on to Chicago where the JOIN people were active up on Argyle in front of Price Right TV, some brothers named Price, southern guys. The protest was all about Mrs. Hinton, who was an Indian from India. She had had her TV repaired there and she said she was ripped off. We were demonstrating that she should get her money back or some kind of justice. These guys were very hostile. I 31 �remember they came out -- I was a welcome sight on a picket line anywhere. I was a big guy, had worked [01:05:00] out, I’d played football, and thought of myself as someone -- I’ve certainly always been aware that plenty of people I get into situations with that could probably wipe me up, but you also don’t show a lot of fear, and you do talk and reason, and then -- so anyhow, I ended up engaged in these guys and later they became involved in JOIN Community Union, and you win them over. You always try to win the enemy over, win the opposition, or overcome what we call false consciousness. Marx called it that first where people act in the interests that’s opposed to their real interest. Which is why you have workers going for the Republicans. That was the beginning of my life in Uptown. JJ: So now joining -- MJ: Can I get -- can I get you to get me another hit of this coffee? JJ: A small -- (break in recording) MJ: Okay, we’re talking about JOIN. I was sharing with you the life and times of JOIN Community Union. [01:06:00] JOIN was one of the projects of SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, and it was before SDS really became the big major group that it was around the Anti-War Movement. Before that it was about poverty. And this was fifty years, I believe, since the Port Huron Statement, so there’s a lot of talk about the Port Huron Statement, which was written by the early SDS people, Tom Hayden and some others. That’s going on around the country right now. SDS was very much concerned with poverty at that time. They initiated the projects to build the interracial movement of the poor. As I was saying a little bit 32 �earlier, I got involved. I was attracted to [01:07:00] the project as a whole. Stokely Carmichael encouraged me to go work with poor whites and I did that, I went to Uptown. JOIN had originally been a joint effort of both the Students for a Democratic Society and the packing house workers, particularly with Jesse Prosten, who was the head of the packing house workers here in Chicago, to my understanding. The idea was to work around jobs or income now. In other words, we need jobs or we need some money. They tried to organize unemployed people. That’s why the original pamphlet I’d seen is a picture of a Black guy selling apples in front of an unemployment office. What they used to do is the student volunteers here in Chicago, they would go out to Lawrence Avenue over by the unemployment comp office, and they would get names, and talk to people. [01:08:00] They didn’t really see it as a real movement developing, so they ended up taking the contact cards, and they determined that most of them, or the majority, or the largest number, came out of Uptown, which was 60640. They decided to move into Uptown with a concept of a community union. So instead of jobs or income now it became JOIN Community Union. Join the community union, just like a labor union works in the plant, or the factory, or wherever it is to secure workers’ rights and better conditions, a community union would do that in community. You would organize people around issues of welfare, housing, police, food, you name it. So when I showed up it was now JOIN Community Union. [01:09:00] And we actually over the course of 1966 to -JJ: It’s union organizing at the community level. 33 �MJ: Yeah, tried to build this kind of one big union notion. On every issue we’re going to have some action on it. What JOINT actually did was have an office -- they had a couple offices. One up on Argyle, that’s -- and then one on Sheridan Road, 4431 North Sheridan, on the east side of the street. What happened, when I showed up there all these welfare people would be coming in. Welfare was a real issue. JOIN had a welfare union that included Black, white, Native American, Latinos, it was a whole lot of different people. Mainly southern white, but the leadership were these two Black women, Big Debbie and Little Debbie, Debbie [Coleman?] and Debbie [Thurman?], both who I think have passed away. [01:10:00] We had demonstrations at the welfare office. You can’t treat people with disrespect, people have rights. These student activists were actually working with the clients, so to speak, to help make sure they got their just do. Then other than that we had developed rent strikes. We took on some buildings on Kenmore, various other places. I spent time, I remember, going into basements and turning on people’s electricity and gas that had been turned off. I learned that skill early. Then we found that the majority of the people around who were involved were not so much the men but the women and the young guys. Not the young girls. Little girlfriend action. It was mainly young guys. So what we ended up doing was starting a thing called -- the young guys [01:11:00] put together the Good Fellows and there was a Good Fellows Hall on Wilson Avenue. This was across from where Reverend Morey had had an outreach center where initially people -- we met people. And the Good Fellows were a part of JOIN but were kind of independent and they had a march on the police. 34 �There were a lot of repercussions from that. The police came back and were busting a lot of people, but it was over harassment of kids, people in the neighborhood. A number of these people who were involved in the Good Fellows and in JOIN, young guys, became the nucleus of what were the Young Patriots, which comes along a little bit later, as well as Rising Up Angry. These things overlapped a lot. We’ll get to that history in a minute. But JOIN had developed a food buying co-op, we had the rent strikes, we had the [01:12:00] marches and the demonstrations at the welfare office, we had talked about police brutality, and we put out a newspaper. I’ve always been involved and started newspapers, but this one was called The Firing Line. It started as a newsletter. We recruited a local welfare mother who turns out had had a little bit of political indoctrination, Peggy Terry. Peggy Terry has been written up and featured in a number of Studs Terkel’s books, she was on a PBS thing about people coming north in the 1940s around the war time. She was out of Oklahoma; she says she was a racist. But she ended up linking up with a guy named Gil Terry, who was in some political sect later on, and they were in Birmingham, so she was down there in Birmingham during the [01:13:00] bus boycott and that kind of stuff, and she got turned around. She was living in Chicago, she had some kids. Her older son, who has passed away, guy had been in trouble. He became a real leader with the Young Patriots early on. That’s Doug Youngblood. There’s another kid who I think is in prison still, but about to get out. There’s a daughter who did really well and has been active over the years. Peggy and I became good friends and she became the editor of The Firing Line and we turned it into a 35 �newspaper. We’d have little stories about like there’s one [Fawn?] Madden who was related to Junebug Boykin who was a name that comes up around JOIN and the Patriots, even Rising Up Angry. Fawn, I remember interviewing Fawn about life in Hazard, Kentucky and coming up to Chicago and what it was like. So we had a lot going on. [01:14:00] The police raided JOIN. They busted my sister and Pat Sturgis, who had showed up not too -- he had gone to Lake Forest with me and he was coming to help out. Then my sister came and left college and was going to work and do a community theater, which she did. We had the JOIN Community Theater, which put on plays at our meetings, put on plays in empty lots over let’s turn this lot into the Hank Williams Memorial Playground. The plays were really kind of evil landlord, you know, and virtuous tenants. They were great. But she had just shown up -JJ: What was the raid for? She had just shown up. MJ: The raid is the police are getting pissed off at us. She had just come to Chicago. Or Patrick, one of them had. There were two in the office and they got busted. If you look in a book called JOIN or Uptown, called Uptown by [01:15:00] Nancy Hollander or Nancy Gitlin and Todd Gitlin. It’s not so much about JOIN, but it’s about life of southern white migrants in Chicago. In that book is a picture -- I believe that’s where that picture is -- of the office wrecked by the police. There’s also a couple pictures of me at a welfare demonstration at Hilliard’s office. Hilliard was the head guy of welfare then. Later on every one got off of that case because they planted dope. It was really blatant. But it was an issue we had to deal with. Out of that came a group called Citizens -- or no, Citizens Alert. 36 �Today on my radio show I had John -JJ: Conroy. MJ: John Conroy. Today I had John Conroy on my radio show and I know that he’s the guy that broke the John Burge [01:16:00] story and the police torture over 22 years -- he followed it. But one of the groups that was active around that whole issue was Citizens Alert. Citizens Alert is not unlike what the Black Panthers did right around that time, but we didn’t know about, where they followed police around. We followed the police around in Uptown. They didn’t like that a whole lot. So that was going on back then. There was a lot of really interesting activity going on in Uptown. In 1968 the focus shifted from poverty to the war. I myself, I would say I was a little backward. I didn’t want the Democratic Convention to come to town and the demonstrations around it. I thought that would interfere with what I considered to be the very long slow arduous process of becoming one with the people, winning people’s trust, winning them over time, so that they could be about social change. That was [01:17:00] the thought. You had to spend a lot of time with people. However, once the Democratic Convention was coming to town it was pretty clear that young people were getting into this and it was happening. But Rennie Davis, who was the de facto leader, one of them, of the JOIN Community Union, went over to Bratislava to meet with the Vietnamese and with the National Liberation Front. This was all going on. The war was starting to happen big time. Rennie is gone and a number of other people decide to leave. The young guys in the neighborhood, influenced by a really treacherous dude named Tom Mosher, who had been -- he is the son of a 37 �teamster enforcer, he had gone to Stanford, he had worked Al Lowenstein in Mississippi around SNCC stuff, and he [01:18:00] was hanging around Reverend Morey’s haul in Uptown, and with the young guys. He became a little bit involved with JOIN. He went to Cuba with the SDS people and then wrote about it for the Reader’s Digest. He was involved in all kinds of stuff at Stanford. I think he was involved in the murder of Mark Comfort and other people in early organizing prePanthers out there on the West Coast. There was an article recently in a French magazine by Steve Weissman from SDS, which goes through the details on this guy you wouldn’t believe. Later on he works for (inaudible), so tell you where he’s at. But Mosher is -- I think he’s fanning the flames of division between the students organizers and the young guys in Uptown. Because at the SDS convention in Bloomington, Indiana with Peggy Terry as their front person, and Youngblood, and Dave Puckett, and Junebug, and Bobby Lee -- not Bobby Lee. [01:19:00] Bobby McGinnis, etcetera, Bobby Joe they called him. They declared their independence. JJ: Hy Thurman, was he involved? MJ: He was around too. His older brother had been involved more, Melvin Thurman, I think. Anyhow, they declared their independence from SDS. You can find this in the New Left notes if you really want to dig through the history. Then they kicked out all of the remaining students. JOIN kicked out all of the remaining students except for me. I’m still in their good graces. (laughs) And there had been a guy who showed up at that time whose nickname was Preacherman. What is his real name? 38 �JJ: William -- MJ: Fesperman. JJ: Fesperman, yeah. MJ: Now William Fesperman [01:20:00] and his wife -- JJ: Hold on a second. (break in recording) MJ: All right. I was sharing about the young guys in Uptown, I think under the influence of Tom Mosher, they kick out all of the JOIN people, all of the students, except for me, and at the same time Preacherman shows up. I only vaguely remember this guy being around. He was a divinity student. He was at McCormick Theological Seminary. He had a beret and they thought of this Young Patriots. The Young Patriots, as you know, in Mike Gray’s American Revolution 2 there’s a lot of footage of Bobby Lee meeting with these young kids in Uptown, these young white kids. Well, some of them were not southern whites like Jimmy Cartier, who was a football player from Lake Forest out of Waukegan with me, [01:21:00] who was one of the early Rising Up Angry people, he’s in that movie. Bobby Lee in the movie is talking about how we’ve got to work together and all of that. There’s these young kids who become the Young Patriot. Fesperman, along with Doug Youngblood, Hy Thurman, Junebug, some other people, they ended up having an office, they ended up taking the Firing Line, which was the JOIN paper, and it really was very hard for me to take. They put out a thing that said, “White power”. They certainly meant it in the sense that okay, Fred used to talk about red power to red people, brown power to brown people, black power to black people, white power to white people, you know, 39 �brown power to brown people, and he would do that rap, and that was we have to kind of -- it’s hillbilly nationalist. There’s a new book out called [01:22:00] Hillbilly Nationalists: Urban Race Rebels and Black Power. There was the -- and I actually flirted with that too. Uptown was like hillbilly migrant’s Harlem. One of the things that distinguished us from other groups that worked with the Panthers, other mainly white groups, is that we were not about just being a support for the Panthers, we were about fighting for the rights, the integrity, the justice for oppressed white people or exploited white people. That was clearly a different -made us different than I think some of the groups like the National Committee to Combat Fascism, which came out of the Panthers and led to whatever Slim’s groups were. They were mainly support groups. We certainly played that role, but we were also about white people got to get organized too around their own self interests. I think the Young Patriots tried to [01:23:00] do that a little bit. So there was a big splash. The Panthers, particularly when Preacherman went to Oakland to some conference and gave a speech. You had the Young Patriots with confederate flags on their backs, that kind of stuff, showing up and talking about getting along with the Black Panther Party. But there was a split after that. I don’t have a lot of the details. I know that there were some internal issues with some of the people of the local Young Patriots and the police, some not too hip stuff. It kind of left some people disenchanted with each other and there was kind of a split. The Young Patriots did go to New York, had something going, and there was a Young Patriots thing up in Washington state, Oregon, or something. And they had an office for a while over on Racine because the 40 �landlord was Irv Birnbaum who had been a landlord and a supporter or lawyer for JOIN. [01:24:00] I kind of split places then. I had this notion, I had this vision really, of -- I drew a picture. It was a picture of a flower and it said Wildwood Flower, which was a famous country tune by the Carter Family. I said who knows about Wildwood Flower? Not a lot of college students, but millions and millions of Americans living out there. Now it’s not a political song but to me it was just like there are a lot of white people that were -- I thought of people listening to country music as poor, that kind of thing. Not that it has the mainstream aspects today. I had made the decision to work with white people. I guess I flirted with some kind of nationalism. It wasn’t nationalism in the sense of us versus them, it was like you can love yourself and love the whole. And that was always my -- in fact, I’m going to say it right now, the way I put [01:25:00] things to students, I say the best hope for white people is at some time in the world they will be viewed as an international minority that works for the good of the whole. You can say that about the United States. Hopefully the United States gets viewed in the world community down the line as a country made up of people who work for the good of the whole and not for the good of just one race, or one nationality, or one class. I had this idea of we needed to build a new organization of basically white working class youth initially to ally with the Panthers, to ally with the Young Lords. These are the groups that are influencing us at the time, and were in our environment so to speak. We held a conference in Fairborn, Ohio in 1968. Hamish Sinclair was there, who had worked in Hazard, Kentucky, [01:26:00] and has been active on the West Coast with 41 �prisoners I think since then. Some other people. Basically the conference was what are we going to do next, JOIN is kind of over, and where are we going to go. We held it in Fairborn, Ohio on a farm, but we went to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Antioch College was, to see a movie that night. I will confess we were a little smoked up, we’d been drinking, we basically were out of control. We went into the movie theater without paying. This is the rowdier -- we all have parts in our life where it’s sort of cool but it’s got its negative aspects. (laughs) I remember this kind of Andy Frain usher guy, security guy, who we just totally ignored. I remember being drunk up in the [01:27:00] photo booth. I’m not sure this can go on air. (laughs) In the projection booth. And the movie was Wild in the Streets. Wild in the Streets is made by the same people who made the FBI series, who made the anti-Mao movie called The Chairman, who made a movie about Malcolm X that was critical, you know, hostile to Malcolm X, and I think they may have done I Live Three Lives, the FBI thing on TV. But they -- Wild in the Streets the premise was these little white kids who were into rock and roll and stuff were challenging the older people, and they took it over, and everybody who was over thirty was written off. Then the little kids come along and wipe them out. But in the movie there was a song that goes, (singing) “There’s a new song rising up angry in the sky.” And that’s where I got the name. So I had been influenced by the Young Lords, this is crucial, [01:28:00] that they started putting out a paper. Whether that was here or New York, but I think it was the New York people, and a guy that says, “To liberate you got to educate. Educate to liberate.” That came from here. It came from right here in Chicago. So I was 42 �very much influenced by the Young Lords here in Chicago and they were talking about you’ve got to educate to liberate. So Rising Up Angry was my notion of a newspaper that would do that. I didn’t just get it from the Young Lords, I had read Lenin. Lenin talked about the role of a newspaper in a pre-party situation. You’ve got to educate people. That’s why now in this decade, I just turned 70, well seven months ago, I’ve put out a newspaper called The Heartland Journal over the years, and whether it’s called that or something else I’m going to do another online as well as printed and video, a lot of kind of journalism stuff. So that’s just a little advance warning. [01:29:00] We started a newspaper called Rising Up Angry. It was all things cool. What’s going on? The Black Panthers is cool, Young Lords is happening, we like the movie Bullet with Steve McQueen because the cops are chasing him. We had the stuff happening in Berkeley where the People’s Park was going on. I liked hot rod cars, so drag racing, all that stuff. All of that is in the first issue of Rising Up Angry. What we had been doing was since I had left Uptown, and I don’t know what’s going with the Patriots much and all that, but they’re active now because they aren’t active by 1969 when we actually started the paper, they’re done. I was delivering groceries up here in Rogers Park with Jimmy Cartier, and Patrick Sturgis, and [01:30:00] people who had been involved in my life. Patrick goes back to a little bit of JOIN. JJ: What about Diversey and the bookstore? MJ: Diversey and --? JJ: In the -- it was Diversey or Fullerton, you had a bookstore. MJ: That’s in Rising Up Angry. We aren’t there yet. 43 �JJ: Okay. You’re in Rogers Park. MJ: I’m living in Uptown, but I’m delivering groceries up here, and we’re getting to know these young kids on the corner, young greaser kids, who are -- now they’re firemen, now they’re train engineers, conductors. But they were working class youth in the neighborhood. Everybody wore -- the style of clothes then was baggy work pants, t-shirts or Ban-Lon shirts or Italian knits, black leather jackets, your hair was kind of short but growing longer, greased back, A1 stay press pants [01:31:00] or those baggy points, and pointy toe shoes, and black leather jackets. And that was the greaser style. There was a Black style like that too, the Gousters. And I’m sure the Puerto Rican -- everybody wore that style. And everyone’s listening to the same music. There was still Black on white, Latino, all that shit, but everything was starting -- the groundwork was being laid for the Rainbow Coalition. What I used to do is I’d take young kids and we had other contacts too. I remember meeting some people from the South Side, Billy Bonner and other people who went to Central [Y?] High school. A guy named John Starr, who still eats at the Heartland, he’s an actor and a teacher. He’s in his eighties. I think he’s in his eighties now. He was teaching at Central Y and we went to talk to them. I would go talk to students, people on the corners, we said, “Look, Black and white, Latinos, are all fighting each other, we’ve got to get along. The man is sticking to it to us, all of us.” [01:32:00] You know, the classic rap. The working class is oppressed, we have to overcome our false consciousness, we have to work together in our interests, and there’s a lot of singularities between us. You’ve got to go beyond the color of the skin. 44 �JJ: And the reaction is what? MJ: There’s some people say, “Oh, fuck the niggers.” Or, you know, “Spics this.” Some people go, “Yeah, I hear ya, man, right on!” So we would take these young kids to other events. If you had a demonstration or a march going on, this was before we became officially an organization, we would lay the groundwork for the paper. We went to the Panther office. We were kind of just hipping people to the cross-racial, cross-cultural fertilization that makes this country wonderful and probably makes the world wonderful. On July 28, 1969 we came out with the first issue of [01:33:00] Rising Up Angry, which I described a moment ago. That was really the way we reached out to a lot of people. We would jump out of the car, we’d drive around neighborhoods, three or four of us, and we’d pull up to Kosciuszko Park, we’d go down to the Gas for Less at Armitage -- at Sedgwick and Lincoln over there. That’s where the Mohawks, the Hudson’s, the North Parks come, commonly known as the [CORE?], who used to go to the same school with guys who became parts of the Young Lords. JJ: We used to fight them (inaudible). MJ: You used to fight when you were kids. JJ: With a gang, yeah. MJ: Yeah. And we would hang out with them. My sister in law Kimmy was going out with those guys. We’d drink a little ripple, we’d smoke a little smoke, we’d talk about revolution. When the Weathermen did their Wild in the Streets action, what was it called? Days of Rage. We took a bunch of CORE guys to that. But it wasn’t just [01:34:00] here, it was South Side, it was everywhere. We would go 45 �places. We would pass out the paper or we’d sell the paper. I spent hundreds of hours, maybe more. I would be at the corner of Lincoln and Belmont. I would be at Milwaukee near Kedzie and Diversey and I would be on the corner say, “Okay, it’s time to take a change from the brain. It’s time to get back in the peoples’ camp. It’s time we move it from the lower level to the higher, from the shallower to the deeper, from the one-sided to the many, from the abstract to the concrete. All power to the people, brothers and sisters. All power to the people. Rising up angry. Get your Rising Up Angry. Twenty-five cents, Rising Up Angry, you need this information.” So I would be -- you know, that’s what I did. I was the king of selling the papers on the corner. And we had quotas. Some people did work in the legal program. They didn’t have to sell as many papers. I was the head of outreach. I would be the guy who would -- [01:35:00] we would organize meetings at the old Wobbly Hall or other places where we would recruit as many kids as we could from around the city, come and watch us -- watch the Battle of Algiers, which is a great movie about the Algerian revolution, and secret cells, and militaristic stuff. We would show them that movie. There was an operation, outfit, called Newsreel who were filmmakers out of New York and San Francisco and Chicago and they would make short movies about all kinds of issues. Jimi Hendrix, it starts out come to San Francisco with flowers in your hair, and the next thing you know there’s riot scenes fighting the police. And were a little left wing adventurous, a little militaristic. All of us, the Young Lords, the Black Panthers, Rising Up Angry, everyone was buying guns in those days. You got your gun card. Clark Kissinger, who he was [01:36:00] a moderate kind of SDS 46 �guy who later is now in the RCP, Revolutionary Communist Party, and pushing Mao to this day. He opened a gun store. I remember going to Bell’s Gun Shop on Manheim Road in Franklin Park and the Lords would be there, the Panthers would be there, the cops would be there, Rising Up Angry would be there. It was like hairy times. We all had High Standard Riot pumps, just like Huey Newton in the photo with Bobby Seale. We had Browning 9mm. I was so grateful when my guns were stolen by some Native American guys. I’ve got to say, I didn’t ever like guns a lot. I’ve been trained in the use of guns at my Y camp and people who were shooting skeet down in this gravel pit, but I just -- the guns was not my favorite thing. But I did have some guns. Some guys I know [01:37:00] they stole my guns and they were going to Wounded Knee, maybe they went to Wisconsin, I have no idea where they are, I hope it never comes back on me. (laughs) JJ: Would you say the emotion at that time was? MJ: Arms struggle. I had grown up Adlai Stevenson kind of Democratic Party, Kennedy. I did vote for Johnson. Then we were down on politics later. Later on it was okay to vote for McGovern. I ran the Peggy Terry campaign for Vice President with Eldritch Cleaver in 1968 with the Peace and Freedom Party. We didn’t even talk about that part of the history. We had gotten more and more disillusioned, we had gotten more left wing adventurous, infantile radicalism, I’m not sure what the Lenin term is for that. But we thought we were actually going to take over the country and it was going to be an armed struggle. [01:38:00] I got to say that we were not the only ones that thought that because the year after 47 �the Bears won the Super Bowl, I think it was 1995, I went with my friend Dave Meggyesy, who had played for the Cardinals and was an organizer for the Player’s Union, and is a very close friend to this day. I was in San Francisco; we went to see the Bears. They lost to the 49ers. We ended up at a bar that night. This was 1995. At the bar, while the rest of us are sneaking around doing illicit activities, (laughs) there’s a guy named -- he’s an FBI agent and I’m blocking his name. It will come back to me. I’m so sorry I’m blocking his name. But he was the FBI agent on the Delorean case where the guy that made those Delorean cars was busted on cocaine. This guy has an Irish name. He also was after the Weathermen. So here [01:39:00] we are, I’m with a bunch pro-football -- former pro-football players. And so somehow, we’re all chumming it up with this FBI guy who says to me, he says, “We thought you were going to win. We thought it was coming down.” I went like -- I said, “Well, you know, I guess on a scale of however you measure it, it was perceived as a major movement. We were for real. We engendered these reactions from the forces that be in the government to try and wipe us out.” Which in many ways they did. If you think about COINTEL Program and the Panthers and the murder of all kinds of people by the government and the FBI, including our beloved Fred Hampton in this town in, and Mark Clark, it just -- the movement that you and I, all of us here, [01:40:00] were involved with was serious, it was real, it had ramifications both positively and negatively. JJ: When Reverend Bruce Johnson -- because it was like thirty days before Fred Hampton. Were you around at that time? When Bruce Johnson -- 48 �MJ: When Bruce Johnson was killed? JJ: Yeah. MJ: I remember him getting killed. I remember the march, I think, on Armitage Avenue. We were involved in -- Rising Up Angry was involved, like the Panthers, in free health clinics. I think the Young Lords had one for a while; the Panthers had them, Doc Satchel was the Minister of Health. He had been wounded in the raid on the Hampton apartment. I think probably the most -- the Patriots and the Uptown people had an Uptown people’s health clinic too. But I think the most successful clinic to be honest was the Fritzi Engelstein Free People’s Health Center which I think Slim had been -- Slim Coleman had been involved with. Then the Rising Up Angry people [01:41:00] basically ended up taking it over, running it, and for years we had this Free People’s Health Center at the corner of Wilton and Diversey at the Church of the Holy Covenant. The reverend was Jim something. JJ: Was it Jim Reed? MJ: Jim Reed is the minister there. I remember him. The other minister, Bruce Johnson, over -- that was involved at your church where you had your offices on Armitage. I don’t remember a lot of stuff about that, to be honest with you. But he was assassinated, he was killed. JJ: Like Manuel Ramos, were you involved -- MJ: I remember the march on Manuel Ramos. JJ: What do you remember about that? MJ: I don’t remember much other than he was a figure in your literature. Then we put 49 �him in Rising Up Angry and there were marches. He was an activist with you guys, he had come out of the Young Lords gang, became part of the Young Lords organization. I don’t know much other than that. I’ve got to say that I held you [01:42:00] in high esteem and probably -- I probably wasn’t aware of my own potential early on, but when I met the Fred Hamptons of the world and the ChaCha Jimenez’s of the world, they were guys I looked up to. I think everyone who looks at this kind of thing, you can look to leaders for guidance, advice, and inspiration, but leaders are leaders. A lot of people who follow leaders have a lot of real serious potential themselves. You want to say okay, I’m learning from these guys, I look to them as a leader, I too can be a leader. Back to where I started on that, I was a little shy talking to you. I don’t think it was until I saw you of altered consciousness one time that I realized you were a human guy. JJ: You’re talking about altered -- MJ: You were messed up. (laughs) In the night on Montrose one night. “All right, Cha-Cha!” (laughs) It was like -- we all go [01:43:00] through our periods. Some people probably have seen me out in the world -- well, I’ve been married for a good amount of time now, which probably saved my life in many ways. All of us guys are lucky to hook up with some really fine wives. (laughter) I remember I spent a lot of nights out running around. Which was part of the deal though. Where did Bobby Lee first start talking to people when he was a Panther organizer? I’d see him in Oxford Pub. He was the guy that got sent to work with the white people. We’d be out there drinking and later on there was a period of time when people were snorting and weed and weed from then until today even. 50 �I would be an advocate of not only medical marijuana but recreational use. I think that a lot of drugs can be pretty harmful. But also I think there is a positive side to all of that. I will refer people to the Andrew Wild book The Natural Mind. In that he talks about the -- every culture on the planet uses some [01:44:00] chemical substance to alter consciousness except the Eskimos, because they didn’t have it. They didn’t have fermented this or fermented that or they didn’t have some kind of plant growing. Everybody has used it. In the book he talked about it can help you in many ways. But then he talks about going beyond it. You don’t really need it. You can reach consciousness and awareness at higher levels without the aid of some kind of substance that alters your consciousness. I’m not an anti-drug guy. I tend to be kind of pro the use of recreational drugs. I think it’s better than people getting drunk. But that’s an issue that’s going on today. Back then it was, back now. JJ: And you were organizing greasers who were on the corners. MJ: They were on the corners. They were just -- they were drinkers but then they started [01:45:00] to be smokers. Because what happened was the older brothers started coming back from Vietnam. The older brothers had been in Vietnam and they had gotten along with Black guys and Latino guys. They’d all smoked weed over there. You had all of the sudden the greasers in the neighborhood are growing their hair long and they’re smoking weed. And like I said earlier, they’re listening to the music. Then you’ve got Rising Up Angry, you’ve got the Young Lords, you’ve got the Black Panther Party, you’ve got the American Indian Movement, you’ve got I Wor Kuen, which was an Asian group 51 �for a while. They were pretty serious Maoist types and pretty critical of anyone -I remember I wrote a -JJ: Were they more like in New York? MJ: They were in New York and the West Coast, but they were here in Chinatown too. Yeah. Because I remember I was invited to speak at something, I had written a piece that had been put out in a benefit -- I brought [01:46:00] a band called XIT (Crossing of Indian Tribes) to Chicago to do some shows for Rising Up Angry to raise money. There is footage of all of that, there’s a movie of them. In the program I wrote a thing about the American Indian Movement. And the line is, “To the place where we share one heart.” I always kind of mixed a lot of the little New Age stuff, with Marxist politics, with American populism, whatever I read or am looking at I’m influenced by. So I had this phrase, “Where we work together --” blah, blah, blah, “Where we join together to go to that place where we share one heart.” And I was asked to talk at the I Wor Kuen thing and I basically gave this talk where I used that line and they attacked me. It’s not being hardassed Marxist enough. [01:47:00] So I wasn’t fond on that organization. And then they disappeared. But they were around here for about that much time. I don’t include them in my discussions or talks about the Rainbow Coalition. I do include the Young Lords, and the Panthers, and the Patriots were the original. The Patriots were so short-lived and it kind of merged with the Rising Up Angry. I do mention the American Indian Movement was around too. There was also in the Mexican community there were the Brown Berets. JJ: Because they spread to other cities too. 52 �MJ: The Brown Berets, they were short-lived here. The leader became a kind of conversative -- JJ: The Young Lords were learning from that. We were learning from the Brown Berets. MJ: You had Brown Berets here? JJ: They came before us but you know, we went to the West Coast. MJ: I remember you were with Corky Gonzales. When you and I were at Rainbow Coalition of Elders meeting, I remember we were at the same camp, and Corky Gonzales, who had been an influence. JJ: And the children of Corky Gonzales came to visit us. MJ: I got photos of that. [01:48:00] I’ve got a lot of photos so show you guys. JJ: Okay, so the impact of the Rainbow Coalition, what do you think? MJ: The Rainbow Coalition was just the real deal. It was what we were about. Enjoying -- there had been white people working in the welfare union, working with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, which goes till this day. So there were Black people, so you had Blacks and whites. Then once Rising Up Angry comes along, Rising Up Angry is not only influenced by the Panthers and the Young Lords, but we go to the demonstrations, and people start talking about each other. I remember the Panthers being -- I was introduced at a Panther event where someone was referring to having seen this name written on the wall, Rising Up Angry, who are they, what are they? Well it was kids first out of Lincoln Park, Logan Square, because we were in both places in Uptown [01:49:00] coming out of Uptown. We began an organization and we had some 53 �skills at getting press, and we did have a newspaper that put out 20,000 copies of the paper every three weeks. We would sell it all over town. In that we pushed -- we didn’t use the term Rainbow Coalition a lot. I think the Uptown -the Patriot guys did and they made those buttons early on. There’s these handpainted buttons of red, brown, black, yellow, and white, which were kind of the Rainbow Coalition. I don’t remember talking about the Rainbow Coalition until years later when you’re working on the kind of the history of the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, and Ray Santisteban started coming and making his interviews for his movies. Since then it’s become the way we describe those [01:50:00] times. You correct me if I’m wrong, but other than maybe Bobby Lee using the term, I don’t even know if in the movie it’s Rainbow Coalition. JJ: Bobby Lee was working with the Patriots and then when we started working with the Panthers Fred asked us to join the Rainbow Coalition, so that’s how the original group -- then it spread to other cities. MJ: Then Fred’s dead, then the Patriots are gone. JJ: Yeah, but then spread to other cities for a while. It just said we were supporting each other. MJ: Yeah, and so we did that. The way the history is described now, and I did an article which hopefully becomes the basis of a book by the same name, it’s Rising Up Angry and Chicago’s Early Rainbow Coalition. I don’t talk a lot about it, but I do talk about the influence of the Lords, the Panthers, and then Rising Up Angry. The way I came up with that article to become a book was because you, Cha-Cha Jiminez, [01:51:00] were doing something at DePaul where you were 54 �going to have -- they were going to talk about the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, leaving us guys out. So all of the sudden, someone knew I had photographs. Because the photographs they were using in the exhibit were of the Panthers in New York or on Oakland. JJ: We told them. MJ: Okay, good. And the stuff on the Young Lords was stuff in New York, of the Young Lords Party in New York. I remember they all came up here from -what’s that guy’s name? JJ: Masud, Felix Masud. MJ: Yeah, Felix. How do you say his name? JJ: Felix Masud Piloto. MJ: And then Maria? JJ: Maria Isabel Ochoa. MJ: Yeah, and one other woman? JJ: Jackie Lazú. MJ: No, it wasn’t her. JJ: Christina -- MJ: Christina. JJ: -- Rodrigeuz. MJ: Okay, so all of these people, Christina, and Maria, and Felix, [01:52:00] they came up to the Heartland Café and I took them in the back into the Michael James archive section/studio/prairie dancer gallery, whatever we’re going to call it. I did have from the Rising Up Angry files not a lot of pictures I shot myself, 55 �although I’ve shot plenty of pictures, but also during that period I’ve got to confess, while I shot some photos early on in Angry, I was considered -- I’m the organizer, I’m doing stuff and other people take the pictures. But I have the archives and I still have the archives. That’s why the people making the Black Panther movie, who also did the Freedom Rider movie, just came and talked to me because people want to look at the pictures. Lo and behold, you came up -or they came up and they wanted to do this show on the Panthers and the Lords. I showed them the stuff, so it became, okay, [01:53:00] it’s going to be the Black Panthers and the Young Lords and Rising Up Angry. And as you know we had an exhibit at DePaul a few years back of photos -- of not only the Panthers from New York and the Young Lords from New York, but Panthers and Lords from Chicago, and some Rising Up Angry and some Young Patriots. It’s still a great exhibit. There’s this book out, as I said earlier, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power, and certainly when I get my Rising up Angry book out, I’ve got all these photos, they’re all framed, they’re ready to go, it’s an exhibit, it can go anywhere anytime. It’s getting hot. JJ: Any final thoughts? Any final thoughts? MJ: Let’s think. Yeah, let’s try to stab at some final thoughts. In 1975 things came to a transition. The War in Vietnam [01:54:00] was coming to an end, Rising Up Angry closes, there’s a debate in Rising Up Angry whether we’re going to end the organization. I voted to have a new organization called the Rising of Us All. I still think that’s a good title. I was outvoted. We sold the building on Belmont at Racine, which is where we had Right On Books. Right On Books was a little 56 �bookstore. We actually had -- it was two floors, we had big meetings there, we showed films there, put out the newspaper there, we owned the building. Actually the reception area when you walk in had a steel plate about this thick because we were concerned with -- it was a militaristic time on a lot of fronts. So the building gets sold and I’m -- the vote doesn’t go with us having a new organization [01:55:00] so I started a thing called Freedom Road Delivery. Freedom Road Delivery was a number of things. It was going to be a musical production thing and during the Rising Up Angry time we had done the People’s Dances. That was really a popular thing where you’d have all these little contacts from these little gangs and peer groups on corners, some Latinos from Lawndale down that way and 18th Street, some Black people, we’d have bands, and we’d get together, and we’d dance our asses off, get along. We’d serve food, we’d have poetry, and folk music in another room. We did these at the Midland Hotel. They were pretty far out. After Rising Up Angry closed though, those People’s Dances didn’t happen as much because they didn’t have the base of organizers that were pulling all of these people together. I tried to put on some [01:56:00] concerts and we started to -- what are we going to do now? I was interested in sports, I was interested in music, I was interested in politics. We started what we called Freedom Road Delivery to put on events and to distribute magazines and newspapers. I was also teaching at Columbia College. I was teaching a course called Organizing for Social Change. In the course of that course I started talking about building the mini progressive economy. I had been reading Mao on the base areas in China, I’d been reading about the Nation 57 �of Islam with businesses, I had been reading about the role of small businesses and credit unions in the independent struggle in Kenya, and I just had this idea that we would -- we had to start businesses that would not only provide people with work, but would serve the community [01:57:00] and would give the workers time to go do political work. At the heart of this was a restaurant. So I’m teaching this class, I said, “We’re going to have a restaurant, we’re going to have a daycare center, we’re going to have bicycle repair co-op, automobile repair coop, we’re going to have art galleries, we’re going to have free people’s health clinics, anything the people needed we were going to do. Someone offered to give me money, which they did not do, to open a restaurant. It was either going to be called -- I was doing a lot of running, I was eating healthy food, I was influenced by Frances Moore Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet, how you cannot meet the world’s protein needs on a meat-based diet. You had to do like a Chinese restaurant, a lot of vegetables, and rice, and a little bit of meat. And I started talking about the restaurant. She said she’d offer some -- she offered us money to do it, didn’t give it to us, but that got us going. In August, on August 11 in 1976 Katie Hogan and Stormy Brown, [01:58:00] who was my ex-wife already, along with her mother Jean, started working on the place, and we opened August 11th. We started working on it May 1st. It was the first time we didn’t do any May Day stuff. JJ: You’re talking about the Heartland Café. MJ: We opened the Heartland Café. It was either going to be Sweet Home Chicago or Heartland Café, so it became Sweet Home Chicago’s Heartland Café. We 58 �opened August 11. We had 43 customers. JJ: In Rogers Park. MJ: In Rogers Park. We’ve been here since then. We’re just about to complete our thirty-sixth year on August 11 and I’m very happy to say that Katie Hogan and I, who have been there carrying on for many years, we have taken in a business partner named Tom Rosenfeld. He has an organic farm in Michigan, sells cider under the name of Earth First Cider. He clearly made some dough somewhere else. I think he will keep the integrity of the Heartland, the tradition, and obviously there will be some little bumps in the road, but [01:59:00] Katie and I are still part owners, and we are still working there for another year, and we’re about to engage on our reupping our -- not only keeping our radio show going, but selling the Heartland Journal, finishing some books, holding some events. I kind of envision a big space with art on the walls and you coming to talk, you showing some film, speakers. JJ: Let’s hear the different components of it, because you had the radio show. MJ: Yeah, we have the radio show, I have books in the works, we have certainly a lot of contacts with people who need to share what they’ve got going. JJ: And this came from the bookstore also, it’s kind of like an extension. MJ: Yeah. JJ: Of that time. MJ: Our bookstore in Rising Up Angry, we had a bookstore, general store, at Heartland, and what I do next will be more like education, art, advocating, social justice, etcetera. [02:00:00] I don’t know what this will be called and when it will 59 �happen. JJ: It also kind of comes from the base area of Mao, so I mean -- MJ: Everything the people need. JJ: Everything what? MJ: Everything the people need. Kind of where I was always at. I said if the people want -- the people are -- I believe in something I would called comprehensive consciousness. A lot of people are focused on one thing or another. To me -some people use the term renaissance person, renaissance man, where you’ve got a lot of interests and you do a lot of different things. I think that that’s a -- it’s okay if you’re focused on one or two things in your life, it’s okay if you try and handle a lot of stuff. But I think that for people who are consciously political organizers and activists, you want to not exclude anything out there or any group of people, and you want to include lots of things that will help make a better world, make a better society, make a more comprehensive -- so I use this term [02:01:00] comprehensive consciousness to include not only social justice issues, but art, but music, the food we eat, everything. You know, everything has a place in this -- as Huey Newton used to call it the many layered onion. It had lots of layers. We’re the many something or other something or other. We’re working on the rap on it. I want to help to not only foster interest and learning from the things that you and I, we’ve all experienced and done, but to do it in a way that reinforces the new activism, the new forces of social justice. I used a slogan on our radio show that says, “Do good in the world because the world needs all the good that you do.” “Do good in the world because the world needs 60 �all the good that you do.” And I believe that. I think that we want to encourage people to do good in the world [02:02:00] and I think we want to continue to try and take on people who we consider our adversaries and win them over to make them see the ills of what they’re about or to just clearly know that they’re on the other side. As well as reinforce people who are expanding their own awareness and their own consciousness, they’re just beginning to grasp what the world is all about, what’s already happened, what’s about to happen, what could happen. I like to use the thing we’ve got to know where we’re coming from. We’ve got to really know where we’re at in order to have a really clear vision about where we’re going to go. JJ: In 1975 I ran for alderman in the 46th Ward. MJ: I would have voted for you but I wasn’t voting at that time and I wasn’t living in that ward. JJ: Right, so you also had been working with the alderman in this area. MJ: Joe Moore. David Orr. JJ: (inaudible) the committee for a while? MJ: No, I’m not the committeeman. I’m actually the President of the Democratic Party Organization [02:03:00] in the 49th Ward. It’s elected by the membership but it’s not elected by the populus as a whole. In Chicago you have 50 wards, every ward as an alderman, and every ward has a representative both to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, which doesn’t really matter in this town. Or the Green Party. Any party that’s running. In this ward we have Joe Moore is our long-time alderman and David Orr is the board committeeman who 61 �is like the rep from the party to the central committee of the Democratic Party. JJ: He’s a progressive -- MJ: He’s kind of progressive, yeah, he’s progressive. Joe Moore’s been one of the most progressive. I think Joe’s having to figure out how he deals with this mayor, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who does some really neat things, and does some stuff that makes us crazy. I’ve got to say that when he showed up at the Heartland for an event that was going on, [02:04:00] he talked to a number of students, and Emanuel lauded the Heartland as this historic institution, it’s been so important to the community. He then turns to me at the end and he says, “How was that?” I gave him a five and then I jumped up and hugged him. Where is security? But I also -- there’s many things he’s doing that I do not like. So it’s a mixed bag. But I don’t think it’s an easy job. And back then we would say that’s good, don’t vote, we’re against this, we’re against that, we’re for some altruistic utopian vision. I think you have to be realistic in real life. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got, you’ve got to defend what you have. Even in left theory, whether it’s Mao, whether it’s Lenin, anyone, at times you’ve got to be in the united front where you’re going into the lowest common denominator of inclusiveness [02:05:00] of people who are on your side in order to keep out some more reactionary forces. If you are solidified and you have power -- let’s say Obama was not under such attack from the forces on the right with so much money, then maybe we could be -- I would be more critical of Obama, and I would be pushing him to left more. But right now you’re defending what we got, holding on, so that we have a sea that’s not too polluted to swim in during the next four years after he’s re-elected. 62 �That’s kind of the way I think about it. So I don’t mind being associated with the Democratic Party. I make jokes, say I am the President of the 49th Ward Democratic Party Organization, which was a move to my right. (laughs) And I’ve also -- I’ve got to say I’m good at mixing things, influences together. [02:06:00] I’m not necessarily an original thinker, although I’ve put together stuff that are unique from parts of things and given them my own twist. If I hang around with you, I’m going to take on some of your stuff and filter it and utilize it. Same thing with you. And I think that’s just way it is. JJ: Kind of you as Paul -- MJ: You as Paul Wozniak who came up out of Rising Up Angry and is the videographer, along with his lovely wife, Mary Wozniak. Not the same Mary Wozniak from the old Rising Up Angry but Mary Wozniak who’s married to Paul now. They worked closely with me on the Life in the Heartland Show. They’re in on all the plans of where we’re going next and how that’s going to be. We’ll include you too, Cha-Cha. JJ: Any final thoughts? MJ: I think I’ve said enough. (laughter) END OF VIDEO FILE 63 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/895f7cee838f871865322b48dee6a11e.mp4 1746257879ebee38fc494a01870e03f2 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 Michael Gaylord James vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Narrativas personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--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_James_Michael Title A name given to the resource Michael Gaylord James video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James, Michael Description An account of the resource A resident of Chicago’s Roger’s Park neighborhood, Mike James was the first leader of Rising Up Angry, a white, working-class group formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that sought to organize residents of Lakeview/Uptown and offer a range of free or low cost services to the community including a free legal clinic, free health service, a women’s discussion group, occasional free pet-care clinic, and a variety of community events. The group also published a newspaper, the only underground newspaper aimed specifically at white, blue-collar greaser youth in Chicago at that time. The paper presented a combination of international news with news from local Chicago neighborhoods. Rising Up Angry members were also known for their distinctive way of dressing – dark banlon shirts, leather jackets, baggy pants, and pointed toe shoes. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- 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 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 2012-07-04 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/af091e183b8d79f3b279d2a060f0978e.mp4 59548fabb9c650345ca905e08eed95e3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f73ad65e14a5a052e7e8993e8ffa7520.pdf a3d497b07f3a092de2d2004b76fe5cdc PDF Text Text Living with PFAS Interviewee: Michael McIntosh Interviewer: Dani DeVasto Date: September 9, 2025 Dani DeVasto (DD) (00:03): Okay. I'm Dani DeVasto, and today, September 9th, 2025. I have the pleasure of chatting with Michael McIntosh. Hi Michael. Michael McIntosh (MM) (00:13): Hi, Dani. DD (00:15): Can you tell me about where you're from and where you currently live? MM (00:19): Yes. Um, I'm, I'm from Michigan. I grew up mainly in Jackson, Michigan, which is south of Lansing. Uh, I've lived out east for a while in Connecticut. Um, and since 1991, my family and I lived here in Rockford, Michigan. DD (00:37): All right. You already anticipated my next question, <laugh>, which is, how long have you lived there? MM (00:43): <laugh>. DD (00:46): Oh, all right. So, Michael, can you tell me a story about your experience with PFAS or with PFAS in your community? MM (00:54): Yeah. I, I, I'll go back to my start, really. And, um, in particular, it was the, uh, Wolverine Worldwide, um, demolishing their tannery. And, um, when they did that, before they did that, they said there's no known contamination on the site. Um, but from when it started, we had a group of neighbors who kept track of it. Um, we had, uh, I had set up kind of a walking routine so that various times of the day someone would walk and take pictures if needed, um, particularly of, um, dust or, or, uh, you know, contamination in the air, those events. Um, and we, about that time, we started a small nonprofit, um, CCRR, um, concerned Citizens for Responsible Remediation. And it was mainly my wife, Lynn and me, and, um, quite a few neighbors that cared. And, um, we had hired AJ Birkbeck at that time as our environmental lawyer, um, and we were showing up at city council meetings and raising concerns. MM (02:13): The city kind of blew us off. Um, that wasn't our first taste of, of not being taken seriously, but that's what starts this. Um, and we, um, we tried to keep track. We, we asked where the air quality monitors were. Um, we were, we were getting, um, requesting data. We ended up having to FOIA stuff because �the city was making it difficult for us to get information. Um, and it was at that time that I, I took on a few different roles, um, when I was off in the organizer of meetings. Um, and I would often facilitate them. I wouldn't necessarily lead them, um, because we had various people who were involved that needed to speak, um, particularly Lynn, my wife. Um, and then I would follow up with meeting notes and, um, and, uh, things like that. And, uh, I remember one experience when, um, we met we and raised our concerns, and we, um, we shared, we shared it with each other, and we, um, everybody's email was in plain sight. MM (03:31): We, we either shared it with the city, I don't remember, or someone in our group kind of surreptitiously shared it. And then the city manager stole our <laugh>, stole our distribution list, and used it to, um, try to, to, um, dismiss us as, you know, discontented citizens. Um, and that was our first lesson in communications and using, uh, blind carbon copies on our emails, um, that sort of thing. Um, it was a learning curve, things like that. Um, so I was, I was helping keep us on track from, uh, sometimes we were meeting weekly, sometimes we met next door at our neighbor's, uh, porch once a week. Um, and it was a time when, first, first time when the neighborhood really came together on something because we were with the Westerly winds. Um, we were in particular, um, um, you know, subject to any air pollution that was coming our way. MM (04:39): Uh, that was one of, one of the things that's, that's kind of an early thing. Our group got smaller over time. People after the tannery was demolished and things were set and done there. Um, we, um, a lot of people slipped away. Understandably, there wasn't a lot to do. Um, and I'll just fast forward to 2017 when, um, our small group at that point, CCRR, we were probably about, if we were 10 people, that was a lot. And by then, I think, uh, Dr. Rick Ky joined us, um, in 2013. He was persuaded that we were, um, that we were legit. Um, and, um, it was our group that was the whistleblower to the EPA. And it was also at the time that we, um, we were able to persuade Garrett Ellison of M Life that again, that we were legit, that we had a legitimate environmental concern. MM (05:43): And he started writing. Um, and then, um, it, that was when, again, I was doing quite a bit of organizing, quite a bit of communications. Um, <laugh>, I was, let's see, in 2017, what was that, eight years ago, I was 62. And we had millennials in our group. And so one time I said, well, well, who wants to get a, get us on Facebook so we can communicate that way? And I was so shocked that nobody, particularly the millennials, nobody, nobody stepped up. And I, I'm not shy about asking people and, and by name and saying, Hey, would you, would you think about it, Nick, what about you? Um, no takers. And I said, okay, I'll do it for eight weeks, and then I'm gonna hand it over to someone. I'll get it going. Well, that eight week deadline came and went. MM (06:42): And so I continued with that. And it's probably not a lot these days, but over the course of, um, probably about six or eight months, we got up to 1100 regional followers. Um, and a lot of them were people who were affected by the contamination at House Street. Um, we were in close communication with them. Um, we were showing up at town hall meetings when, when Wolverine was saying that, you know, that, that we really care about the community, and you want, we want you to be comfortable with your water. Um, it was a lot of BS from their pr, um, and particularly their lawyers. Uh, and that was, that was �particularly a very intense time. Um, I helped organize, one of the things, I reached out, one of the groups I reached out to was Clean Water Action. And I, I don't know if he's still there. I think he is, he may direct the Michigan, Sean McBrady. Um, but we did, um, we arranged a press conference, uh, in the Capitol, and I went, and three people who were affected by the, um, the House Street dumping went. And we, um, you know, we had, we had various, uh, various networks show up. Um, and, uh, we also went to try to talk to a couple of our legislators. We tried to, to find Pete McGregor to talk to him. Unfortunately, he, he was very much for business, and he had been persuaded by the city that we were kind of just a ragtag group that was full of complainers. And so, unfortunately, he never took us seriously or gave us the time of day. Um, and I'm not shy about naming names because we, this was all done in public, so I'm not, I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but I'm just saying at the time, that's how things were going down. MM (08:51): Um, and so, um, it was the, one of, one of the things that I want to share for the sake of, I'm really doing this, not just for the history, but for all the generations younger than me. Um, you know, the millennials, which my kids are involved with, that Gen Z, the alphas, the, the Gen X. Um, because, um, it was incredibly hard work. Um, I was keeping a down a, a full-time job at a corporation. Fortunately for me, I didn't work at a small place because the city manager would often call those small places and complain about their employees. And a good friend of ours lost her job at LGROW because of, she gave up her job because her boss, after talking to the city manager, Michael Young at the time, said, um, well, you can either support this CCRR group or you can, uh, work at LGROW. MM (09:55): And she was bold enough to say, you know what? I don't need this job. She was a key member. That was Janice Tompkins. She was a key member of CCRR. Still is. Um, but it, it's, you know, the, um, the four of us that went to the EPA, not including, I didn't go, but Lynn and Janice Tompkins, AJ Beck and Rick Rediske went, uh, the science did an article on them. And the article title is quite telling, because it's, they persisted because the group persisted for seven years. Um, and now it's 15 years because CCRR still is a going concern. We were really low tech. Um, we didn't have a website, um, there, we didn't publish a lot. We used email and we tried to communicate kind of low key so that we stayed kind of below the radar of things. Um, but it can be hard on relationships, and it was hard on Lynn's and my marriage because we were both in the middle of it, and we were both working hard at it, often into the evening. MM (11:13): Um, and I, I finally got to the point, I think it was towards the end of 2018 when I said, you know, I'm gonna burn out here. I, I need to step back for a little bit. And so I, I, um, reduced my involvement with CCRR. And at that time, I took on something much more life giving. I started on the board at Plain Song Farm, which when you listen to this, whoever listens to this, I hope, Plain Song Farm on 12 Mile in Rockford is still a going concern. Uh, it's a small nonprofit and if, um, a young nonprofit, but I'll just throw that out. 'cause they're, they care about the environment and the, the, um, they care about, very much about the watershed. They're very involved with the community, and they care about PFAS. They had their water tested for PFAS, um, their wells at one point. MM (12:08): Um, so I spent more time with them. Lynn stayed involved. I would show up at CCR meetings and help communicate and make sure people were gonna make it and that sort of thing. Um, so, um, fast forward �to now, my involvement is with the Wolverine Community Advisory Group that's been going, I you may have that date, I think since 2018 or 2019. Um, I just joined in September of 2024 because, um, you know, Lynn and I agreed, we got to the point where we realized that, um, our marriage was the most important thing, and we were putting that ahead of everything else we would privilege our marriage and our relationship. So when I, um, she was ready to go off, um, the CAG, the Wolverine CAG, I was stepping down from Plain Song and I thought, okay, I think it's time for me to step into this. MM (13:11): And, um, I'd like to use my gifts there, encourage people that are still involved. Such, again, Rick Rediske is one of the, uh, he, he's on a three person leadership team member along with Sandy Wynn Stelt, and Tom Konecsni. And, um, I'm on the, I'm one of the ad hoc, not the ad hoc, one of the subcommittees is communication. So I'm back in the game working on communications, and we hope in the next six to 12 months to really, really up our game on communications. And in particular, I mean, we're, we're pretty much an older group. We have some younger people that have joined. Um, uh, professor Dr. Dani McBride from Calvin University has joined. Um, she's a breath of fresh air. Um, we have, um, one of the co-directors, I won't mention her because I don't don't know if she's going to join. She's come to a meeting and, and may join, um, the, when I say young people, anybody under 40, I consider young. Anybody under 45. I'm, I'm 70, the truth told. So anybody younger than me, I feel younger than. And I, I, I have a burden that, um, it's just recently I've been aware of it from my reading, but it's just recently that I've become more aware of the burden that younger people, younger than me feel for the climate change, for things like PFAS for those environmental concerns. And they're not only, perhaps discouraged, but, uh, incredibly disappointed or very despairing. Um, and I just feel for them. And so I hope anything I say could be used as encouragement and encouragement to stick with it, um, because it's worth it. Um, it's amazing the relationships you develop with people who care. And, um, I don't know, people talk enough about affection or love, but you come to have a deep affection or love for the people, for the water systems, for creation. MM (15:30): Um, I say to my tree sometime in the yard that, um, you know, you don't belong to me. I belong to you. Um, and I just know that, that the environment's gonna continue to be a, uh, an issue. So that's why I'm stay involved with what I'm doing. Um, that's frankly, the, the big reason. Well, I really believe in the book that you're writing, and, um, I really believe in the idea of the, of making a public library of all these interviews for future generations. So, and you're way younger than I am, too. So I care about you, <laugh> and your family. Thank you, DD (16:12): <laugh>. Thank you. Would you say that, I mean, it seems like, especially with your work with Plainsong Farms and now with the CAG, and even before that, would you say that like caring about the environment was something that was central to you, one of your concerns always? Or has this kind of MM (16:30): Yeah, the first Earth Day was, was in, uh, was April 22nd, 1970. I was a ninth grader in junior high. We got word before homeroom, a handful of us. We went to the principal's office and said we wanted to join the junior college in their five mile walk from the community, from the junior college to Jackson and picking up trash and so on. And you wouldn't believe it. They said, yes, if our parents approved, I bet that wouldn't happen today. So we called our parents, we got approval, and I don't know if there were �six or eight or 10 of us junior high kids went out. And when you're in ninth grade, uh, you know, freshmen and sophomore and juniors are you, you know, junior college, you're pretty, pretty mature. And you get kind of geeked by that. And that was just a, that was a conversion moment for me. Um, it was that, that school year that, um, the very first environmental biology class was offered at my, uh, at my high school. And I took that. And, uh, even though I became a history major, not a biology or botanist or zoologist or something, um, I've always, I've always had a deep, deep concern for the environment. And my family took us camping. You know, we loved the, the best days were days that you spent outdoors, you know, all the whole day outdoors. And still true for me. DD (18:04): You, um, you mentioned before about using your gifts with the, with the CAG, kind of bringing your gifts back. And I noticed that a couple times it, in your, in your story, it sounds like you got the role of communications. So I'm just curious, what do you consider your gifts are that you're bringing to the cag? MM (18:26): Well, first of all, I, I mean, first I'm thinking back to my college education. I, I majored in, uh, in history and minored in religion and ancient languages. And, um, so I always have a concern for the past. And so whether the past is 10 years ago or 2000 years ago, um, the past influences things. And so it's important to keep that alive. And, um, and I taught, I taught junior high and high school for five years, and then, um, just for a lot of reasons, um, transitioned to corporate it. And I was in that, I was in corporate IT for 37 years. And my favorite work, I, I was a developer. And then at one point I transitioned to a role of project manager. Um, and that's, that's where I re really felt like most of my gifts came alive in terms of, um, team building, bringing people in, helping them feel like what they have to contribute is important because they have something unique to contribute. And as it, it is important. Um, I joke sometimes and say that my core competency is scheduling meetings, <laugh>. So <laugh>, that's the thing I do best. <laugh> MM (19:52): Anything else just comes along with that. So, you know, I, I'm always trying to figure out, well, what works? What's the best time? Let's keep it short if we can. Um, I try to have at least a simple agenda if I'm facilitating. And, um, I just, after 37 years, I was just driven to come up with minutes, you know, to record particularly the decisions that you made and the tasks, because it's easy, particularly with volunteers, you know, volunteers, they're doing it for free and they're doing it for love, and they have a life outside this. And, um, people will commit and then they'll forget. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I get that. I need reminders all the time. Um, I've just become shy and not reminding people, you know, I try to do it graciously, but you know, I'm, I just will say, you know, you were thinking about that, I think, do you, are you thinking about that still? Or whatever. So, um, and it's, and most people are very gracious about it, and they'll say, you know, I don't have the bandwidth now, or, you know, oh yeah, I'll get to that. And then we get stuff done, which everybody feels good about. So, um, I guess that's it in a nutshell. I mm-hmm <affirmative>. I, yeah, I like people. Yeah. I like learning about them. I like to find out what they're about and what, what they enjoy, what makes them tick. It's a, it's a joy. DD (21:21): Yeah. I can definitely see how a group of volunteers has a lot of energy and passion, but also needs to be like, channeled and, and like mm-hmm <affirmative>. Somebody has to be able to help, like, break it down and have tasks and things so that the energy moves forward, �MM (21:37): Right? Yep. Yep. We all need that focus. DD (21:41): We all do. Um, you, I also noticed that you mentioned a couple times when you were talking about how, um, how CCRR was portrayed or described to others. I think, you know, you said like they didn't like the ragtag group and things like that. I was wondering if you, um, if you wanna say anything more about that, or like the perception amongst your neighbors in the city. It sounds like at least from the city, the group was not well perceived. MM (22:13): No, no, it was not. No. Um, yeah. I'll mention one thing that is just a sample. Um, but the city, along with the, um, downtown development authority, which is some of the city, some of the, um, uh, whatever city counselors were on it, as well as volunteers, volunteers, business, they gathered together and they write a, wrote a letter to Blake Kruger, who was CEO at the time of Wolverine. This was maybe 2012. And they wrote a letter, and it was published in the local newspaper, the Rockford Squire. They wrote a letter in which they, um, affirmed their supportive wolverine, thanked them for all that they had done for the community, and threw us under the bus slung mud at us about this small group of disgruntled residents, not citizens, residents, um, who were causing trouble. Um, that was one example. There was a lot of give and take in the Rockford Squire. MM (23:28): Um, I just, you know, I got to the point where, and, and maybe you do, and for a while, you know, you, me, I, I can over care what people think of me. I got to the point where I didn't care, you know, know <laugh>. I didn't care what they thought I was gonna do, what was right. I wasn't gonna think what I saw is right. You know, we've been wrong. I'm not saying that I don't wanna be self-righteous because, um, but they threw us under the bus. We, I tried being a collaborator. I tried multiple times with the city manager, uh, to collaborate, to meet, to meet. And it was kind of like, it was his way or the highway. And we never had it. And there were a couple times when he said he'd do it, and I said, we'll, be glad to meet if you do this. MM (24:18): And he waited and waited and waited and never did. And I pulled the plug on the meeting, and then we, we caught flack for that, that we weren't willing to meet. Um, so it was a lot of game playing and a lot of, um, just, they weren't used to there being another center of authority in the city of Rockford. And there were, there were, I mean, we talked to people that a number of people, even before this time, even before 2010, who'd been hurt by the city's high handedness. Um, it's much better now. I'll just, I'll just say that we've got a new administration in, we've got really good city counselors in. Um, they don't do everything I want 'em to do, but <laugh>, you know, they're politicians and they're good politicians and, um, and they're good people. Um, so I don't want to say a lot has changed since 2010, uh, in the last 15 years, and I'm really grateful for that. DD (25:25): Do you think that change is related to all of the issues with PFAS and Wolverine? Or do you think it's just... �MM (25:34): Um, well, the, um, well the, the big thing probably was in the midst of all this, maybe 2014 or 2015, the city manager died unexpectedly. He was only 48. And then, um, we had the police chief came to power, and that was, that was a disaster. And then the city really looked hard for another city manager. Um, that was one of the big turning points, but a lot of people came forward to care about who the city chose as city manager. So that was, that was part of the turning point. We were, Lynn and I, because of our networks were involved with, um, and a lot of people were involved supporting who we thought were good, good candidates for city council. Um, and so Gail Mansit was a city counselor. She was in CCR, she was a city counselor for one term. Um, so yeah, I think it was a lot of small things. The big thing was that that former city manager leaving, unfortunately, you know, unfortunately left a wife and two high school kids behind. That's, it's always unfortunate. Um, uh, but we got, we got some better, some better people in. DD (27:02): Yeah. MM (27:03): Um, someone, someone once said, <laugh>, I never, you know, I debated at times wanting to run for city council because Oh, someone who really, yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone who, but I would die on the vine. I think <laugh>. Um, but someone, someone who worked in the Whitehall area when they did their cleanup, um, her advice, Lynn talked to her and talked to her for a while, and, and this woman said, I wish I remembered her name. You don't have, you don't wanna get the right city council members on. You want to be the city council <laugh>, so run for city council. DD (27:46): Oh boy. MM (27:46): I don't know that I could have gotten, frankly, I don't know if I would've been voted in, maybe I would today, if I wanted to run 10 years ago, I don't think I would've made it. Lynn. Lynn definitely couldn't have been a city council member. It just, her gifts are so different than what, what a city council member needs to have. DD (28:06): <laugh>. MM (28:08): You can appreciate that. DD (28:10): <laugh>. Um, I've, I, one small question is CCRR, would you consider that group still active today? MM (28:22): Um, truth be told, we, um, we haven't done too much about it, but anytime Rick Rediske is on the Wolverine CAG, Gail Menowitz is on the Wolverine CAG, I'm on the Wolverine CAG. Typically, we go �down around briefly every month and introduce ourselves, and each of us will say, and I am a member of CCRR, so if we needed to get together and get more serious on another issue, you know, we would do that, we would do that. So we haven't said, we haven't, we haven't said, shuttered it and said, well, this is, you know, we're still there. We're under the radar. It's a great place to be. DD (29:12): You're reminding me of like superheroes and like, they, they go back to their regular lives for a little bit until they get a call <laugh>. MM (29:21): Sure. Well, my super, my superpower is scheduling meetings I've already talked about. Mr. Calendar comes to the rescue <laugh>. DD (29:34): Um, now that you're getting, I, I mean, I, I think it's really, um, admirable that you recognized that you were going to be burning out and so that you stepped away. I think that's something that could be really difficult to do. Um, and it's certainly something that we hear people talking about more just in general, like more awareness these days of burning out and Yes. Um, and, and how to manage it. I guess I'm curious, now that you're back kind of in the game on the CAG, um, what are your, like <laugh>, what are your, are you, are you concerned about burnout again? Are you, like, do you have strategies in place for managing that? Because I think, you know, even anyone who's interested in this kind of work advocacy, volunteer work, like those are important things to think about. MM (30:25): Yep. Yeah. One thing I'd say, there's a book out that, um, I haven't read, but I don't need to because I know what the title is and it's rest is resistance. Rest is resistance that says it all to me. I don't need to read her book. You know, maybe if she wrote an article 20 years ago, I could read that and that would be enough <laugh>, but it is really important, um, because no, it doesn't, nobody a favor. If you burn out because you get cynical, you can, you can affect other people. It's not good for your own health, obviously. Um, so, you know, I stay physically active. That's important. Again, I, I love to be outside. I love to garden. Uh, I love to bicycle in the winter. I love to bi, you know, cross country ski or snowshoe, things like that are important. Keeping up with friends. MM (31:20): Um, my involvement with, uh, my local church really is a good thing. I'm trying to get them to care more about the environment. Um, that's, that's a little bit of a, of a lift, but I think there's some people who are listening, some people younger than me that are listening, which is great. Um, but yeah. And, and Lynn and I remind ourselves that we, you know, she is, she is writing a book that she's away for a few days to work on a book as far as her story about PFAS. And some of the stories will be funny because she had some really funny experiences, and some of them will be more sober or serious. And she said, you know, I'm trying to, to weigh that. I don't know if I don't know how I'm feeling about doing this, particularly some of the darker stuff. MM (32:12): And I said to her, you know, I don't know if I'm ready for you to do it either. Hmm. So it kind of came back and that we left it there for now. We just, we know we need to have that conversation. Um, we �wrapped it, we put a wrap on it by saying the same thing I've shared. She'd be doing it for future generations or current generations to, to hear the story. Um, so in that sense, I'm absolutely behind her. Um, some of the stuff it may bring up. Yeah. I'm not looking forward to waiting through back some of that, you know, kind of having it in the house, but mm-hmm <affirmative>. We'll figure it out. We're a lot different than we were 15 years ago, and we have, we're more quickly honest with each other. And, you know, so there's good things that come out of this sort of thing. The hard things can, can produce good characteristics. Um, it's, you know, it's hard on our relationship and it's been good for our relationship. So, um, yeah, it's a mixed blessing, like so many things. DD (33:22): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. Are there any other impacts that come to mind for you after tangling with PFAS and the tannery and all that? Any other ways that you see that change impacting your life now? MM (33:37): Um, well, yeah, I think I spoke about that at the beginning. The burden that I feel. Um, because I, I think that PFAS is the tip of the iceberg. Um, we don't have the sort of regulations for development of chemicals that we need. Um, there needs, those need to be what we've got, need to be dumped and just start restarted from the ground up because it doesn't, the, the regulations, we have to not protect the public health. Um, that's true at the state level. That's true at the federal level. Um, I have great concerns regarding the Trump administration and, um, them trying to kill off science and, um, um, dismembered the, the EPA as well as, uh, you know, the, um, the NIH, the National Institution of Health. You know, once, once you've been in this stuff and seen the consequence in people's lives, we know people who, who's been affected, whose lives have been affected by the well water that they drank, that's been contaminated. MM (35:00): It's, it's something that, that they live with. It's in their blood system. It doesn't go away. Um, who knows what all the health impacts are gonna be as the ears go on or the decades go on. Um, so you know that there's gonna be more of that. And we need people that are, can get involved in a good way with the politics. Um, you know, I know there's a story that we know about of the, the English, um, reformer for slavery, William Wilberforce, and he, he fought in parliament for 30, 30 years before the slave trade was banned. And then another 30 years before slavery was banned in the British Empire. He was at it for 60 years. You know, and he's not that, that's just one great story I know of. Um, we need people who are willing, who, you know, we need people who go beyond passion. MM (36:01): Um, because passion won't carry you, passion burns out. Um, one of my favorite novelists is Marilyn Robinson. And, um, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture that she had at a local university, and someone asked a great question, how do you, how do you decide what to write about? And she didn't use the word passion. She said, I consider the things that I think are interesting and important, and to me to think about what's interesting and important, what's interesting speaks to our gifts, you know, where we think we, we can have something and something that's important grounds us in a way that keeps us focused and coming back and important not in the way, not something that's important just for the next week, but maybe important for the next 10 years. Um, so that answer is one of the things that guides me and helps, keeps me grounded. �MM (37:08): What is interesting and important. And I think what the work of the, the Wolverine CAG is doing, trying to hold Wolverine to the, um, the descent consent decree holding their feet to the fire there. And I hope someday to be in a point of collaboration with them. That's my hope and desire that we can work as partners. Um, but it's important, it's really important because guess what, I believe there are other places they dumped that they are not telling us about, and they're in North Kent County, and those will come out someday. And there are other places in the river where the, um, you know, where the groundwater is hitting the Rogue and polluting, and it's going into the Rogue and going into the, um, the Grand River and going into Lake Michigan, and then all the way down to the Atlantic. Um, and that's just, that's in my, in the harder days, that's just incredibly disheartening because we're, we're concerned particularly about human health. One of the things I think is interesting, but I haven't done much about is what are we doing to the more than human creatures? You know, we study fish for, to make fish advisories for humans who fish and eat the fish. I'm not sure how much we're studying the impact of PFAS on the fish or on the other, you know, the grizzly bear that eat the salmon or whatever DD (38:44): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. MM (38:46): So, yeah. Did an that answer your question? I forgot your question, <laugh>. DD (38:51): That's okay. I think you sort of started answering my next question, which is, well, you kind of did both, so yay for you, <laugh>. But the next question was kind of about what concerns you have about PFAS contamination moving forward. So I think you sort of mentioned a couple things in your, in your response, but I don't know if you have other thoughts. MM (39:14): Yeah. Could we just pause for one moment? DD (39:18): Absolutely. [RECORDING PAUSED] So, do you have any concerns about PFAS contamination moving forward? I know you sort of touched on a little bit of that just before. MM (39:29): Yeah, yeah. I don't think we found all the sources. Um, as I mentioned, certainly in Northern Kent County, I don't think, um, for a while Michigan was the head of the game ahead of the game, you know, in a, in a dark way in knowing PFAS contamination. Um, then other states and, and early on after 2017, there were internationally people were coming to, um, talk with us about, uh, our experience with it because it's a worldwide problem. Um, I think, uh, I want to go back to, um, that we want to elect good officials, and we need, we need scientists as well as other citizens to care enough to work with, uh, to, to build some sort of groundswell or legislation for better requirements for companies that are, um, that are creating new things that, um, it's really hard to know how it's gonna affect people and, uh, all the other creatures that are on this beautiful broken planet. Um, I, it, my concern for regulations, I haven't �done much about it, I'll be honest at this point, but it was, um, I can't remember her last name, epidemiologist at MSU, Dr. Courtney DD (40:59): Carigan. MM (40:59): Carigan, okay. Yeah. You know, she, who, who just opened my eyes to that, that, that whole issue. Um, so, and the other thing is, is, um, we as a culture need to be willing to pay more for product that's been tested because companies should clean up as they go. It shouldn't be the, the cleanup we're paying anyway with our tax dollars for cleanups. And so how much better to address those things upfront to be really forward thinking, um, to think past the quarterly, um, the quarterly, uh, what do I wanna say, report or the annual report for a company, um, and think about really what, what are we making? Can we go more slowly? Um, that's a hard thing. We're a very competitive society. The world's very competitive. People are pressed to get things first to market and that sort of thing. And sometimes that is very harmful to the world, and it's not right. It's just not right. Um, I guess that's pretty idealistic. I understand. Um, but the more we can get people to care, um, about these things, we'll be in a better place. DD (42:40): Yeah. Is regulatory advocacy part of the CAG's purview or not? MM (42:48): You know, thank you. I will ask that question at the next meeting. Okay. I do not know. Great question. Yeah. I'll let you know what I find out. DD (43:00): Okay. That sounds good. Um, before we wrap up today, is there anything else that you want to add that we haven't touched on or anything you wanna go back to, to say more about? MM (43:14): I just wanna thank you for doing this, Dani. You're providing such a great service, um, to our region and to the world. Um, and I, I hope and pray that it will be helpful for people. So thank you. You're a great listener. You asked really good questions. Um, if you don't have any other questions, I think I'm good now. Maybe, maybe like we talked about before we got on, I'll think of 20 other things after we, we, uh, close this off. But I think what I've said is enough. DD (43:46): Thank you, Michael. MM (43:48): Thank you. Take care. � 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 Living with PFAS Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Devasto, Danielle Description An account of the resource Beginning in 2021, the Living with PFAS interviews were recorded to gather the personal stories of individuals impacted by PFAS contamination. PFAS, or per- and polyflourinated substances, are a large group of human-made chemicals used widely since the 1940s to make coatings and products resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They can be found in countless household items, including food packaging, non-stick cookware, stain-resistant furniture, and water-resistant clothing. These chemicals are often called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily, can move through soils and contaminate drinking water sources, and build up in animals, plants, and people. PFAS have been linked to increased incidences of various cancers, increased cholesterol, decreased fertility, birth defects, kidney and liver disease, and immune system suppression, and thyroid dysfunction. It is estimated that PFAS are in the drinking water of more than 200 million Americans (Andrews & Naidenko, 2020). In Michigan alone, over 280 sites have PFAS contamination exceeding maximum contamination levels for groundwater (MPART, 2024). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Living with PFAS (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Personal narrative PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals) Groundwater--Pollution Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-11 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Motion Picture Text Sound Language A language of the resource eng 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 PFAS0041 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McIntosh, Michael Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2025-09-09 Title A name given to the resource Michael McIntosh, 2025 (Interview video and transcript) Description An account of the resource Michael McIntosh shares his experiences organizing community action around PFAS contamination in Rockford, Michigan, from grassroots advocacy to ongoing work with the Wolverine Community Advisory Group. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource DeVasto, Danielle (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Personal narrative PFAs (Perfluorinated chemicals) Groundwater--Pollution Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Living with PFAS (project) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives 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 Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d4f11e9525b57a39f2ec90f4f57e7dd5.jpg 4422287ad10bae01dfd9e875bf2400c2 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 Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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-183_M279-0026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-08-13/1972-08-14 Title A name given to the resource Michael Williams, London, England Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Michael Williams, son of English poet, novelist, and Inklings literary group member, Charles Williams, in London, England. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Williams, Charles, 1886-1945 Inklings (Group of writers) London (England) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> 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 Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6d9916a3438e4db7b7dce447dfe8522.jpg e74cb9a61a133cddcfc2999722f6c93d 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 Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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-183_M280-0016 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-08-14/1972-08-15 Title A name given to the resource Michael Williams, London, England Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Michael Williams, son of English poet, novelist, and Inklings literary group member, Charles Williams, in London, England. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Williams, Charles, 1886-1945 Inklings (Group of writers) London (England) Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> 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 Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1970s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c6d22d411df999502a4e7f2b6b57157.m4v 2b0e7859de7f2a8facb2ca18d01612d7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/df67396f899f4560c4c18aead5dedd12.pdf 91dee1205571597f5c2f486aac7fde5d PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Interviewee’s Name: John Michels Name of War: World War II Length: (00:38:53) (00:10) Background Information     John was born on March 22, 1920 in Park Ridge, Illinois John grew up in Illinois and was drafted into the Army after graduating from high school He chose to go into the Army Air Force because he had always been intrigued by airplanes and wanted to by a pilot They would not let him be a pilot because he was color blind and he then decided to become an engineer (3:25) Training  John went to school in Boston where he learned basic information on aircraft for 2 months  He then took more classes in Wisconsin for another 2 months studying engineering and repairs of aircraft  They went through a bit of training at an Air Force base in Texas and then formed their squadrons to take off to San Francisco, and then the Pacific (7:55) Leaving California  They took off from San Francisco and landed first in Hawaii, then Christmas Island, and a few others  Each plane was carrying 2-400 gallon tanks in its cabin because the flight would last 16 hours  They could not fly faster than 199 mph and reached about 15,000 feet  The squadron eventually landed in Townsend, Australia and waited for their base on New Guinea to be completed (9:30) New Guinea  Their base was at Port Moresby near the airstrip, which was mostly just made up of flattened grass  John was very scared the first time he left New Guinea on a mission to drop off supplies  After they had been living on the base for a while the Japanese had taken most of the island  John was a technical sergeant, but often flew as co-pilot and had to help the pilots fly �(16:45) Missions  Whenever they saw Japanese beyond trees in the horizon they would dive into the cover of the trees  They could not fly very high and just made it over the mountains of New Guinea  They left for missions at the same time every day  Most of the mountains ranged from 18,000-22,000 [8,000-12,000?], while the planes could only reach 15,000 feet  They had to search for valleys between the mountains to fly through, which was often difficult because it was cloudy so far up and hard to see (24:25) Biak Island  John was later stationed on Biak Island, north of New Guinea, for about a year  It rained for about fifteen minutes right around 4:00 pm every day and then it would be nice and sunny  It was a fun place to be stationed and they often spent time swimming on the beach  They lived in tents above the ground on stilts to keep out the many snakes and poisonous spiders  There were many young Japanese snipers hiding in the trees (29:10) End of Service  John left Asia in November of 1944 and had been serving in the Pacific for 2 years  Instead of flying back they took a ship, which he did not enjoy and the trip lasted 30 days  There were two separate times where the engine had problems in the middle of the ocean and they had to sit there and worry about being attacked by submarines  They landed in Los Angeles and then flew to an Air Force base in Utica, New York  John had the second largest amount of points of all the men in his squadron  Those who did not have enough points would continue fighting in the Pacific  John remained stationed in New York, but broke his leg and spent 6 months recuperating  He was later sent to Miami, Florida in 1945 to be discharged � 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 Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> 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 MichelsJ Title A name given to the resource Michels, John H. (Interview outline and video), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michels, John H. Description An account of the resource John Michels was born on March 22, 1920 in Park Ridge, Illinois and was drafted into the Army after graduating from high school. He was given the option of joining the Army Air Force, but not allowed to become a pilot because he was color blind. John then chose to go into engineering and took classes for aircraft in Boston and in Wisconsin before he became a technical sergeant. He was later stationed at Fort Moresby in New Guinea where they flew on missions every day delivering supplies to troops throughout the Pacific. After that John was also stationed on Biak Island and eventually gathered enough points to be sent back to the States before the war had ended. John was discharged in Miami, Florida in 1945. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mangione, Nathaniel (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army 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 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-05-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/87bcfe74d12eab4b544d0aacb4d10032.jpg da6bb723c0cf8971df328a1c820a32e8 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 Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Merrill_Films_B_001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1936-05-30 Title A name given to the resource Michigan academic excursion autos on left Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of a line of automobiles alongside a road at the bottom of a hill. Subject The topic of the resource Automobiles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bb73e9504f089388f12f5792b0463e4e.jpg 54089b3cc8c0c4b1fac03d31da729357 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 Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. 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 Merrill_Films_A_012 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1936-05-30 Title A name given to the resource Michigan academic excursion autos on right Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of a group of people standing next to a line of automobiles alongside a dirt road. Subject The topic of the resource Automobiles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/329cb9bde9860a30ee40a04fb2016909.jpg 8c7ba3c53399017e1a435564ab2b5ee8 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 Grand Valley State University Photographs Subject The topic of the resource Aerial photographs Universities and colleges Michigan Grand Rapids (Mich.) Allendale (Mich.) Building Facilities Dormitories Students Events 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Description An account of the resource People, places, and events of Grand Valley State University from its founding in 1960 as a 4-year college in western Michigan. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource News & Information Services. University Communications Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">News &amp; Information Services. University Photographs. (GV012-01)</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 2017-03-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s-2000s Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Local Subject Subject headings specific to a particular image collection 1990s Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/41">University photographs, GV012-01</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 GV012-01_UAPhotos_001467 Title A name given to the resource Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center Description An account of the resource Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) in Muskegon, Michigan. Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University Michigan Muskegon (Mich.) Universities and colleges Facilities Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-NC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives color photo https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/66c312849aaa7cff067bbd36c2842354.pdf 8ac561d9b1aba0f16d1663a5781853e3 PDF Text Text l\1EMORANDUM ro: FROM: Frank Dirk DATE: August 19, 1 RE: Draft Recommendations to the Michigan youth service commission As promised you will find a compilation of the work produced during the June youth service conference and the subsequent planning meetings. This includes an outline of · proposed recommendations for the state youth service plan. I have also included a copy of the UCS survey that Geneva Williams mentioned on July 15. I will revise this draft document based on the comments that I receive from you. A final repon will be submitted to the state youth service commission in early September to serve as both background and base for their planning. Youth Service America will continue to provide technical assistance to the commission through the end of the year. The final repon will contain more detailed recommendations than those contained in this draft. The final recommendations will include technical reference to provisions contained in the Act. The outline before you however reflects the basic tone and approach accepted by a consensus of the members of the planning meetings. Please feel free to raise whatever questions or concerns that you may have regarding the outline. The final report will also contain extensive appendixes that include the written comments submitted at the July 31 meeting, copies of the letters sent to the Nonprofit Forum, the most current summary of strategies adopted by other states, and cenain survey instruments. If there is anything else that you believe should be included, please let me know. Sixteen of the National Commission members have been confirmed by the Senate. We anticipate that they will meet soon to discuss administrative requirements. We still expect that FY91 funds will be carried over. We estimate that the application process should begin well into the Fall. The extra time will help to strengthen Michigan's efforts. With a Governor's Commission, the fine support of the First Lady, two Youth Ambassadors from the Points of Light Foundation, and the impressive work of each of the connibutors this planning and development effort the state is well on the way to making youth service an enduring pan of life in Michigan We will try to get the final report to the state commission by no later than September 10. Please try to get your comments to me by September 4. You can call or write to me with your comments and further suggestions at: (202) 783-8855 Youth Service America 1319 F Street N.W. Suite 900 Washington, D.C. 20004 �INTEREST GROUP CAUCUS DISCUSSIONS Groups from five youth service interest areas. Community-Based Organizations, K-12, Service and Conservation Corps. Higher Education, and Youth Involvement, met to discuss youth service issues in their respective fields and opportunities for program development. Below is a summary their recommendations. COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS The group representing Community-Based Organizations began their discussion by identifying common goals. They were most interested with developing means for drawing youth into their organizations. They recognized youth service as both a method of youth development and a practical approach for recruiting youth into their organizations. Common Goals: • • • • • • • • Design a system that values young people as resources Promote educational development and growth Encourage young people to commit to community service Involve young people in issue areas that concern them Recognize service as part of personal development Identify collaboration links and program resources Expand positive opportunities for young people Recognize the shon- and long-term value of youth service The group produced a ten point list for developing opponunities for youth service. The group emphasized the imponance of training and state-wide, inter-organizational network development They also stressed the imponance of providing meaningful opponunities for youth to share in this process. There should be a sustained and coordinated connection between youth service programs and broader volunteer effons. Points for Develo.pment: • • • • • • • • • • Training programs for adults, youth, and agencies Inter-organizational infonnation networks Youth Ownership Community agency ownership Long-term. broad-based community suppon Institutionaliz.e youth service Evaluaae individual and state-wide programs Volunteer Recognition Criteria for program development Link youth service and other voluntary efforts Limited training, staffing, and funding are seen as challenges to attaining these goals. Young people must also have visible leadership roles.. The task of increasing youth leadership opportunities in these efforts without causing concern among adults in established roles requires careful attention. �Challenges: • • • • • • Limited training resources Limited staff Creating youth ownership Turf issues Limited funding Involving youth who are not students K-12 EDUCATION This group looked at ways of institutionalizing service in the schools. Common Goals: • • • Service opponunities in every middle and high school Service integrated into the curriculum Service as an imponant consideration for college admission Each local school program should be allowed to develop according to its owns needs. However, all schools should panicipate in the public promotion of youth service, emphasize multi-cultural programming, and establish formal evaluation processes. Workshops and conferences should be conducted for youth and agency contacts. Transponarion assistance and liability coverage issues require further consideration. Points for Development: • • • • • • • • Create local ownership by principals, counselors, teachers and students Promote model programs Emphasize multi-cultural programs Develop means for qualitative program evaluation Conduct workshops for schools and agencies on collaborative youth service program development State conferences for young people involved in community service programs Develop a transportation infasttucture Establish a standard policy for volunteer liability SERVICE AND CONSERVATION CORPS This group concentrated on new directions for corps programs. Sustained funding is a major concern. The group recommended that a bipartisan state commission on youth service explore creative funding strategies drawing on public and private resources. Future program viability will also depend on strong local community suppon, including the private sector. Youth service needs greater recognition; a leader and spokesperson to carry the youth service message across the state. On a more philosophical level, the definition of youth service must be inclusive. �Points for Development: • • • • • • • • • • Joint (MCC!NBA) use and development of resources and programs Create a state-wide youth corps advisory council Involve educators in corps efforts Increase leveraging of JTPA, Vocational Education, CDBG, and Vocational Rehabilitation funds Develop overall (MCC/NBA) coordination Identify a spokesperson for youth service Explore the feasibility of a state-wide youth service corporation Create a bipartisan state commission with representatives from corporations, corps, community-based organizations, foundations, youth, labor, and state agencies Involve the private sector in funding, personnel, training, and mentoring Improve private sector local support Additional Points: • • Ensure that the definition of service includes corps programs Explore broad collaborations based on more than those suggested in the National and Community Service Act HIGHER EDUCATION Representatives from colleges and universities drew up a list of important points that will advance service in their instirutions. Youth community service should be fully integrated into all aspects of campus life. Colleges and universities should increase their collaboration with other organizations that are involved in youth service. Special emphasis should be made in linking campuses to the communities around them. Training workshops and community service programs on all campuses throughout the state are also priorities. Points for Development: • • • • • • • • Push for a Governor's comprehensive youth service plan Promote an integrated service curriculum Promote service research Promote collaborative programs with K-12, teacher training, community activities, and youth leadership Create new service approaches such as: College srudent corps programs Involving non-traditional students Internships Develop active programs on all Michigan campuses Use college students in building other programs Institutionalize service learning in the university structure YQUTii INVOLVEMENT The youth attending the conference came up with three broad categories of interest: service opportunities, quality and quantity of programs, and ways to instill a lifetime ethic of service. �Organizations should work collaborativly to establish regional and state networks and clearinghouses to assist in spreading infonnation. Increased youth involvement in policy development and implementation would allow young people to feel a sense of ownership in their programs. Greater panicipant diversity will improve the educational value of programs. Common Goals: • • • • • Create a state-wide Volunteer Clearinghouse Agency that would promote: Infonnation and dissemination on youth service Program networking Volunteer recognition Local and regional clearinghouses State and community coalition building Youth involvement in policy development and implementation Diversity of participants Sexvice and Consexvation Corps, school-based, mentoring, and community-based programs should be expanded. Broader training opponunities and common quality standards for all programs are imponant. Points for Development: • • • • • • • Expand sexvice and consexvation corps programs Improve school based programs: Integrate service into the curriculum Train school coordinators aware of service opponunities Strengthen community-based programs Develop collaborative models among community-based programs, service corps, and school programs Develop mentoring programs: Students as mentors Peer to peer relationships Link service reflection to learning about relevant social issues Broadly implement quality standards accepted by the youth service field The development of a lifetime ethic of service is an overarching goal. The importance of youth sexvice, for the community and young people should be demonstrated by recognizing achievement, forgiving and/or deferring student loans, and promoting career opportunities in the non-profit, public service sector. Promoting a Lifetime Commitment: • • • • A wards and recognition Loan forgiveness and deferral for students involved Evaluation and reflection which allow young people to understand the significance of their actions Encouragement of youth to enter careers in the non-profit and public service sector. �COLLABORATION CAUCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONS On the second day conference participants were divided into four inter-interest groups to collaborativly explore future directions for youth service in Michigan. The recommendations of the four groups shared similar themes. Therefore the summary combines group reports into three thematic categories: diversity, youth leadership, and educational issues. DIVERSITY Youth service programs should emphasize diverse participation. Diversity should reflect gender, age, culture, race, and class. Intergenerational and mentoring programs are imponant models with which to connect. The caucus groups indicated that young people, Native Americans, youth service program operators, and people from northern communities and Detroit should have greater representation in future youth service activities. Increase Panicipation of: • • • • • Youth, including at-risk Metro Detroit Northern Communities Native American communities Youth service program operators Consider Linkin&: • • • • Intergenerational projects Mentoring programs Joint projects (Higher Ed. and K-12) Collaborative community action councils YOUTH LEADERSHIP Community agencies must develop and display trust in young people. Community organizations and schools should be encouraged to take risks and try new things to involve young people.. Public relations campaigns to highlight positive contributions of youth service can ~ perceptions about the value of youth contributions to the community. Agencies should create development tracks for young people to grow into positions responsibility. Young people should be involved in program planning. Youth should be allowed to share in program ownership by contributing to projects from inception through implementation. Youth involvement should not be limited to established youth leaders. Youth service can develop new leaders among young people. Enhancin& Community A~ncy-youth Relations: • • • • Give project operators and schools room to try new things Create a broad range of opponunities for youth Promote youth accomplishments Establish local advisory groups to ensure projects meet local needs �• Develop roles for young people that allow them to grow in responsibility Advancing Youth Leadership Opportunities: • • • • • • Young people should be seen as resources Young people need to be able to advance issues and ideas of interest to them Development of Youth Action Councils Establishment of regular youth conferences and workshops Mini-grants to fund innovative ideas Use service as an opponunity to develop new youth leaders EDUCATIONAL ISSUES A important goal of youth service is to teach civic responsibility. The concept of service needs to be expanded to include various types of programs. Service must become a pan of the curriculum. Goals: • • • Instilling civic responsibility as goal of youth service should be emphasized in all service reflection activities Use service to enhance the teaching of values Expand the definition of service to allow all communities to participate Points for Development: • • Expand to view of educators to include the world outside the classroom Integrate service into the curriculum �COLLABORATION CAUCUS RECOMMENDATIONS SHORT-TERM The most important step for Michigan take at this time is the formation of an advisory committee to determine the state's plan for applying for federal funds available through the National and Community Service Act of 1990. The committee should decide on goals and draft a comprehensive proposal for the federal funding. The committee should seek reaction from various organizations and individuals before submitting the application and continue to seek the advice and counsel of program practitioners in futW"e initiatives. Goals of steerin~ committee: • • • • Review notes from conference Draft proposal of state-wide youth service plan Circulate proposal to various groups Draft final plan for federal funds and long-term strategy Conference participants expressed concern that steering committee membership should be diverse based on age, geography, and program background. Young people should be included. An appropriate size for the group should be 15 people. The committee should be a working committee. Lansing is an appropriate central meeting location. Committee membership: • • • • Should be 15 Must be include people of various backgrounds The committee should be a working Must be include young people Groups and individuals should be encouraged to fonn local coalitions in their communities. Information from the conference should be shared with non-participants. Activities outside the Committee: • • • Formation of local coalitions Spreading of information to conference non-participants YSA will Disseminate follow-up materials to all participants LONG-TERM Although the conference participants could not anticipate the results of the federal funding process, they began formulating long-term goals for the state's youth community service initiative. The steering committee should evolve into a bipartisan, state task force with responsibility of coordinating technical suppon for all programs throughout the state. Assistance necessary includes state-wide training and networking conferences for youth and agencies, �·~~~~~;! a research group to develop new programs, legislation to limit volunteer liability, the creation of a mini-grant program to fund innovative projects, a coordinated public relations campaign to share success stories, and the implementation of a quality control efforts. Diversity of programs and participants should be increased whenever possible. Participation of young people in planning should continue. Long-term goals: • • • • • • • • • Formation of a bipartisan Task Force Conferences for youth and agency representatives to provide training and networking Passage of volunteer liability legislation Creation of a mini-grant program Beginning of public relations activities Creation of a newsletter for agencies Development of a quality control program for individual and state-wide programs Diversity of opponunities-a program for everyone Youth involvement in planning and implementation �THE FIRST FOLLOW-UP PLANNING MEETING July 15, 1991 at the Holiday Inn, Lansing, Michigan Hosted by the Council of Michigan Foundations On July 15, 1991 the Council of Michigan Foundations hosted a day-long meeting in Lansing for self-selected panicipants of the June 10-11 conference and additional interested parties to continue planning for the Michigan youth service initiative. Dorothy Johnson, the President of the Council of Michigan Foundations welcomed panicipants and called the meeting to order. Ms. Johnson and members of her staff including Kathy Agard and Jim McHale were joined by representatives of the meeting's co-sponsoring organizations: Diana Algra, Executive Director of the Michigan Campus Compact; Maryellen Lewis, Executive Director of the Michigan NonProfit Forum; Roberta Stanley, Executive Assistant Superintendent for State and Federal Relations, Michigan Department of Education; and Frank Dirks, Field Organizer for Youth Service America. · The special guest for the meeting was Michelle Engler, the First Lady of Michigan. Ms. Engler was accompanied by Stephanie Comai-Page, Social Welfare Policy Advisor from the Governor's Office. Maura Wolfe, Youth Engaged in Service Coordinator for the Points of Light Foundation also attended the meeting. After Ms. Johnson's opening remarks, Ms. Engler outlined the state's response since the June Conference. • Governor Engler will appoint a commission on youth service. • Michelle Engler will chair the commission. • The commission will develop Michigan's funding application to the National and Community Service Commission. • Michigan's commission will focus on youth service. • The commission will be housed, at least initially, in the Executive Office of the Governor. • The commission should be appointed by mid-August. • Projections of size range from 15 to 21 commission members. • The commission will be representative of the diversity of the state. • The coinmissioo will have an indefinite term. It will be created by executive order and can only be ended with an executive order. • Initially, commission members will have staggered terms- 1/3 for 1 year, 1/3 for 2 y~ and 1/3 for three years. Ultimately, membership will be three years. • Meeting participants should submit nominations for commission membc:n to Stephanie Comai-Page. The Governor's Office has already collecting names. • Youna people will be represented on the commission. • Provisions are being made to staff the commission. The Governor's Office is also seeking names for the position of Executive Director for the commission. • The participants of this and the June meeting will serve as an informal advisory group for the commission. Following Ms. Engler's comments the co-sponsors offered some remarks. �Robena Stanley • The State Board of Education is interested in youth service. • The State Board is holding a conference in September on related issues. • Michigan's congressional delegation is imponant to the future of federal funding suppon for and implementation of this initiative. The delegation in Washington needs to become aware of the state's increasing interest in youth service. DianaAlgra • Service is imponant issue for college and university presidents in Michigan. • Program parmerships linking colleges and communities are will be valuable to promote. Maryellen Lewis • The Forum is disseminating information throughout its network. Frank Dirks (Mr. Dirks served as facilitator for the rest of the meeting.) • The task of this planning meeting is to begin to formulate a series of recommendations for the state commission to consider for the state plan. The planning timeline will be very short. • The appointment of the state commission advances Michigan to a strong position among the states developing youth service plans. • The White House is supposed to submit National Commission nominees to the Senate for confirmation before the August recess. • State applications could be due as early as early October. • YSA anticipates a carry-over ofFY '91 funds that have not been spent. • The federal legislation provides the context for this discussion but should not be a limiting factor. The development of a statewide youth service plan is the right thing to do whether or not there is federal funding. • The National Commission will have 21 mem~rs serving 3 year terms. Initially, terms will be staggered. The Secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Agriculture, and the Ditector of ACI10N will serve as ex-officio members. • 'This group should continue to advise the new state commission and serve u a broader pool of program technical resources. The group reviewed and discussed the funded titles in the National and Community Service Act and the status of other state development efforts. Information related to this review is reflected in the appendix. �The group reviewed the basic themes drawn from the June conference. • • • • Promote collaboration. Build program capacity. Ensure program sustainability beyond support through the Act. Draw on the strength and experience of existing programs and organizations. • Consider new and alternative program and organizational approaches and arrangements. • Promote program and participant diversity. The group then reviewed issues of particular interest to the National Commission that should be addressed in a state application. • The plan should be comprehensive. • The plan should promote and support program and organizational collaboration. • The plan should be sustainable. • Funding drawn from the Act must supplement not supplant current . state funding for programs targeted in the plan. The group recessed for lunch. The luncheon speaker was Maura Wolfe, of the Point of Light Foundation. She provided an overview of the Foundation's activities and introduced the Youth Ambassador program. The Points of Light Foundation effons to promote and encourage volunteerisril across the generations include: • National advertising campaigns. • Coordinating and mobilizing existing resources including corporate leaders to promote volunteerism. • Identifying effective programs disseminating information about them. One of the administrative divisions at the Foundation is called Youth Engaged in Service (YES). YES is about to launch a major new program to promote youth service, the YES Youth Ambassadors. The program will be piloted for one year in three states beginning in September 1991. Michigan is being considered as one of the three states. Below is a summary of the program. • The goals are to connect people, build coalitions, and share infcxmation at state, regional and national levels. • Two young people will be serve as full-time state liaison/organizers for the Foundation. • They will be assigned to work for a lead state agency/organization, such as the Governor's new commission. • They will host a minimum of two Points of Light Action Forums to inform state groups about youth service. • They will actively work to involve youth in service. • They will help to organize a data bank of services and resources. • They will be trained by Points of Light in Washington. • They need to be on the job by September. �...-~. ..-.~: r-:~ • They should reflect diverse youth panicipation. • Points of Light is looking at Michigan as a model of state development • The state organization/agency to which the ambassadors are assigned must: -Provide them with office space, -Provide direction and guidance for works plans and activities. -Make a one-year commionent to the program. -Provide assistance in "opening doors". The group re-convened after lunch to continue discussion of considerations imponant to a state plan. These considerations can be broken into four broad categories- the process for and structure of the youth service initiative in Michigan: youth empowerment through program and process design; education and training for program practitioners and policymakers; and best approaches for program design. A summary of issues raised and · recommendations made in each of these categories follows. PROCESS/STRUCTURE Can the state commission members represent organizations that will want to be funding recipients? How will this potential question of conflict of interest be handled? Ensure that the state process encourages local groups to build coalitions in order to pursue funding through local initiatives. The term "community service" carries connotation of alternative service for adjudicated violators of law. The language needs to be clarified. Emphasize family involvement .. many students need family members to provide transponation ... youth service can be a way of involving families in volunteerism. Ensure that the efforts developed through the initiative creates a "seamless" state youth service structure. Local neighborhood service activities are preferred among young people because of transponarion concerns, time barriers, and the reward that comes from seeing the result of efforts in your own neighborhood. Programs and projects should come from the community rather than being imposed from the top. Longevity is dependent upon this ownership. Labor union involvement is important Youth service must not be seen as a way of supplanting jobs. Representatives of organized labor need to be a pan of the process. What is the goal of the Act- youth development or community development? The federal suppon should be used to jump-stan sustainable programs/projects. Include Michigan's many resources for long-term planning and support Don't just rely on the federal money. �Develop incentives and rewards for local collaboration. Volunteer Action Centers can play important roles by serving as information clearinghouses, providing student mini-grant. and coordinating new project development Funding must flow directly to local levels. Require collaboration in mini-grant requests at the local level. Consider developing a competitive grant process. Guidelines need to be shared on principles of good practice with the service organizations. Make volunteerism more accessible for "at risk" youth and families. Set up mechanisms for local communities to solve problems on their own. Ensure that people from the grass-roots can contribute to the planning process. Ensure that students, teachers, and agencies can contribute. Create a state service and conservation corps advisory committee. Creatively use and involve the 4-H and community college systems. Look at the strengths and weakness of the Minnesota model. Learn what happened with the state volunteer clearinghouse under Gov. Miliken. Develop a centralized data system with direct local access and satellite local data systems. Create incentives that emphasize the value and importance of service and volunteerism. Teach volunteers to develop a volunteer portfolio of experiences. Include corporations as a strategy for long term planning. K-12/corps/service relationships. YOUTH EMPOWERMENT Use the resources of groups like those represented in this room to survey young people across the state on how grant request should be structured and use those responses in the application. Establish local community panels that include youth to assess local projects and service opportunities. Train organizations in the development and implementation of volunteer programs to make them "volunteer friendly". Need to be "youth friendly". Involve Youth at-risk �Impvnant to allow youth to participate in problem and solution identification. The youth perspective imponant. EDUCATION/TRAINING Special effons must be made with MEA and other unions to assure that the schools are welcoming to youth volunteers, youth service curriculums and education. Be sure to recognize and answer concerns about job potenital displacement. Education and training should be a theme including opportunities for youth reflection and civic responsibility. Youth volunteer jobs should have an educational component. Make sure we have peer-tutoring/counseling links For practitioners at the state level we need: -training for management of volunteers -educators -program operators Intermediate school districts could be an excellent source for teacher training/service learning curriculum Higher education mini-grants for: Service/Learning curriculum Teacher Training May need some training re: -process for applying for funds -regional team training -volunteer program steps- "how tos" -applying for money Technical assistance/experts Mentoring/pannerships PROGRAM DESIGN The quality of experience is important -Students should not be used for meaningless work -Jobs.should have learning potential -reflection/potential component should be included -evaluation must be built into process -provision of a variety of experiences -clearinghouse for volunteers -youth empowennent and involvement important Neighborhood effonsllocal- "hard services" need to see the product Over arching issues: -K-12 training -remember 5-6 million dollars available �-inter-c:-ganizational youth collaboration At the state level the following could be possible: -clearinghouse of collaborative projects -training of community educators and agencies -linking community projects with schools (corps/schools connected) -model job descriptions record keeping/evaluation of programs Need for intergenerational programming Incentives: -Scholarships -Work The group was left with the following tasks for the next meeting. • • • • Review the draft report from June 10 and 11. Review minutes of July 15. Review the Act summary. Come to the next meeting prepared to answer the following questions: - What principles should guide the state commission's planning? - What should be the measurable outcomes? - What should be the organizational structure of the state commission? . - What resources could your organization contribute to the initiative? �THE SECOND FOLLOW-UP PLANNING MEETING July 31, 1991 at the Kellogg Center, East Lansing, Michigan Hosted by the Michigan Nonprofit Forum On the afternoon of July 31, 1991, Maryellen Lewis of the Michigan Nonprofit Forum hosted a second planning meeting at the Kellogg Center on the campus of Michigan State University. Ms. Lewis was joined by representatives of the meeting's co-sponsoring organizations: Kathy Agard, Program Director for the Council of Michigan Foundations; Diana Algra, Executive Director of the Michigan Campus Compact; Roberta Stanley, Executive Assistant Superintendent for State and Federal Relations, Michigan Department of Education; and Frank Dirks, Field Organizer for Youth Service America. Stephanie Comai-Page, representing the Governor's Office was also in attendance. Participants had been asked in a memo sent to them prior to the meeting to record their responses to the questions posed at the end of the July, 15 meeting. The following in a summary of the questions and the written answers that were submitted. What are principles you believe should guide the Governor's Commission to create a youth service plan for Michigan? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Build upon success while encouraging innovation. Consider the benefits for participants and the state. Quality is more important than quantity. Include all sectors in planning and programming. Involve young people in planning. Ensure that youth are members of the commission. Encourage innovation. Consider a variety of programs from a variety of areas. Ensure geographic representation. Link to existing business and education partnerships. Give special attention to urban areas. Ensure local community suppon and ownership. Promote outcome driven efforts. Maintain realistic expectations of financial and human requirements and availability. Address real community needs. Institutionalize new programs and expand established programs. Ensure that youth service experiences are meaningful for youth. Give priority to actual projects over clearinghouse models. Collaboration must be defined as involving community residents, not just community agencies. Maintain consistent and broadly disseminated standards for program practice. Involve youth in community partnerships. What are measurable outcomes that should be specified for a successful local collaboration for youth community service under the Michigan youth service plan? • • • • • Project progress. Impact on participants. Value of work accomplished. Number of persons effectively served. Program efficiency. �• • • • • • • Long term effect. Diversity of panicipants and agencies, and services provided. Leadership roles taken by youth. Extent of business partnerships. Retention of youth in programs. Sustainability of programs. Level of youth involvement in program planning and decisionmaking • The structure, intent, and practice of youth advisory councils. • The level and quality of local community agency support. What should be the commission's development plan and the process for fund distribution? • Grant applications should demonstrate- the buy-in of local partners, youth involvement in planning process, and should include expected outcomes, an operating plan, and a monitoring system. The grant review process should be inclusive and measure against the items above. • Use funding to support the formation of a program development infrastructure. Match existing resources. Local programs should be responsible for sustainability. _·• :-.\. ~ • Support regional clearinghouses that promote the development of local coalitions and provide technical assistance and support that: - trains youth for service opportunities. - trains agencies to provide quality service experiences. - trains coalitions to raise funds to become self-supporting. • Utilize existing networks. Do not create a new bureaucracy. • The Governor's Commission should determine the criteria for grant proposals and selection. The Governor Romney, Janet Blanchard, Michelle Engler co-chaired Coordinating Committee on Voluntarism should have an equal role in selecting local grantees. Local grantees should demonstrate the implementation of a local inter-agency committee on youth initiatives and the role of young people in the design and implementation of~ local program. What are resources your organization or network will contribute towards the success of the Michigan youth service plan? staff Expertise in: Program development Statewide program implementation and operation Administration Sub-granting Experience with past and present highly successful programs Information dissemination Access to student volunteers Limited Staff Support Expertise on and access to resource materials �Infonnation on coll:£~ration models Video tape and handbook/guide may be reproduced and distributed Programmatic statistics and infonnation may be shared Grantsmanship expertise Technical assistance to communities wishing to develop youth action councils Identification of local individuals and organizations The above questions served to frame the group discussion. Frank Dirks, of Youth Service America seiVed as facilitator. Listed below is a summary of the points raised during the discussion. GUIDING PRINCIPLES Use existing systems, build on strength while encouraging innovation. Involve youth at all levels. Respond flexibility to local circumstances. Involve local coalitions. Applications should be judged on a point system where points are earned for each type of collaboration Youth Educators Business and private industry councils Seniors Handicapped Churches Collaboration requires community residents not just community agencies. Expand from existing programs. Outcomes should be based on community needs assessment Broadly target "at risk" youth by giving additional points to those proposals. Involve those served in the planning and evaluation process. Make the process easy to understand and accessible. Make it easy for youth input Ensure that support is not exclusively directed toward strong and well established programs. Mixture merit and potential. Support sustainable programs. Maintain a long-range plan. Emphasize quality over quantity. �.r.::, t· . ; .., OUTCOMES There is very little research on the effect of service on youth development. Building a research base for youth service should be integrated into the plan. Research will help advance the initiative and guide new program development Head Start research has influenced policy development. A sampling of suggested measures: Continued volunteer service. Service impact on the community. Attitude changes among youth servers and community members. Leadership roles taken by youth servers. Level of community agency involvement Measures must look at the effect on servers and the community served. Use research to educate funding sources and win their support Consider a "human service unit" formula. for instance, how many older Americans are served. Consider measures for the type of service provided. Enlist an independent evaluator to assess state-wide initiative. Establish an easy, yet uniform, reporting mechanism in order to build a comprehensive database. Link this to the independent evaluator. Include service benefits for youth: employability, group process skills, education goals. Link to national education goals. Research should. not drive projects. Overall outcomes: community awareness, willingness to continue project, increased local · funds for youth service programs. RESOURCES TO BE SHARED Council of Michigan Foundations - Community and funding resource information and training. Department of Education - Information on successful school-based programs • Michigan Campus Compact - Information on successful college programs, experience in making service mini-grants. Detroit Compact - Training. �4H staff- Community program collabordcors, extensive network resources, technical assistance, and training. Bloomfield Hills School District- Program development experience in school-based programs. Catholic Youth Organization in Detroit - Information on "Youth on Board" program and information on leadership development. Volunteer Center Nerwork- Assistance in volunteer management, convening local networks. Neighborhood Builders Alliance- Assistance in program organization, local grant-making procedures, and project evaluation. Michigan State University Service Learning Center- Materials on program operation, and evaluation support and guidance. United Community Services - Training, volunteer management database, and training for community assessment and planning. Nonprofit Forum - Promotion in connection with the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, linkage to Year of Volunteers in 1992, and will dedicate newsletter to youth service in Michigan. · Michigan United Way- Training and local fundraising suppon. Campus Outreach Opportunity League - Support in organizing college student coalitions to promote service. Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals - Information dissemination, and support in recruiting speakers and advocates. Children's Chatter- Information on youth involvement on boards. Urban League Nerwork - Infonnation, referral, facilities, recruitment, and advocacy. ELEMENTS FOR A STATE PLAN Use the grant-making research and experience of Depamnent of Education mini-grant programs. Use the experience of the Michigan Campus Compact venture grant program and explore linkages. Make application process easy so a group of students could apply (through a fiscal agent). Establish different categories for grants. Some grants should be large enough to provide significant suppon. Do not allow a term like "mini-grants" to define the program. Some grants should not be mini. Support noc only sustainable programs but also specific projects that may have a limited duration. �,.... ........... . .. ·~· .. ·\ .·.~ ·} Consider funding networks to support program development Look at how local projects fits into larger strategic plan-- they relate to the long-term goals of the initiative. Tnvolve youth in all elements of the initiative. -~· ·. PARTICIPANTS July31.1991 Donna Clarke Michelle Strasz C.J. Howell Paulette Ethier Les Schrich Darryl White Neil Davis Dana Cole Mary Cady Kate Stutmatter Beth Gibbs Jim Vollman Jim McHale Ross Dodge Michigan Non-profit Forum Children's Charter Youth Advisory Council United Community Services 4H Youth Program Volunteer Centers of MI Battle Creek Area Urban League Governor's Office MI Association of Volunteer Administrators Catholic Youth Organization (Detroit) Bloomfield Hills Public Schools Detroit Compact Council of MI Foundations MI Dept of Natural Resources/MI Civilian Conservation Corps Ml Campus Compact Urban League of Aint A enON Aint Youth Service Corps/Urban LEague United Way, Grand Rapids . Grand Rapids Public Schools Ml ASIOcition of Secondary School Principala Ml Auociatioa of Noe-Public Schools United W.y of Ml Greallel' Kalamazoo United Way MSU Service Learning Center MSUACI10N MI Dept of Education . MI Labor Dept Neighborhood Builders Alliance Muskegon County DET Council of MI Foundations Governor's Office DianaAlgn~ Harold W. Jones Stanley Stewan Jacquline Tortr Alida Zeilstra Fritz Crabb Jack Bittle Billie Kops Willllnl:l' Gene Keilitz Brenda Hint Mary Edens Darin Day Roberta Stanley Deborah Grether Rick Balllld Glen Jenkins Kathy Alprd Stephanie Comai-Page · . __, � 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 Our State of Generosity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Description An account of the resource Collection contains the records of four Michigan nonprofit organizations: Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU. The documents are compiled by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and records document the history of the organizations from the 1960s to the 2010s. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1968-2014 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Nonprofit Association Michigan Community Service Commission Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Community Service Commission Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-04 Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 JCPA-04_MCSC_1991_MCSC-Creation_Draft-Recomm-to-MI-Youth-Service-Commission Title A name given to the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 draft recommendations to the Michigan youth service commission Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michigan Community Service Commission Description An account of the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 draft recommendations to the Michigan youth service commission. Records are compiled in the Our State of Generosity collection by the Johnson Center, along with the files of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA), the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Originals are at the Michigan Community Service Commission. Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Community Service Commission Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ea09a785344b743f16cf6c4258c567c0.pdf a56626469fd3d524c2c1353cb295449d PDF Text Text Chairperson Michelle Engler '----~cutive Director Diana Rodriguez Algra JOHN ENGLER, Governor DEPARTMENT OF LABOR MICHIGAN COMMUNITY SERVICE COMMISSION 111 S. CAPITOL AVENUE OLDS PLAZA, 4TH FLOOR P.O. BOX 30015 LANSING MICHIGAN 48909 TEL. (517) 335-4295 LOWELL W. PERRY, Director January 2, 1992 Ms. Catherine Milton, Executive Director The Commission on National and Community Service The National Press Building, Suite 428 529 14th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20045 Dear Ms. Milton: Let me begin by expressing my thanks to you and your staff for your fine work to date. The community service field is anxious to implement the National and Community Service Act of 1990 and expect that your fine leadership will see that it is accomplished. At this time I would like to formally request 5-l 0 minutes on the agenda of the Commission upcoming meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, to update the Commissioners on the state of youth service in Michigan. Governor John Engler in early October of 1991 appointed a 21-member commission to oversee our state initiatives in this field. As Chair of the Commission I look forward to personally meeting you and other members of the National Commission. Should you have any questions or need any additional information, please contact Ms. Diana Rodriguez Algra, Executive Director of the Michigan Community Service Commission at (517) 335-4295. rs. Michelle E gler First Lady of Michigan and Chairperson of the MCSC MDL-588 ( 10-91) �STATE OF MICHIGAN JOHN ENGLER , Governor DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 201 N. WASHINGTON , P.O. BOX 30015. LANSING , Ml 48909 LOWELL W. PERRY, Director October 21, 1991 Mr. Darin Day 526 Sunset East Lansing, Michigan 48823 Dear~~ Let me begin by congratulating you on your appointment to Governor Engler's Community Service Commission . I look forward to working with you in developing our statewide coordinated plan on service for submission to the National Commission. You will be receiving a letter from the Commission Chairperson, Mrs. Michelle Engler shortly. The first meeting of the Commission is scheduled for Thursday, October 31, 1991 from 10:00 a.m . till 2:00 p.m. in the Governor's Cabinet Room on the 2nd floor of the Olds Plaza Building. Enclosed you will find a map of the Lansing downtown area to assist you in your trip into town. We are developing a resource packet of information for distribution at the meeting. There will be a lunch provided during the meeting. Should you have any special dietary needs, please contact Mary Estrada in my office . Please feel free to contact me at (517) 335-4295 should you have any question or requests. Sincerely, """ l~guezRt2t Algra~ Executive Director Michigan Community Service Commission �STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION LANSING , MICHIGAN 48909 DOROTHY BEARDMORE President 213 Nesbit I.a11e Rochester , MI 483 09 November 10, 1991 The Honorable Michelle Engler First lady of tr.e State of M.ichigan Olds Plaza, 4th Floar Lansing , MI 48 9 09 Dear Miche lle , It was a pleasure to meet with yru this past week to talk about Ue federal National Camunity Service Act. It will be very interest.ing to see ha-~ the rules arrl regulations de£ .ine the focu.s of what appears to be a f ar-reachillg federal eff art. Michigan is fortunate to have been actively warking ill corrnnunity serv.ice, partnershiFS and sharEd p:rcgranm.ing for a nwnl:.er of years. That histary should place this state in an advantageous pcsition for winnillg federal competitive grants. As I was return.inq horre Friday, I thc:ught of a possible rrernber of the Michigan Carrnnunity Service Comnission if you still have a vacancy after the UpfEr PEninsula spot is filled. Edith Wieland , President Michigan School Volunteer Prcgram 293 Lagoon Beach Drive Bay City I MI 487 a:; Sl'E is a recent retiree from the Bay City Public Schools. Her longterm leadership alfong school volunteers is just another exarrple of Hichigan leadership in tre cocperatim/coord.inatim arenct. Her experience and network of citizens who already volunteer ill schools and commmit:ies cruld be very helpful on the Camnissim. I 1 rn also enc los illg a partim of this morning 1 s rulletill from my church. o.rr minister usually corrposes the Prayer of Cmfess im each Sunday. Ha-~ do yru suppose re knew referrillg to love, sery i~ ~d expan~d . expectatioos would be s9 tirre ly? ! FoJtg..i.ve ~, 0 Lo.ll.d, ~OIL timu when we ~ee .in otheM only Hy, what: we expect, and timu when we expect veJr.y ti.:ttl.e. G-ive LM the vWon oi, Ju~, who ~aw the ILevela.Uon oi, !JOWl Ki.ngdom .in the occUJtJr.encu o:6 eveJr.yday l.i..l,e. Expand oUJt expecta.tio~ o~ OUJl..6elvu and otheM. Help r Beardmore ru, acknowledge that: OWl Uvu aJr.e ~ufi. o~ po&Ubiliilu ~OIL love and ~eJr.v..i.ce, oi, wh..i.ch we have been unawaJr.e. Amen. ~ .NOV. ti.: 3 1991 � 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 Our State of Generosity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Description An account of the resource Collection contains the records of four Michigan nonprofit organizations: Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU. The documents are compiled by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and records document the history of the organizations from the 1960s to the 2010s. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1968-2014 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Nonprofit Association Michigan Community Service Commission Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Community Service Commission Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-04 Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 JCPA-04_MCSC_1991_Miscellaneous-Letters Title A name given to the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 miscellaneous letters Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michigan Community Service Commission Description An account of the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 miscellaneous letters. Records are compiled in the Our State of Generosity collection by the Johnson Center, along with the files of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA), the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Originals are at the Michigan Community Service Commission. Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Community Service Commission Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 51417 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f8bc563e15ccdb886a0d840060a03c17.pdf ddaafed4649ca6f8fd5f689301c501bd PDF Text Text ~~~~~~~- -- -- POIN-rS OF LIGHT FOUNDATION About the W~~ Program A division of the Points of Light Foundation, Youth Engaged in Service (YES) seeks to challenge every young person, age 5 to 25, to engage in service aimed at meeting important social needs, and to stimulate the creation of opportunities and support necessary to make that service meaningful. Helping to achieve these objectives are a group of young people who are serving as YES ambassadors in communities around the nation. YES ambassadors are working to build support among a variety of institutions and organizations at the state level and to encourage the development of youth service opportunities at the local level. W~~ In Michigan Michigan has been chosen as one of the first four sites for the YES ambassador program. Two outstanding youth are serving as YES ambassadors in the state. As ambassadors they are acting as catalysts in the field of youth service; motivating youth to serve and helping to · create an environment supportive to youth service. The two ambassadors are hosted by the recently created Michigan Community Service Commission in the Department of Labor. YES ambassadors will: • • • speak on behalf of youth service and the need to involve youth in solving problems facing our society visit youth oriented service programs and identify model projects connect individuals and programs to local, state and national resources (e.g. other organizations, people, data banks, publications) About the ~®!!liiJ\l@JiilUD®IJ\l The Points of Light Foundation, established in May 1990, is an independent nonprofit organization that seeks to engage every American in direct and consequential community service aimed at solving the nation's most serious social problems. The Foundation is led by a Board of Directors comprised of prominent Americans with diverse political views, who are unified in the goal of raising the commitment to community service throughout the nation. The Foundation receives funding from a combination of public and private sources. For more information contact: Cynthia Scherer and Trabian Shorters YES Ambassadors c/o Michigan Community Service Commission Olds Plaza, 111 S. Capitol P.O. Box 30015 Lansing, MI 48909 Phone (517) 335-4295 � 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 Our State of Generosity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Description An account of the resource Collection contains the records of four Michigan nonprofit organizations: Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU. The documents are compiled by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and records document the history of the organizations from the 1960s to the 2010s. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1968-2014 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Nonprofit Association Michigan Community Service Commission Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Community Service Commission Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-04 Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 JCPA-04_MCSC_1991_Points-of-Light-Yes-Program-Fact-Sheet Title A name given to the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 Points of Light Yes program fact sheet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michigan Community Service Commission Description An account of the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 Points of Light Yes program fact sheet. Records are compiled in the Our State of Generosity collection by the Johnson Center, along with the files of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA), the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Originals are at the Michigan Community Service Commission. Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Community Service Commission Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 51418 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7915fa4ae231750f38d638892af97391.pdf 4d89df59a69eecb208235b5dbca6a64c PDF Text Text THE NEW CONTEXT FOR NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE A Paper for the Working Group on National and Community Service Pol icy And the Coal it ion on National and Community Service Prepared by Frank Dirks December 15, 1993 The passage of the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 CP.L. 103-82) catapults citizen servfce to · the top of the American domestic agenda. Substantial federal resources are now authorized to support local, state, and national networks and programs that engage Americans of all ages in domestic volunteer service to their country and communities. Built on the ~ foundation of the bipartisan National and Community Service Act of 1990 and decades of action by grassroots programs and advocates across the country, the President and Congress have created in the Trust Act a dynamic new conte xt for service and volunteerism. The successful partnership, among policy makers and the programs and people who comprise the service and volunteer field, has produced a new legislative framework for national and community service . Now the field has joined together to offer a unified vision for the implementation of a comprehensive national system of service. National ser vice is a new way for Americans to think about gove r nment , community, civic responsibility, and the capacity of citizens to addre ss public problems. Service also provides an opportunity for government to reconstitute itself in partnership with citizens to revitalize civic participation in public problem-solving. To succeed, the service system mu st remain rooted in the diversity of people and prog r ams that cover the national and community service field, and it must grow to meet the changing needs of youth, older Americans, education, communities, and the nation. This paper lays the groundwork for building consensus around new operating assumptions in the government's continued partnership with the community service field. It outlines the principles on which the new national and community service system should stand. These principles have long, but informally, united a diverse field of programs and individuals. They take into account the perspectives and involvement of organizations that have come to the field through their participation in the Coalition for National and Community Service. �The Goal of National and Community Service The prima ry goal of national and community service is to re-kindle the American ethic of responsible civic involve men t. Se rvi ce, def i ned here as any sustained voluntary action of citizens in concert with othe rs to address public and community needs, provide s a common language of experi ence uniting citizen rights and responsibilities. The language of service grows from cooperation , consensus building, and the work of public and community problem-solving. While a service proje ct must meet important needs in the community, the service experience must also develop effective, public-spirited citizens , with the skills needed to make life-long contributions to solving the pressing problems facing our communities and our nation. The national and community service system must be organized to sustain and enhance civic capacity and responsible citizen involvement by supporting opportunities for citizens of all ages to engage in service. The system must be designed to build civic-minded communities by involving service providers, service recipients, and community leaders in sustained partnerships for community improvement. _The success of the system will depend on its adherence to the belief ~ that a citizen's lifetime dedication to serving the public good is the result of the personal satisfaction and civic efficacy derived from solving public problems and serving others in -the community. The national and community service system should recognize that while the ethic of service is forged in youth, a commitment to service must span a lifetime. Accordingly the system should support service opportunities for al 1 ages, but with particular attention to prog ra ms for young pe rso ns from ages 5-25, older Americans, and students of all ages. ASystem of National and Co~~unity Service The following are guiding principles for a system of national and community service: l) Support and enable state and local program innovation within a national framework. 2) Support, enhance, and improve education and youth development. 3) Support and promote intergenerational service activities. 4) Promote and encourage active citizen involvement in public and community problem-solving . 5) Model and facilitate efforts to reconnect citizens to government and build the capacities of civic institutions for public problem-solving. �We recommend that the principles of a system of national and community service be supported in the following ways: 1) 2) Support and enable state and local innovation within a national framework. a. The national and community service system should be driven by state and local program priorities within a framework of national goals and standards. The system should encourage local design and flexible implementation following commonly adopted practices and training standards. b. The Corporation authorized by the National and Community Service Trust Act should enable states and local programs to use other federal program dollars flexibly to support related program activities. State commissions should provide similar support for local community needs. Programs should be encouraged to build capacity through inter-agency and public-private collaboration. Comprehensive service planning should include partnerships among servers and recipients. c: The Corporation should support research and evaluation to refine standards and practices in cooperation with established practitioner networks. d. The Corporation should support and enhance existing nationat, regional; and local non-profit service program networks. e. The Corporation should continue the precedent set by the National and Community Service Commission by remaining open to the advice and counsel of experienced practitioners, and responsive to national program development needs expressed by the field. f. The Corporation should encourage the integration of c1v1c education into the design of all service programs, and support service and civic education program models for national disseminat ion. Support, enhance, and improve education and youth development. Service is a powerful tool for youth development and school improvement. It transforms the young person from a passive recipient to an active provider, and in so doing redefines the perception of youth in the community from a cause of problems to a source of solutions. Service programs help build a young person's job, life, problem-solving, and communication skills. By effectively teaching these skills and linking young people with diverse community service opportunities, service program leaders empower yo ung people to make life-long contributions to society and help prepare them for the independence and responsibility of being workers and parents. Service encourages young people who are out of school to seek further education. Service programs also prepare young people for leadership by teaching consensus-making, coalition-building, cooperation, collaboration, and compromise. When service is conducted in a properly structured program, service creates an authentic environment for learning. The method of learning in this environment is called "service learning". Service learning can be a common methodology for youth deve opment and education. Service learning places curricular concepts in the context of real-life situations and empowers students to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize these concepts through practical problem-solving . �3) a. Service learning should become a part of education reform efforts as a methodological element of curriculum, instruction, and teache r training . Service learning should be used as one approach to measu r e students ' ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-life settings. Support to local education agencies should be targeted to those that seek to institutionalize service learning and to build the infrastructure necessary to sustain it. b. The national and community service system should promote se rv ice learning as a methodology appr op riate to both schools and communitybased organizations. Service learning can enhance the connect ions among classroom and school-base d programs and after-school and su mme r programs ; The Corporation should support partnerships among state and local education agencies and community-based organizations and it should provide incentives for school and community programs to develop service learning as a shared methodology. c. Support to institutions of higher education should be targeted for those that form long-term partnerships with citizen and youth groups , community agenciesj elder organizations, schools, businesses, and local government to engage in sustained, collaborative service activities in the surrounding community. d. Support to institutions of higher education should be targeted fo r those who seek to infuse service learning into the academic and social life of their institutions and build the infrastructure necessary to sustain it. Particular attention should be given to supporting teacher education. e. Service learning should be used as a shared methodology to encourage closer collaboration among community college, job training, and technical preparation programs . Service learning progr a,ns should be encouraged to complement a unified national system of apprenticeship and wor kforce preparation. f. Service learning should be advanced as a prom1s1ng alternative strategy to current delinquency and violence prevention prog rams, and leade r ship development programs. Support and promo te intergenerational service activities. Older Americans who are most likely to engage in volunteer and service activities are those who were involved in similar experiences during their youth. Through intergenerational programs, older Americans can share in an enriching experience while helping to prepare a new generation to accept the responsibility and develop the skills to solve community and public problems. · Intergenerational programs also enable service programs to improve capacity by pooling the existing staff and facility resources of youth and older American programs. a. Service programs should be designed to enable the recruitment and involvement of older Americans in appropriate activities that refine their skills while building the skills of young people. b. Service program s should involve people of different generations working side-by-side in service to the community in addition to providing service to each other. �c. 4) Intergenerational ser vice programs should be encouraged to consider senior centers, retirement communities, schools, and communitybased organizations as possible sites for program administration and training. Promote and encourage active citizen involvement in public and community problem-solving. Service is a means of renewing citizens' commitment to their communities and count ry. Service creates an environment of practical problem-solving and positively involves citizens in activities that improve public and community life . 5) a. Support should be provided for service programs that encourage local program partnerships that utilize a creative mix of public/private resources. b. Service programs should be encouraged to provide participants with the training and education to develop skills for public problemsol.ving and policy development. c. Support should be provided for service programs that give aut ho rity for program design to citizens and, particularly, to programs that involve service recipients in decision-making. d. Support should be provided for service programs that emphasize community resources, not just deficiencies. Special attention should be given to programs that build on current capacity and emphasize self-help . Model and faci I itate efforts to reconnect citizens to government and build the capacities of civic institutions for public public problem-solving. a. Federal, state, and local governments should be viewed as con vener s, brokers, supporters of service provide rs, and sites for public work. Collaborative community problem-solving through service should become a means of reassessing public and private programs and program service delive ry. b. Federal worke rs should be ori ented to national and community service and Its potential program connections to current federal prog rams they currently administer. c. The Corporation should support efforts to reinvent government In local communities that effectively build capacity through collaborative federal, state, and local Inter-agency operation. The Corporation should provide Incentive grants to local Initiatives that creatively develop comprehensive approaches to education, and youth and community development by combining federal program resources. d. The Corporation should facilitate the efforts of state and local programs to draw on multiple federal funding sources by streamlining grant and reporting requirements. �- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - Organizations that have signed on with comments based on the draft. Ame ri can Alliance for Rights and Respon si bilities American Youth Foundation American Y0uth Policy Forum Citizensh1p and Service Educat io n Prog ra m, Rutgers Unive rs ity Big Brothe rs /Big Siste r s of Ameri ca Project Public Life, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Unive rs ity of Minnesota Campus Comp act Campus Outreach Opportunity League City Cares of Ame ri ca City Volunteer Corps Constitutional Rights Foundation Close Up Foundation Community Service Learning Center D.C. Se1vice Corps Directors Associations of The National Senior Volunteer Corps Programs East · Bay Conservation Corps The Green Corps Generations United Magic Me, Inc. Maryland Student Service Alliance Michigan Community Service Commission National Association of . Service and Conservation Corps National Association of Foster Grandparent Program Directors National Association of Retired Senior Volunteer Program Directors National Association of Senior Companion Project Directors National Center for Service Learning in Early Adolescence National Youth Le adersh ip Council Ohio Campus Compact Thomas Jefferson Forum Volunteer Maryland Young People for National Service Youth Volunteer Corps of America Youth Se rv ice America Organizations that have offered comments and are awaiting a final review Ne w Jersey Department of Highe r Education National Association for Public Interest Law YMCA of the U.S.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/. Title A name given to the resource Our State of Generosity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Description An account of the resource Collection contains the records of four Michigan nonprofit organizations: Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU. The documents are compiled by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and records document the history of the organizations from the 1960s to the 2010s. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1968-2014 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Nonprofit Association Michigan Community Service Commission Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Community Service Commission Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-04 Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 JCPA-04_MCSC_1991_MCSC-Creation_The-New-Context-for-Natl-and-Comm-Service Title A name given to the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 The New Context for National and Community Service Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michigan Community Service Commission Description An account of the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 The New Context for National and Community Service. Records are compiled in the Our State of Generosity collection by the Johnson Center, along with the files of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA), the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Originals are at the Michigan Community Service Commission. Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Community Service Commission Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49402 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d5ffb1e14ef9c697237776d9d1e86ac3.pdf 158c7a586f08a792a9625ec01d07670b PDF Text Text YC)l!TH SER\lCE Al\llERICA A CONFERENCE ON 1!COJ lJJlrJBI ~IEJP( VJICCIE JIN JMIJI CCJBIJICGAN THE MAKING OF A NEW GENERATION OF SERVICE AGENDA June 10 & 11, 1991 Kellogg Center East Lansing, Michigan SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Board of Education Michigan Campus Compact Michigan Nonprofit Forum National Governors' Association Youth Service America This conference has been made possible through the generous support of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation 1319 F Street, NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 -2021783-8855 • FAX 2021347·2603 �, .. I I MONDAY • .JUNE 10. 1991 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. Registration - Nonh Lobby Continental Breakfast- Big Ten Room C 10:15 - 11:45 a.m. Opening General Session- Big Ten Room C Conference Overview - Roger Landrum, Executive Director, Youth Service America Michigan Overview- Joel Orosz, Program Director, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Welcoming Remarks - Michelle Engler, First Lady of Michigan National Legislation -Frank Slobig, Director of Policy and Programs, Youth Service America The Minnesota Model- Paula Beugen, Associate Director, Office on Volunteer Services, Minnesota New Initiatives in Michigan - Kathy Agard, Program Director, Community Foundations Director, Council of Michigan Foundations 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. Luncheon- Big Ten Room B Welcoming Remarks - Introduction- Roger Landrum Welcome- Dr. Marylee Davis, Executive Assistant to the President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, Michigan State University Video Presentation- "Everybody Can Be Great Because Everybody Can Serve" Conference Keynote Introduction - Tobin Smith, Legislative Assistant, Congressman Bob Traxler Speaker- Susie Hassan, Undergraduate, University of Michigan and Mayoral Campaign Manager 18 . -- ~ :.~ .. ---.:1 �1:45 - 3:30 p.m. Interest Caucuses Task: Program and Interest Identification Service and Conservation Corps- Room 104A Facilitators: Margaret Rosenberry, Executive Director, National Association Service and Conservation Corps Jerry Kolker, Director, Urban Corp Expansion Project, Public Private Ventures Frank Slobig K-12- Room 102 Facilitators: AI Markowski, Supervisory Instructional Specialist, Pittsburgh Middle Schools Christine Kwak, Assistant to the President, National Youth Leadership Council Paula Beugen Higher Education - Room 104B Facilitators: Diana Algra. Executive Director, the Michigan Campus Compact Mark Langseth, National Youth Leadership Council Roger Landrum Community-based Organizations- Vista Room Facilitators: Diane Landis, Senior Associate, Volunteer and Outreach Services, United Way of America Laura Tiedge, Director of Volunteer Youth Training and Leadership, United Way of Pittsburgh Joe Madison, Executive Director, Massachusetts Youth Alliance Youth Involvement- Willy Room Facilitators: Jean Burkhardt, Youth Service Consultant Bryan Tramont, Coordinator of Youth Action Council, Youth Service America Javier La Fianza, Project Coordinator- Youth Community Service, Constitutional Rights Foundation. 19 �3:15 - 3:30 p.m. 3:45 - 5:15 p.m. Break and Refreshments - Big Ten Room C Interest Caucuses Task: Development of a Planning Outline Service and Conservation Corps- Room 104A K-12 - Room 102 Additional facilitator: Javier La Fianza Higher Education- Room 104B Community-based 0 rganizations - Vista Room Youth Involvement- Willy Room 5:15 p.m. Networking Reception - Big Ten Room B Cash Bar 6:15 p.m. Dinner - Big Ten Room B Youth Service in Massachusetts Introduction - Diana Algra Spe~ker- 8:00 p.m. Joe Madison Facilitators' Meeting - Willy Room 20 �TUESDAY . .JUNE 11. 1991 7:45 - 8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast - Big Ten Room B 8:45 - 9:15 a.m. Volunteerism in Michigan Introduction- Maryellen Lewis, Executive Director, Michigan Nonprofit Forum Speaker- Governor George Romney, Trustee, Michigan Nonprofit Forum 9:15 - 10:45 a.m. General Session Panel on Collaboration Moderator: Gordon Raley, Executive Director, National Assembly of National Voluntary Health and Social Welfare Organizations Panel Members: Dorothy Johnson, President, Council of Michigan Foundations Jon Blyth, Program Officer, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Margaret Rosenberry 11: 00 - 12:30 p.m. Collaboration Caucuses Task: Prioritize Interest Outlines Group 1 - Room 106 Facilitator- Joe Madison Group 2- Willy Room Facilitator - Paula Beugen Group 3- Room 102 Facilitator - Margaret Rosenberry Group 4 - Heritage Room Facilitator- Frank Slobig 21 �12:45 - 1:45 p.m. 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. Lunch- Big Ten Room B Collaboration Caucuses Task: Recommended Next Steps and Planning Timeline Group I - Room 106 Group 2 - Willy Room Group 3 - Room 102 Group 4 - Heritage Room 3:30 - 3:45 p.m. Break/Refreshments- Big Ten Room B 3:45 - 5:30 p.m. Closing General Session Collaboration caucus facilita!ors will repon their groups' final recommendations to state ·officials Moderator: Roger Landrum Stephanie Comai-Page, Social Welfare Policy Analyst, Executive Office Deborah Grether, Deputy Director, Depanment of Labor Roberta Stanley, Assistant Superintendent, Michigan Depanment of Education 22 �PROCEEDINGS FROM A CONFERENCE AND SUBSEQUENT PLANNING MEETINGS ON THE MAKING OFA NEW GENERATION OF SERVICE June 10 & 11, 1991 Kellogg Center, East Lansing, Michigan July 15, 1991 Holiday Inn, Lansing, Michigan July 31, 1991 Kellogg Center East Lansing, Michigan SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Board of Education Michigan Campus Compact Michigan Nonprofit Forum National Governors' Association Youth Service America The conference and the continued efforts of Youth Service America have been made possible through the generous support of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. 23 �INTEREST GROUP CAUCUS DISCUSSIONS Groups from five youth service interest areas, Community-Based Organizations, K-12, Service and Conservation Corps, Higher Education, and Youth Involvement, met to discuss youth service issues in their respective fields and opponunities for program development. Below is a summary their recommendations. COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS The group representing Community-Based Organizations began their discussion by identifying common goals. They were most interested with developing means for drawing youth into their organizations. They recognized youth service as both a method of youth development and a practical approach for recruiting youth into their organizations. Common Goals: • • • • • • Design a system that values young people as resources Promote educational development and growth Encourage young people to commit to community service Involve young people in issue areas that concern them Recognize service as part of personal development Identify collaboration links and program resources Expand positive opponunities for young people Recognize the short- and long-term value of youth service The group produced a ten point list for developing opportunities for youth service. The group emphasized the importance of training and state-wide, inter-organizational network development. They also stressed the importance of providing meaningful opportunities for youth to share in this process. There should be a sustained and coordinated connection between youth service programs and broader volunteer efforts. Points for Development: • • • • • • • Training programs for adults, youth, and agencies Inter-organi'zational information networks Youth Ownership Community agency ownership Long-term, broad-based community support Institutionalize youth service Evaluate individual and state-wide programs Volunteer Recognition Criteria for program development Link youth service and other voluntary efforts Limited training, staffing, and funding are seen as challenges to attaining these goals. Young people must also have visible leadership roles.. The task of increasing youth leadership opportunities in these efforts without causing concern among adults in established roles requires careful attention. 24 �/""~ :~·->"/ Challenges: • Limited training resources Limited staff Creating youth ownership Turf issues Limited funding Involving youth who are not students K-12 EDUCATION This group looked at ways of institutionalizing service in the schools. Common Goals: • • • Service opponunities in every middle and high school Service integrated into the curriculum Service as an imponant consideration for college admission Each local school program should be allowed to develop according to its owns needs. However, all schools should panicipate in the public promotion of youth service, emphasize multi-cultural programming, and establish formal evaluation processes. Workshops and conferences should be conducted for youth and agency contacts. Transponation assistance and liability coverage issues require further consideration. Points for Develooment: • • • • • • • • Create local ownership by principals, counselors, teachers and students Promote model programs Emphasize multi-cultural programs Develop means for qualitative program evaluation Conduct workshops for schools and agencies on collaborative youth service program development State conferences for young people involved in community service programs Develop a transportation infastructure Establish a standard policy for volunteer liability SERVICE AND CONSERVATION CORPS This group concentrated on new directions for corps programs. Sustained funding is a major concern. The group recommended that a bipartisan state commission on youth service explore creative funding strategies drawing on public and private resources. Future program viability will also depend on strong local community support, including the private sector. Youth service needs greater recognition; a leader and spokesperson to carry the youth service message across the state. On a more philosophical level, the definition of youth service must be inclusive. 25 �Points for Development: • • • • • • • • Joint (MCC/NBA) use and development of resources and programs Create a state-wide youth corps advisory council Involve educators in corps efforts Increase leveraging of JTPA, Vocational Education, CDBG, and Vocational Rehabilitation funds Develop overall (MCC/NBA) coordination Identify a spokesperson for youth service Explore the feasibility of a state-wide youth service corporation Create a bipartisan state commission with representatives from corporations, corps, community-based organizations, foundations, youth, labor, and state agencies Involve the private sector in funding, personnel, training, and mentoring Improve private sector local support Additional Points: • • Ensure that the definition of service includes corps programs Explore broad collaborations based on more than those suggested in the National and Community Service Act. HIGHER EDUCATION Representatives from colleges and universities drew up a list of important points that will advance service in their institutions. Youth community service should be fully integrated into all aspects of campus life. Colleges and universities should increase their collaboration with other organizations that are involved in youth service. Special emphasis should be made in linking campuses to the communities around them. Training workshops and community service programs on all campuses throughout the state are also priorities. Points for Development: • • • • • • • • ..... ,.,.·.··~~· \ ::~:":-.:'~·1 Push for a Governor's comprehensive youth service plan Promote an integrated service curriculum Promote service research Promote collaborative programs with K-12, teacher training, community activities, and youth leadership Create new service approaches such as: College student corps programs Involving non-traditional students Internships Develop active programs on all Michigan campuses Use college students in building other programs Institutionalize service learning in the university structure YOUTH lNVOL VEMENT The youth attending the conference came up with three broad categories of interest: service opportunities, quality and quantity of programs, and ways to instill a lifetime ethic of service. 26 �Organizations should work collaborativly to establish regional and state networks and clearinghouses to assist in spreading information. Increased youth involvement in policy development and implementation would allow young people to feel a sense of ownership in their progrdms. Greater participant diversity will improve the educational value of programs. Common Goals: • • • • • Create a state-wide Volunteer Clearinghouse Agency that would promote: Information and dissemination on youth service Program networking Volunteer recognition Local and regional clearinghouses State and community coalition building Youth involvement in policy development and implement.ation Diversity of participants Service and Conservation Corps, school-based, mentoring, and community-based programs should be expanded. Broader training opportunities and common quality standards for all programs are important. Points for Development: • • • • • • Expand service and conservation corps programs Improve school based programs: Integrate service into the curriculum Train school coordinators aware of service opportunities Strengthen community-based programs Develop collaborative models among community-based programs, service corps, and school programs Develop mentoring programs: Students as mentors Peer to peer relationships Link service reflection to learning about relevant social issues Broadly implement quality standards accepted by the youth service field The development of a lifetime ethic of service is an overarching goal. The importance of youth service, for the community and young people should be demonstrated by recognizing achievement, forgiving. and/or deferring student loans, and promoting career opportunities in the non-profit, public service sector. Promoting a Lifetime Commitment: • • • • A wards and recognition Loan forgiveness and deferral for students involved Evaluation and reflection which allow young people to understand the significance of their actions Encouragement of youth to enter careers in the non-profit and public service sector. '2.7 �COLLABORATION CAUCUS GROUP DISCUSSIONS On the second day conference participants were divided into four inter-interest groups to collaborativly explore future directions for youth service in Michigan. The recommendations of the four groups shared similar themes. Therefore the summary combines group reports into three thematic categories: diversity, youth leadership, and educational issues. DIVERSITY Youth service programs should emphasize diverse participation. Diversity should reflect gender, age, culture, race, and class. Intergenerational and mentoring programs are important models with which to connect. The caucus groups indicated that young people, Native Americans, youth service program operators, and people from northern communities and Detroit should have greater representation in future youth service activities. Increase Participation of: • • • Youth, including at-risk Metro Detroit Northern Communities Native American communities Youth service program operators Consider Linking: • • • Intergenerational projects Mentoring programs Joint projects (Higher Ed. and K-12) Collaborative community action councils YOUTH LEADERSHIP Community agendes must develop and display trust in young people. Community organizations and schools should be encouraged to take risks and try new things to involve young people. Public relations campaigns to highlight positive contributions of youth service can improve perceptions about the value of youth contributions to the community. Agencies should create development tracks for young people to grow into positions responsibility. Young people should be involved in program planning. Youth should be allowed to share in program ownership by contributing to projects from inception. through implementation. Youth involvement should not be limited to established youth leaders. Youth service can develop new leaders among young people. Enhancing CommunitY Agency-vouth Relations: • • • Give project operators and schools room to try new things Create a broad range of opportunities for youth Promote youth accomplishments Establish local advisory groups to ensure projects meet local needs 28 �' • ,..-:........... ~;·., ~ ' ~ Develop roles for young people that allow them to grow in responsibility \ ' .. ' ' '. .... Advancing Youth Leadership Opportunities: • • • • Young people should be seen as resources Young people need to be able to advance issues and ideas of interest to them Development of Youth Action Councils Establishment of regular youth conferences and workshops Mini-grants to fund innovative ideas Use service as an opponunity to develop new youth leaders EDUCATIONAL ISSUES A imponant goal of youth service is to teach civic responsibility. The concept of service needs to be expanded to include various types of programs. Service must become a pan of the curriculum. Goals: • • • Instilling civic responsibility as goal of youth service should be emphasized in all service reflection activities Use service to enhance the teaching of values Expand the definition of service to allow all communities to participate Points for Development: *·--..,_ • • Expand to view of educators to include the world outside the classroom Integrate service into the cuniculum 29 �COLLABORATION CAUCUS RECOMMENDATIONS SHORT-TERM The most important step for Michigan take at this time is the formation of an advisory committee to determine the state's plan for applying for federal funds available through the National and Community Service Act of 1990. The committee should decide on goals and draft a comprehensive proposal for the federal funding. The committee should seek reaction from various organizations and individuals before submitting the application and continue to seek the advice and counsel of program practitioners in future initiatives. Goals of steering committee: • • • Review notes from conference Draft proposal of state-wide youth service plan Circulate proposal to various groups Draft final plan for federal funds and long-term strategy Conference panicipants expressed concern that steering committee membership should be diverse based on age, geography, and program background. Young people should be included. An appropriate size for the group should be 15 people. The committee should be a working committee. Lansing is an appropriate central meeting location. Committee membershio: • • .. • Should be 15 Must be include people of various backgrounds The committee should be a working Must be include young people Groups and individuals should be encouraged to form local coalitions in their communities. Information from the conference should be shared with non-participants. Activities outside the Committee: • • • Formation of local coalitions Spreading of information to conference non-participants YSA will Disseminate follow-up materials to all participants LONG-TERM Although the conference participants could not anticipate the results of the federal funding process, they began formulating long-term goals for the state's youth community service initiative. The steering committee should evolve into a bipanisan, state task force with responsibility of coordinating technical support for all programs throughout the state. Assistance necessary includes state-wide training and networking conferences for youth and agencies, 30 �,., .. ·~~\ \ . ~-· a research group to develop new programs, legislation to limit volunteer liability, the creation of a mini-grant program to fund innovative projects, a coordinated public relations campaign to share success stories, and the implementation of a quality control efforts. Diversity of programs and participants should be increased whenever possible. Participation of young people in planning should continue. Long-term goals: • • • • • • Formation of a bipartisan Task Force Conferences for youth and agency representatives to provide training and networking Passage of volunteer liability legislation Creation of a mini-grant program Beginning of public relations activities Creation of a newsletter for agencies I)evelopment of a quality control program for individual and state-wide programs Diversity of opportunities-a program for everyone Youth involvement in planning and implementation -:·.·:· . 31 �THE FIRST FOLLOW-UP PLANNING MEETING July 15, 1991 at the Holiday Inn, Lansing, Michigan Hosted by the Council of Michigan Foundations On July 15, 1991 the Council of Michigan Foundations hosted a day-long meeting in Lansing for self-selected panicipants of the June 10-11 conference and additional interested parties to continue planning for the Michigan youth service initiative. Dorothy Johnson, the President of the Council of Michigan Foundations welcomed participants and called the meeting to order. Ms. Johnson and members of her staff including Kathy Agard and Jim McHale were joined by representatives of the meeting's co-sponsoring organizations: Diana Algra, Executive Director of the Michigan Campus Compact; Maryellen Lewis, Executive Director of the Michigan NonProfit Forum; Robena Stanley, Executive Assistant Superintendent for State and Federal Relations, Michigan Department of Education; and Frank Dirks, Field Organizer for Youth Service America. The special guest for the meeting was Michelle Engler, the First Lady of Michigan. Ms. Engler was accompanied by Stephanie Comai-Page, Social Welfare Policy Advisor from the Governor's Office. Maura Wolfe, Youth Engaged in Service Coordinator for the Points of Light Foundation also attended the meeting. After Ms. Johnson's opening remarks, Ms. Engler outlined the state's response since the June Conference. • Governor Engler will appoint a commission on youth service. • Michelle Engler will chair the commission. . • The commission will develop Michigan's funding application to the National and Community Service Commission. • Michigan's commission will focus on youth service. • The commission will be housed, at least initially, in the Executive Office of the Governor. • The commission should be appointed by mid-August. • Projections of size range from 15 to 21 commission members. • The commission will be representative of the diversity of the state. • The commission will have an indefinite term. It will be created by executive order and can only be ended with an executive order. • Initially, ·commission members will have staggered terms- 1/3 for 1 year, 1/3 for 2 years, and 1/3 for three years. Ultimately, membership will be three years. • Meeting participants should submit nominations for commission members to Stephanie Comai-Page. The Governor's Office has already collecting names. • Young people will be represented on the commission. • Provisions are being made to staff the commission. The Governor's Office is also seeking names for the position of Executive Director for the commission. • The participants of this and the June meeting will serve as an informal advisory group for the commission. Following Ms. Engler's comments the co-sponsors offered some remarks. 32 �-, · ~:~}~:~ Roberta Stanley • The State Board of Education is interested in youth service. • The State Board is holding a conference in September on related · issues. • Michigan's congressional delegation is important to the future of federal funding support for and implementation of this initiative. The delegation in Washington needs to become aware of the state's increasing interest in youth service. Diana Algra • Service is important issue for college and university presidents in Michigan. • Program partnerships linking colleges and communities are will be valuable to promote. Maryellen Lewis • The Forum is disseminating information throughout its network. Frank Dirks (Mr. Dirks served as facilitator for the rest of the meeting.) . ·.:::. :·.~ • The task of this planning meeting is to begin to formulate a series of recommendations for the state commission to consider for the state plan. The planning timeline will be very short. The appointment of the state commission advances Michigan to a srrong position among the states developing youth service plans. • The White House is supposed to submit National Commission nominees to the Senate for confirmation before the August recess. • State applications could be due as early as early October. • YSA anticipates a carry-over ofFY '91 funds that have not been spent. • The federal legislation provides the context for this discussion but should not be a limiting factor. The development of a statewide youth service plan is the right thing to do whether or not there is federal funding. • The National Commission will have 21 members serving 3 year terms. Initially, terms will be staggered. The Secretaries of Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Agriculture, and the Director of ACTION will serve as ex-officio members. • This group should continue to advise the new state commission and serve as a broader pool of program technical resources. The group reviewed and discussed the funded titles in the National and Community Service Act and the status of other state development efforts. Information related to this review is reflected in the appendix. 33 �The group reviewed the basic themes drawn from the June conference. • Promote collaboration. • Build program capacity. Ensure program sustainability beyond support through the Act. • Draw on the strength and experience of existing programs and organizations. • Consider new and alternative program and organizational approaches and arrangements. • Promote program and participant diversity. The group then reviewed issues of particular interest to the National Commission that should be addressed in a state application. • The plan should be comprehensive. • The plan should promote and support program and organizational collaboration. • The plan should be sustainable. • Funding drawn from the Act must supplement not supplant current . state funding for programs targeted in the plan. The group recessed for lunch. The luncheon speaker was Maura Wolfe, of the Point of Light Foundation. She provided an overview of the Foundation's activities and introduced the Youth Ambassador program. The Points of Light Foundation efforts to promote and encourage voltimeerism across the generations include: • National advertising campaigns. • Coordinating and mobilizing existing resources including corporate leaders to promote volunteerism. • Identifying effective programs disseminating information about them. One of the administrative divisions at the Foundation is called Youth Engaged in Service (YES). YES is about to launch a major new program to promote youth service, the YES Youth Ambassadors. The program will be piloted for one year in three states beginning in September 1991. Michigan is being considered as one of the three states. Below is a summary of the program. • The goals are to connect people, build coalitions, and share information at state, regional and national levels. • Two young people will be serve as full-time state liaison/organizers for the Foundation. • They will be assigned to work for a lead state agency/organization, such as the Governor's new commission. • They will host a minimum of two Points of Light Action Forums to inform state groups about youth service. • They will actively work to involve youth in service. • They will help to organize a data bank of services and resources. • They will be trained by Points of Light in Washington. • They need to be on the job by September. 34 �..... ~ :-· ~\'"~<--: :-:.·, • They should reflect diverse youth participation. Points of Light is looking at Michigan as a model of state development. • The state organization/agency to which the ambassadors are assigned must: -Provide them with office space, -Provide direction and guidance for works plans and activities. -Make a one-year commitment to the program. -Provide assistance in "opening doors". The group re-convened after lunch to continue discussion of considerations important to a state plan. These considerations can be broken into four broad categories- the process for and structure of the youth service initiative in Michigan; youth empowerment through program and process design; education and training for program practitioners and policymakers; and best approaches for program design. A summary of issues raised and recommendations made in each of these categories follows. PR 0 CESS/STRUCTURE Can the state commission members represent organizations that will want to be funding recipients? How will this potential question of conflict of interest be handled? Ensure that the state process encourages local groups to build coalitions in order to pursue funding through local initiatives. The term "community service" carries connotation of alternative service for adjudicated violators of law. The language needs to be clarified. Emphasize family involvement.. many students need family members to provide transportation ... youth service can be a way of involving families in volunteerism. Ensure that the efforts developed through the initiative creates a "seamless" state youth service structure. Local neighborhood service activities are preferred among young people because of transportation concerns, time barriers, and the reward that comes from seeing the result of efforts in your own neighborhood. Programs and projects should come from the community rather than being imposed from the top. Longevity is dependent upon this ownership. Labor union involvement is important. Youth service must not be seen as a way of supplanting jobs. Representatives of organized labor need to be a part of the process. What is the goal of the Act- youth development or community development? The federal support should be used to jump-start sustainable programs/projects. Include Michigan's many resources for long-term planning and support. Don't just rely on the federal money. 35 �Develop incentives and rewards for local collaboration. Volunteer Action Centers can play important roles by serving as information clearinghouses, providing student mini-grant, and coordinating new project development. Funding must flow directly to local levels. Require collaboration in mini-grant requests at the local level. Consider developing a competitive grant process. Guidelines need to be shared on principles of good practice with the service organizations. Make volunteerism more accessible for "at risk"youth and families. Set up mechanisms for local communities to solve problems on their own. Ensure that people from the grass-roots can contribute to the planning process. Ensure that students, teachers, and agencies can contribute. Create a state service and conservation corps advisory committee. Creatively use and involve the 4-H and community college systems. Look at the strengths and weakness of the Minnesota model. Learn what happened with the state volunteer clearinghouse under Gov. Miliken. Develop a centralized data system with direct local access and satellite local data systems. Create incentives that emphasize the value and importance of service and volunteerism. Teach volunteers to develop a volunteer portfolio of experiences. Include corporations as a strategy for long term planning. K -12/corps/service relationships. YOUTH EMPOWERMENT Use the resources of groups like those represented in this room to survey young people across the state on how grant request should be structured and use those responses in the application. Establish local community panels that include youth to assess local projects and service opportunities. Train organizations in the development and implementation of volunteer programs to make them "volunteer friendly". Need to be "youth friendly". Involve Youth at-risk 36 �............ Important to allow youth to participate in problem and solution identification. The youth perspective important. EDUCATION/TRAINING Special efforts must be made with MEA and other unions to assure that the schools are welcoming to youth volunteers, youth service curriculums and education. Be sure to recognize and answer concerns about job potenital displacement. Education and training should be a theme including opportunities for youth reflection and civic responsibility. Youth volunteer jobs should have an educational component. Make sure we have peer-tutoring/counseling links For practitioners at the state level we need: -training for management of volunteers -educators -program operators Intermediate school districts could be an excellent source for teacher training/service learning curriculum Higher education mini-grants for: Service/Learning curriculum Teacher Training May need some training re: -process for applying for funds -regional team training -volunteer program steps- "how tos" -applying for money Technical assistance/experts Mentoring/partnerships PROGRAM DESIGN The quality of experience is important -Students should not be used for meaningless work -Jobs should have learning potential -reflection/potential component should be included -evaluation must be built into process -provision of a variety of experiences -clearinghouse for volunteers -youth empowerment and involvement important Neighborhood efforts/local- "hard services" need to see the product Over arching issues: -K-12 training -remember 5-6 million dollars available 37 �-inter-organizational youth collaboration At the state level the following could be possible: -clearinghouse of collaborative projects -training of community educators and agencies -linking community projects with schools (corps/schools connected) -model job descriptions record keeping/evaluation of programs Need for intergenerational programming Incentives: -Scholarships -Work The group was left with the following tasks for the next meeting. • • • • Review the draft report from June 10 and 11. Review minutes of July 15. Review the Act summary. Come to the next meeting prepared to answer the following questions: - What principles should guide the state commission's planning? -What should be the measurable outcomes? - What should be the organizational structure of the state commission? - What resources could your organization conoibute to the initiative? 38 �,. .... ·-- .. '. THE SECOND FOLLOW-UP PLANNING MEETING July 31, 1991 at the Kellogg Center, East Lansing, Michigan Hosted by the Michigan Nonprofit Forum I '" -::· '- { On the afternoon of July 31, 1991, Maryellen Lewis of the Michigan Nonprofit Forum hosted a second planning meeting at the Kellogg Center on the campus of Michigan State University. Ms. Lewis was joined by representatives of the meeting's co-sponsoring organizations: Kathy Agard, Program Director for the Council of Michigan Foundations; Diana Algra, Executive Director of the Michigan Campus Compact; Roberta Stanley, Executive Assistant Superintendent for State and Federal Relations, Michigan Department of Education; and Frank Dirks, Field Organizer for Youth Service America. Stephanie Comai-Page, representing the Governor's Office was also in attendance. Participants had been asked in a memo sent to them prior to the meeting to record their responses to the questions posed at the end of the July, 15 meeting. The following in a summary of the questions and the written answers that were submitted. What are principles you believe should guide the Governor's Commission to create a youth service plan for Michigan? • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Build upon success while encouraging innovation. Consider the benefits for participants and the state. Quality is more important than quantity. Include all sectors in planning and programming. Involve young people in planning. Ensure that youth are members of the commission. Encourage innovation. Consider a variety of programs from a variety of areas. Ensure geographic representation. Link to existing business and education partnerships. Give special attention to urban areas. Ensure local community support and ownership. Promote outcome driven efforts. Maintain realistic expectations of financial and human requirements and availability. Address real community needs. Institutionalize new programs and expand established programs. Ensure that youth service experiences are meaningful for youth. Give priority to actual projects over clearinghouse models. Collaboration must be defined as involving community residents, not just community agencies. Maintain consistent and broadly disseminated standards for program practice. Involve youth in community partnerships. What are measurable outcomes that should be specified for a successful local collaboration for youth community service under the Michigan youth service plan? • • • • • Project progress. Impact on participants. Value of work accomplished. Number of persons effectively served. Program efficiency. 39 �• • • • • • • Long term effect. Diversity of participants and agencies, and services provided. Leadership roles taken by youth . Extent of business partnerships. Retention of youth in programs. Sustainability of programs. Level of youth involvement in program planning and decisionmaking • The structure, intent, and practice of youth advisory councils. • The level and quality of local community agency support. What should be the commission's development plan and the process for fund distribution? • Grant applications should demonstrate- the buy-in of local partners, youth involvement in planning process, and should include expected outcomes, an operating plan, and a monitoring system. The grant review process should be inclusive and measure against the items above. • Use funding to support the formation of a program development infrastructure. Match existing resources. Local programs should be responsible for sustainability. • Support regional clearinghouses that promote the development of local coalitions and provide technical assistance and support that: -:- trains youth for service opportunities. - trains agencies to provide quality service experiences. - trains coalitions to raise funds to become self-supporting. • Utilize existing networks. Do not create a new bureaucracy. • The Governor's Commission should determine the criteria for grant proposals and selection. The Governor Romney, Janet Blanchard, · Michelle Engler co-chaired Coordinating Committee on Voluntarism should have an equal role in selecting local grantees. Local ~tees should demonstrate the implementation of a local inter-agency committee on youth initiatives and the role of young people in the design and implementation of the local program. What are resources your organization or network will contribute towards the success of the Michigan youth service plan? Staff Expertise in: Program development Statewide program implementation and operation Administration Sub-granting Experience with past and present highly successful programs Information dissemination Access to student volunteers Limited Staff Support Expertise on and access to resource materials 40 �Information on collaboration models Video tape and handbook/guide may be reproduced and distributed Programmatic statistics and information may be shared Gmntsmanship expertise Technical assistance to communities wishing to develop youth action councils Identification of local individuals and organizations The above questions served to frame the group discussion. Frank Dirks, of Youth Service America served as facilitator. Listed below is a summary of the points raised during the discussion. GUIDING PRINCIPLES Use existing syst~ms, build on strength while encouraging innovation. Involve youth at all levels. Respond flexibility to local circumstances. Involve local coalitions. :,_. , _, _ Applications should be judged on a point system where points are earned for each type of collaboration Youth Educators Business and private industry councils Seniors Handicapped Churches Collaboration requires community residents not just community agencies. Expand from existing programs. Outcomes should be based on community needs assessment. Broadly target "at risk" youth by giving additional points to those proposals. Involve those served in the pl~ning and evaluation process. Make the process easy to understand and accessible. Make it easy for youth input. Ensure that support is not exclusively directed toward strong and well established programs. Mixture merit and potential. Support sustainable programs. Maintain a long-range plan. Emphasize quality over quantity. 41 �OUTCOMES There is very little research on the effect of service on youth development. Building a research base for youth service should be integrated into the plan. Research will help advance the initiative and guide new program development. Head Start research has influenced policy development. A sampling of suggested measures: Continued volunteer service. Service impact on the community. Attitude changes among youth servers and community members. Leadership roles taken by youth servers. Level of community agency involvement. Measures must look at the effect on servers and the community served. Use research to educate funding sources and win their support. Consider a "human service unit" formula, for instance, how many older Americans are served. Consider measures for the type of service provided. Enlist an independent evaluator to assess state-wide initiative. Establish an easy, yet uniform, reporting mechanism in order to build a comprehensive database. Link this to the independent evaluator. Include service benefits for youth: employability, group process skills, education goals. Link to national education goals. Research should not drive projects. Overall outcomes: community awareness, willingness to continue project, increased local funds for youth service programs. RESOURCES TO BE SHARED Council of Michigan Foundations - Community and funding resource information and training. Depanment of Education - Information on successful school-based programs Michigan Campus Compact - Information on successful college programs, experience in making service mini-grants. Detroit Compact - Training. 42 �41-f staff- Community program collaborators, extensive network resources, technical assistance, and training. Bloomfield Hills School District- Program development experience in school-based programs. Catholic Youth Organization in Detroit- Information on "Youth on Board" program and information on leadership development. Volunteer Center Network- Assistance in volunteer management, convening local networks. Neighborhood Builders Alliance- Assistance in program organization, local grant-making procedures, and project evaluation. Michigan State University Service Learning Center- Materials on program operation, and evaluation support and guidance. United Community Services- Training, volunteer management database, and training for community assessment and planning. Nonprofit Forum- Promotion in connection with the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, linkage to Year of Volunteers in 1992, and will dedicate newsletter to youth service in Michigan. Michigan United Way - Training and local fundraising support. <-~· ·- Campus Outreach Opportunity League- Support in organizing college student coalitions to promote service. Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals - Information dissemination, and support in recruiting speakers and advocates. Children's Charter- Information on youth involvement on boards. Urban League Network- Information, referral, facilities, recruinnent, and advocacy. ELEMENTS FOR A STATE PLAN Use the grant-making research and experience ofDeparttnent of Education mini-grant programs. Use the experience of the Michigan Campus Compact venture grant program and explore linkages . . Make application process easy so a group of students could apply (through a fiscal agent). Establish different categories for grants. Some grants should be large enough to provide significant support. Do not allow a term like "mini-grants" to define the program. Some grants should not be mini. Support not only sustainable programs but also specific projects that may have a limited duration. 43 �Kathryn Agard Council of Michigan Foundations Grand Haven Ml Esmerelda Agee Career Works Inc Highland Park Ml Diana Algra Michigan Campus Compact E. Lansing Ml Neena Analil Warren Ml Asenath Andrews Detroit Public Schools Detroit Ml Mary Andrews Michigan State University Human Ecol E. Lansing Ml Adolf Armbruster Michigan Dept. of Social Services lansing Ml Richard Ballard Michigan Neighborhood Corps lansing Ml Milton Barnes Athletic Director Albion High School Albion Ml Ardith Bennett Wayne St. University Wateriord Ml Paula Beugen Minn. Office of Volunteer Services St. Paul MN Jack Bittle Ml Assoc. of Secondary School Principal Ann Arbor Jon Blyth Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Flint Ml Anita Bohn University of Michigan Project SERVE Ann Arbor Joyce Brown Battle Creek Area Urban League Battle Creek Ml Jean Burkhardt Youth Service Consultant Minneapolis MN Julie Busch Campus Programs and Orgs. Albion Coli. Albion Ml Mary Cady Ml Assoc. of Volunteer Administrators Alain a Campbell Michigan Collegiate Coaliton lansing Ml Patty Campbell Off.of Vol. Services lansing Comm. Coli Lansing Ml Gary Cass Michigan Dept. of Education Albion Ml Donna Clark Dept. of Nat. Resources Off. of Spc. Svc lansing Ml Guy Clark Michigan Collegiate Coaliton Lansing Donna Clarke Michigan Non-Profit Forum E. Lans ing Ml Dana Cole Executive Office Olds Plaza lansing Ml Duane Coleman Urban League of Flint Rint Ml Elizabeth Colucci Michigan Civilian Conservation Corps Vanderbilt Ml Stephanie Comai-Page Social Services Policy Advisor lansing Ml Barbara Conrad Michigan Dept. of Social Services Lansing Ml Fritz Crabb Grand Rapids Public Schools Grand Rapids Ml 44 �Neal Davis Battle Creek Youth Volunteer Corps Battle Creek Ml Darin Day Lansing Ml Maria Dell'isola University of Michigan Project SERVE Ann Arbor Ml Kathleen Dennis-Gamble United Comm. Svcs. of Metro. Detroit Detroit Ml Steve Dice Dept. of Natural Resources Roscommon Ml Frank Dirks Youth Service America Washington, D.C. Ross Dodge Michigan Civilian Conservation Corps Lansing Ml Rick Drabant Career Works Inc. Highland Park Ml Barbara DuMouchelle State Board of Education Grosse lie Ml Mary Edens Michigan St. Univ.Service Learning Center E. Lansing Ml Michelle Engler Executive Office Olds Plaza Lansing Ml Paulette Ethi er United Commun ity Svcs. of Metro. Detroit Detroit Ml David Farley Kellogg Youth Initiative Program Marshall Ml Stacy Fentress Saginaw Ml Michael Foley Children's Charter of the Courts of Ml Lansing Ml Jacqueline Foster Urban League of Flint Flint Ml John Freeman Flint Ml Cynthia Galvan Vol. Svcs. Office Governor of TX Office Austin TX Jared Genser Youth Service America Washington D.C. Beth Gibbs Bloomfield Hills Ml Colleen Goff man Ml Dept. of Management & Budget Lansing Ml Marsha Goode YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit Detroit William Green Marquette Public Schools Marquette Ml Deborah Grether Dept. of Labor Lansing Ml Susie Hassan University of Michigan Ann Arbor Ml Ingrid Hekman Office of National Service Wa-=:hington D.C. Ollie Hollis SEA Metro-Oakland Pontiac Ml Debra Holmes-Garrison The United Way of Grand Rapids Grand Rapids Ml Marylee O.avis i·-··::·· ~- , i gan St. University \:.. .>~·ansing Ml .. ~ -. ~. r- <1emann Kalamazoo Foundation Kalamazoo Ml 45 �) Ned Jeffrey Howard U of Ml Off. of Comm.Service Learning Ann Arbor Ml C.J. Howell Lansing Ml Brenda L. Hunt Greater Kalamazoo United Way Kalamazoo Ml Roger Hurley Public/Privata Ventures Philadelphia PA Robert Ivory United Way of Michigan Lansing Ml Timothy Jacobs Bay City Ml Glen Jenkins Muskegon Ml Dorothy Johnson Council of Michigan Foundations Grand Haven Ml Fawn E. Jones Neighborhood Builders Alliance Lansing Ml Harold Jones Urban League of Flint RintMI Dave Kahn Michigan Assoc. of Sch. Administrators Holt Ml Gene Keilitz United Way of Ml Rebe Kingston Detroit Public Schools Detroit Ml Andy Knecht! Warren Ml Anne Knox Congressman Paul Henry's Office Grand Rapids Ml Jerry Kolker Public/Private Ventures Philadelphia PA Gail Kong Starserve Santa Monica CA Chris Kwak National Youth Leadership Council Roseville MN Javier La Fianza Constitutional Rights Foundation Los Angeles CA Diane Landis United Way of America Alexandria VA Roger Landrum Youth Service America Washington, D.C. Mark Langseth National Youth Leadership Council Roseville MN Patrick Lapine Grant Develop. Specialist Sen. Reigle Roseville MN Renee Lerche Ed. Prog. Planning Ford Motor Company Dearborn Ml Maryellen Lewis Michigan Nonprofit Forum E. Lansing Ml Michelle Lytle Lainsburg Ml Joe Madison Massachusetts Youth Service Alliance Boston, MA Cindy Mark 4-H Youth Program E. Lansing Ml AI Markowski Project OASES Pittsburgh Middle Schs. Pittsburgh PA Hubbell Michigan Dept. of Education Lansing Ml 46 � 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 Our State of Generosity Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Description An account of the resource Collection contains the records of four Michigan nonprofit organizations: Council of Michigan Foundations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Michigan Community Service Commission, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU. The documents are compiled by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, and records document the history of the organizations from the 1960s to the 2010s. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1968-2014 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Council of Michigan Foundations Michigan Nonprofit Association Michigan Community Service Commission Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Council of Michigan Foundations; Michigan Nonprofit Association; Michigan Community Service Commission Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context JCPA-04 Language A language of the resource eng Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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 JCPA-04_MCSC_1991_MCSC-Creation_Youth-Service-in-MI Title A name given to the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 Youth Service in Michigan Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Michigan Community Service Commission Description An account of the resource Michigan Community Service Commission 1991 Youth Service in Michigan. Records are compiled in the Our State of Generosity collection by the Johnson Center, along with the files of the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA), the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy. Originals are at the Michigan Community Service Commission. Subject The topic of the resource Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy Charities Philanthropy and Society Fundraising Records Michigan Community Service Commission Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49403 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/515">Our State of Generosity collection, JCPA-04</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991