AACHM Oral History: Diana McKnight-Morton

Wed, 09/22/2021 - 10:50am

When: June 29, 2021

Diana McKnight-Morton was born in 1944 and grew up on West Kingsley Street in a racially mixed neighborhood. Her parents Robert and Adeline Thompson ran a successful carry-out restaurant, DeLong’s Bar-B-Q, on Detroit Street for 38 years. McKnight-Morton got her master’s in guidance and counseling from Eastern Michigan University and became a supervisor for Washtenaw County Employment and Training and Community Services. She has served as a member of the Washtenaw Community College Board of Trustees since 1994.

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Transcript

• [00:00:00] JOYCE HUNTER: [MUSIC] Hello Diana. Good to see you and I'm so thankful that you agreed to do this interview. How are you today?
• [00:00:25] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I'm doing great.
• [00:00:27] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great. We have four parts, actually five parts to these series of questions. Part 1 is on demographics and family history. I'm first going to ask you some simple demographic questions. These questions may jog your memory but keep your answers brief and to the point for now. We can go into more detail later in the interview. Please say and spell your name.
• [00:00:59] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Diana, D-I-A-N-A, McKnight, M-C-K-N-I-G-H-T hyphen Morton, M-O-R-T-O-N.
• [00:01:15] JOYCE HUNTER: What is your date of birth including the year?
• [00:01:19] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: March 27th, 1944.
• [00:01:25] JOYCE HUNTER: How would you describe your ethnic background?
• [00:01:29] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: African-American.
• [00:01:32] JOYCE HUNTER: What is your religion, if any?
• [00:01:35] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Baptist.
• [00:01:39] JOYCE HUNTER: What is the highest level of formal education you have completed?
• [00:01:45] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Master's degree.
• [00:01:52] JOYCE HUNTER: It says here, did you attend any additional school or formal career training beyond that? You've got a master's degree from where?
• [00:02:04] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: My undergrad is from the University of Michigan and my master's is from Eastern Michigan University.
• [00:02:11] JOYCE HUNTER: What is your marital status?
• [00:02:15] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Widow.
• [00:02:16] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. How many children do you have?
• [00:02:20] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I have two.
• [00:02:24] JOYCE HUNTER: Their names are?
• [00:02:26] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: The oldest is Angela Davis and the other one is Lynoa, L-Y-N-O-A McKnight-Moore.
• [00:02:41] JOYCE HUNTER: How many siblings do you have?
• [00:02:43] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: None.
• [00:02:45] JOYCE HUNTER: You're an only child?
• [00:02:46] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I am the only one.
• [00:02:49] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. Maybe we'll get into that more a little bit later.
• [00:02:53] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:02:55] JOYCE HUNTER: What was your primary occupation?
• [00:03:00] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: My primary occupation was a supervisor for Washtenaw County Employment and Training.
• [00:03:11] JOYCE HUNTER: If you are, at what age did you retire?
• [00:03:19] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I was 50 when I retired.
• [00:03:25] JOYCE HUNTER: You retired young?
• [00:03:27] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, I did.
• [00:03:29] JOYCE HUNTER: We're going to go into part 2, which is memories of childhood and youth. This part of the interview is about your childhood and youth. Once again, even if these questions jog memories about other times in your life, please only respond with memories for this part of your life.
• [00:03:52] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay.
• [00:03:53] JOYCE HUNTER: What was your family like when you were a child?
• [00:03:59] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: It was like a typical family. My parents worked, my mother didn't work for a long time until I started school and then after that I had friends and played a lot. I had a lot of dolls to play with because I didn't have any siblings but it was a lot of fun for me.
• [00:04:29] JOYCE HUNTER: What sort of work did your parents do?
• [00:04:32] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: My father worked for a camera company, Argus Camera, and my mother worked for University of Michigan.
• [00:04:45] JOYCE HUNTER: What are some of your earliest memories as a child?
• [00:04:53] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I remember very specifically meeting a new friend who had moved across the street from me when I was about six years old and so that became my friend. My other memory is my parents and I on holidays, we would go down to Detroit and to the Hudson's. For me, it was just riding up and down on the elevator with the elevator people opening the gates and closing them and talking to us. That was a lot of fun.
• [00:05:34] JOYCE HUNTER: I've heard that mentioned in some other interviews when they had the person-operated elevators down there.
• [00:05:42] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Right. The operators. Yeah, it was really nice because also too they were people of color and that was really exciting for me coming from Ann Arbor. I mean at that time there were a few people of color in Ann Arbor, but you didn't see them that much other than our neighbors who moved across the street from us. Because our neighborhood, I know you're going to get into this, but our neighborhood when I was growing up was a diverse neighborhood.
• [00:06:22] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. Yeah, I'll hear more about that in a few minutes. Were there any special days, events or family traditions you remember from your childhood?
• [00:06:38] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah, every holiday generally it was, I shouldn't say every holiday, but during the summertime my mom and dad would cook at barbecue and people would come over and just hang out for a while and eat. During certain times, they would have people over to the house. Also, too, my mother came from a large family from out of town and her siblings, two or three of them would come, not at the same time but at various times. And it was a lot of fun being with them because they were older than me so it was fun to talk with them and do different things with them.
• [00:07:34] JOYCE HUNTER: In terms of the holidays, which holidays did you celebrate? Were they most of them, or some in particular that you celebrated as a family?
• [00:07:44] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Well, we celebrated all the holidays from Christmas, New Year's, birthdays. Whoever's birthday it was, everybody had a cake and celebrated. My mother was very much into having fun on the holidays. She was very particular, she'd bake cakes and pies. Thanksgiving and Easter she would just go all out for, New Year's. It was just about all the holidays. At that time that was something that she would celebrate, the national holidays.
• [00:08:30] JOYCE HUNTER: Did you have a favorite holiday?
• [00:08:36] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Christmas is always the favorite [LAUGHTER] because being the only child, I had a lot of gifts. I had pretty much got everything I asked for. I'd say that would be the most. And my birthday too, but Christmas was the one.
• [00:08:56] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. Very special.
• [00:08:58] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: It was, yes.
• [00:09:01] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm going to shift and ask some questions about your schooling. Did you play any sports or join any other activities outside of school?
• [00:09:14] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: You're talking from elementary, middle school, and high school.
• [00:09:19] JOYCE HUNTER: Let's talk more about middle and high school.
• [00:09:22] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Middle and high school. No, I just played the sports in school. That would be field hockey, softball. I think those are about the only two. And volleyball. I did that. I did play softball. I really liked softball and my other favorite was field hockey.
• [00:09:51] JOYCE HUNTER: Which ones do you feel you excelled in, or did you excel in all of them?
• [00:10:00] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I would say probably the field hockey.
• [00:10:07] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. What about your school experience is different from school as you know it today?
• [00:10:20] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: When I was in school--the thing about it that has changed is based on attitudes and being respectful. It was totally different. If we had disagreements--I remember this very vividly because my mother's side family, my grandfather, her father was part Indian and so my mother had really nice hair, so naturally I had nice hair, and I was always teased about my hair. They would tease me in not a good way, it was a negative way. I was very conscious of my hair because of this teasing. I tried to get along with everyone and do the best, but there was really not much of an issue until one time, I was in middle school and someone challenged me to fight. I never fought anybody before that time and I didn't, so I went home and I told my mother. And my mother told me if I didn't fight she was going to whoop me. [LAUGHTER] I'd rather fight than get some whooping from her. We never did fight. The young lady and I never did fight, but I remember that afterwards because I said, "I don't think I want to go whoop this woman." [LAUGHTER] Anyway, I just want to finish this thought because now--the fights would be a fistfight or pulling the hair or throwing down or something like that or verbal. Now, they want to physically hurt you. That's the difference that's really astonishing for me. Taking guns to school and knives, fighting in classrooms. This is so unnatural for my generation to see and hear this going on with this generation. I'm not sure if it's the society, it's the way it is in society because it wasn't like that, probably because of that. And also growing up in Ann Arbor, I've always felt Ann Arbor is like a utopia, a fairyland, because nothing major was going on at that time. Nothing that would shock you, other than you would read it or hear something about it. But being a young person, I really didn't know what was going on. But now it's like every time you turn on the TV on the news it's something so, it feels like it's very depressing. It's downers. I don't feel like I'm hearing anything that is uplifting and what's going on in a positive way. Every once in a while you hear it, but it's always the negative coming through. I think there's a big, big difference between the two generations.
• [00:13:54] JOYCE HUNTER: Sometimes people say you should take a break from the news because there's so much negative stuff going on, you need to give yourself a break.
• [00:14:04] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: You're right and I do.
• [00:14:06] JOYCE HUNTER: Yeah. I'm so glad. Now let me go back to your experience in terms of getting picked on because of your hair. I know that continued, in the community, to be an issue. Was it the texture of your hair? Exactly what was that?
• [00:14:24] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Well, it was the texture and the length. I had long hair. It was always in ponytails because my mom had it like that until I said I didn't want ponytails anymore--I mean, no more braids, so I would just wear a ponytail. I had friends where they had to get perms or get their hair straightened or something in that area, which I didn't. A friend of mine, an adult, said I had a wash-and-go hair. I never thought it like that but they called it the wash-and-go because I'd just wash my hair and go. I didn't have to do all of those other extra things to my hair. It was primarily that. I think primarily too, now I look back on it, I think it was a matter too, there could've been some envy, some jealousy or something in that order. But I didn't think of it at that time. I'm just thinking, "Why are they messing with me?" But then I had gained some friends and it was never an issue. It was just the other people who I was not a friend of. Let me just throw this caveat in. Now one of the persons who was trying to fight me or challenge me, at the time, I didn't know this. I didn't find this out until I was a real adult. I found out that my cousin asked me to her house and told me, she said, "I want to introduce you to your cousin." And I said, "I'll be darned. This is the same person, the fight, that turned out to be my cousin." [LAUGHTER].
• [00:16:27] JOYCE HUNTER: How did you handle that?
• [00:16:29] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: It was fine, because we laughed about it. Jeez, we'd been married, had kids, that's the thing. But it was just so funny. I didn't know that she was my cousin because I knew her father, but I didn't know his children. So that's how that turned out, but it was funny. Now it's funny, not then it wasn't.
• [00:17:01] JOYCE HUNTER: On to the next question. Did your family have any special sayings or expressions during the time that you were growing up?
• [00:17:14] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Well, if I would go outside in the spring and summer, my mom would tell me, "Don't let dark catch you." So I had to be home before dark. [LAUGHTER] Or, "Don't let the street light catch you." The other one would be, my mom would always tell me that I always had to act like a lady and just be respectful to people. I think that's the way, what's instilled in me today, that I'm respectful to people and I'm respectful of who they are, no matter what they are going through or what is happening to them in their personal life. I don't try to infringe on their space, but yet I try to understand or try to have an understanding of what's going on. I want to throw a caveat in here a little bit in talking about early years. Harry Mial, Joetta Mial's husband was my sixth-grade teacher at Jones School. One of the things he also really preached and instilled in the kids is that you have to be respectful and don't lie. I didn't lie because I know if I did he may found out I would get a really good whooping or punishment, which is even worse. I had to contribute a lot of some of my upbringing to Mr. Mial for his insight of young people and working with young people. I really feel a lot of my mentors, I call it mentors, were cognizant of what young people go through, and during the times that we were in, that we had to be always respectful.
• [00:19:49] JOYCE HUNTER: Glad you took a second to share that, and that's great. Were there any changes in your family life during your school years?
• [00:20:01] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: No. Do you mean like deaths, births, or something like that?
• [00:20:06] JOYCE HUNTER: Yes.
• [00:20:07] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: No.
• [00:20:08] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. When thinking back on your school years, what important social or historical events were taking place at that time, and how did they personally affect you and your family?
• [00:20:33] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: When I look back on it right now, as an adult, there are a lot of historical things were going on and it all had to do with race relations. I never knew that or I never felt that there was any negatives about Blacks in Ann Arbor. Because I had, from elementary, middle, and high school, I had white friends. There was another group of Blacks and we all hung out with these white friends. So I didn't think there was an issue until I realized what was going on in the South. My father was from the South and he refused to take me there, to his home. He was from Jackson, Mississippi. I was told that when I was young, he would take my mom, but she had to lay down in the back seat with a blanket over her because my mom was very fair and he didn't want any trouble. So I couldn't go. I did not go until I had just graduated from high school at age of 18 and his aunt, which would've been my great-aunt, was up here in Saginaw, Michigan for a function. Her and me, we both begged my father if I can go back with her to Jackson, Mississippi because he kept saying no because he didn't want nothing to happen to me. Eventually, we convinced him and I did go and I was so glad I did. It was a wonderful experience. The bus ride on Greyhound was not fun. However, it was great because I got to meet his side of the family. The only people I knew up here, North, was my mom's family and I had a few cousins that were from the South, but it wasn't like meeting his family down there. His cousins had kids and so we became very good friends and one of them did pass not too long ago, but the other one we still keep in touch. I visited him. He's been up here to see me several times. It's great to have that connection. I'm glad that I did go, and no, I didn't get in trouble, but I could have, because I'm trying to be cute and smart. "Oh, I can go in this store and look at some shoes." And they tell me, "You better not go in that store because you're going to have some issues." So I did not go in that store. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:23:48] JOYCE HUNTER: When your father talked to you about not going--you saw information on television, but what did your father talk to you about in terms of not going? The reason he didn't want you to go?
• [00:24:03] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Because he felt that I was going to get harmed or the people who are with me from there, would get harmed. Because this was in the '60s and the KKK was still alive. I just didn't want to disappoint him. But yet, I wanted to enjoy myself. Let me put it this way. I was not of the mindset to realize what danger was at that time down there. I had heard about the Freedom Riders, I had heard about things happening. The young man who was killed, and he didn't even do anything. This lady made up this lie that he whistled at her and looked at her or whatever, then they killed him. I saw it, I read it, but for me, it felt like nothing would happen to me. That's that invincible feeling as a young person. I'm quite sure that's the way he felt about me going down there.
• [00:25:30] JOYCE HUNTER: When you mentioned the young man that was killed, are you talking about Emmett Till?
• [00:25:34] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, I am. Emmett Till, yes.
• [00:25:39] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm going to ask you some questions about your school based on what you've already shared. It sounds like your elementary, and middle and high school were integrated?
• [00:25:51] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes. All of them. In elementary, when I went to Bach school, I was the only Black. Also I'm going to put in there, urban renewal was hot and heavy at that time. The redistricting was going on too. Every time, I knew that I had to go to a different school. And so I in my elementary, I went to three different elementary schools. Then middle school, I just went to one, and that was Slauson. High school at that time when I came through in 1959, it was Pioneer High. It's always been integrated for me.
• [00:27:07] JOYCE HUNTER: When you said you were the only student of color at Bach? Was that because of redistricting or how did that happen?
• [00:27:14] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, it was because of the redistricting. That's hard for me to get out. It was. The boundaries kept changing. It was really getting tiresome because I had to meet new friends every time. School friends. But my regular friends after school, not all of us were at the same school but we were still friends out of school.
• [00:27:54] JOYCE HUNTER: Who were the teachers? Did you have any teachers of color?
• [00:28:01] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: No, I did not.
• [00:28:03] JOYCE HUNTER: Not in the elementary, middle or high school?
• [00:28:05] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: No, I did not.
• [00:28:10] JOYCE HUNTER: Now talk to me a little bit about your neighborhood. Was your neighborhood integrated? Where did you live?
• [00:28:18] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: When I was young, it was integrated. I lived on West Kingsley and it was integrated. Down the side of the street where I was on, there was the three of us on one side, and then on the other side across the street, there was three houses across the street and we were all Black. Those other houses didn't have young children other than that one, which turned out to be my friend. And we're still friends today. Now, around the corner, Kingsley and Ashley like that, they were German. When I was little, there was Germans there. I don't know what other ethnic there were. But slowly they moved out, except for one family stayed there for years. I think they finally passed away or left. The other Black families started moving in, but the only other family lived at the bottom of the hill were the Mortons. The Mortons, they had three kids. Cora Morton and John and his brother Richard. They had another son, Raymond, but he passed when he was young.
• [00:30:26] JOYCE HUNTER: As I listen to you, because you're younger than some of the other people we've interviewed, they talked about that area being predominantly Black and then it started to slowly change. The difference in age, I feel is making a difference in terms of what the makeup of the neighborhoods were.
• [00:30:47] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Right. Now, it's interesting you said that because as I start really thinking about it, what it was like then, the Mortons babysat me when my mom and dad were at work. I couldn't have been but three, four years old and then when I became five, then I went to a half-day kindergarten, but they still babysat me. But across the street from them, I think there was two homes that were white and I also believe there was two homes that were Black. Then eventually those other two homes flipped over to Black, because on the right side of the street, there was only three houses there and the other two were white. Then they left and then there's the Morton house at the end, and they had a huge yard. Now you can't even see it because of the condos behind it. Don't get me started on them. But on the other side of the road, really nice homes during that time. But they didn't really have any kids either. I pretty much grew up not with very many neighbors that had children. It wasn't like you'd hear, "Oh, my neighborhood was full of kids." It wasn't that way for me. Being the only child, and my friend was the only child, so we were connecting with each other because we didn't have siblings.
• [00:32:45] JOYCE HUNTER: So you were looking for somebody to play with, right?
• [00:32:49] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, it was difficult. I learned how to shoot marbles in the dirt. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:32:59] JOYCE HUNTER: Very good.
• [00:33:00] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: With snake eyes, [inaudible 00:33:02] and all that other stuff.
• [00:33:08] JOYCE HUNTER: I don't know how much I did with them, but I thought they were very pretty.
• [00:33:11] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, they were beautiful.
• [00:33:12] JOYCE HUNTER: Yeah.
• [00:33:14] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Then when you were really good, you get boulders, that's the bigger ones. They taught me how to shoot them boulders and I would win. My friend, we'd be down there on our knees getting dirty and stuff. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:33:27] JOYCE HUNTER: [LAUGHTER] Very good. Okay. So we're going to move to part 3.
• [00:33:30] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay.
• [00:33:31] JOYCE HUNTER: Which is adulthood, marriage, and family life.
• [00:33:35] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay.
• [00:33:36] JOYCE HUNTER: So we might be talking about a stretch of time.
• [00:33:39] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay.
• [00:33:40] JOYCE HUNTER: Spanning as much as four decades. After you finished high school, where did you live?
• [00:33:50] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Well, after I left high school, I went to college. It was way up North. I only stayed a year because it was not conducive for me. It was all white, there was only a few of us Blacks there, and I'm like, "This ain't for me." So I didn't stay. But when I came back home, I stayed with my parents and I had gotten a job, but I was still here in Ann Arbor. Then, I worked at Goodyear's Department Store on Main Street. Maybe some people will remember Goodyear's, but Goodyear's was the top of the line, a department store in Ann Arbor, and I worked there. I worked in the office and it was really nice. Now there was one person that worked there of color and myself, and I think there was another a mailer or something like that. I think he worked in the back or something, shipping and receiving, or something like that. I know there was only two of us that they could see, that the public could see. The operator of the elevator was Pat Fowler. Oh, there was another person, oh, my goodness, Daisy. I don't know why I forgot her. She also worked the elevator. That was it. There was just the three of us. But we were all three [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:35:49] JOYCE HUNTER: When you say, "of us," you're talking about people of color?
• [00:35:51] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: People of color, and we was light-skinned.
• [00:35:55] JOYCE HUNTER: All right.
• [00:35:56] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: That made a difference. There wasn't nobody in there dark, we were three light-skinned Black people.
• [00:36:05] JOYCE HUNTER: And that's still to this day a conversation, about light-skinned versus dark-skinned African Americans.
• [00:36:13] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Right.
• [00:36:16] JOYCE HUNTER: So I do remember Goodyear's to let you know.
• [00:36:18] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah, good, yeah.
• [00:36:22] JOYCE HUNTER: [LAUGHTER] All right.
• [00:36:24] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I forgot about Goodyear's. When I was young and when my children were young, it became a ritual that every year they would have Black Friday and Christmas. My mom would take me there, and I did the same thing to buy gifts for people. Pat Fowler, I called her aunt Pat, she and her husband Herb. But she would guide me into what to buy and stuff and she did the same thing for my two girls because she became my oldest daughter, Angela's, godmother. But she accepted Lynoa as her godchild too. Every year my mom, me, and the girls would go on Black Friday to Goodyear's and buy gifts. Every year.
• [00:37:28] JOYCE HUNTER: And that was a big thing in Ann Arbor for a while.
• [00:37:32] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, it was.
• [00:37:33] JOYCE HUNTER: Very much so.
• [00:37:35] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes, very true.
• [00:37:35] JOYCE HUNTER: So did you work as a salesperson? Were you a salesperson at Goodyear's?
• [00:37:39] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: No, I wasn't, and Pat wasn't either. Pat was more into the displays. Now, I touched money because I was in the office. I operated the exchange of money. They had tubing, just how you go to the bank and you send your money up the tubes.
• [00:38:05] JOYCE HUNTER: Yes.
• [00:38:05] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Well, that's what Goodyear had. So I would exchange the money for the people or whatever it was when they'd make a purchase. Pat, she did a lot of the designing of displays, setting out clothing, and just doing that type of stuff. I don't know what you call it, but that's what she did.
• [00:38:34] JOYCE HUNTER: So during that time, it was very few Blacks that were hired in stores like Goodyear's.
• [00:38:44] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, yeah. Right. You're right. No. Now, the other store, which was another high-end store was Hudson's, which was up the street and they had one Black person, I cannot think of her name right now. That lady stayed there for twenty-some years and she was very fair-skinned too.
• [00:39:11] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. I was going to go back. Most of them are probably--people hired were fair complected, that got hired in those positions.
• [00:39:17] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Exactly.
• [00:39:18] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. All right. I'd like you to tell me about your marriage and family life. First, tell me about your spouse.
• [00:39:31] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, I've been married twice.
• [00:39:34] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. You can talk about the last one if you'd like. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:39:37] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, well, I was going to say both of them are deceased now.
• [00:39:40] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay.
• [00:39:44] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: My second husband. Well, it was nice. I miss him. I miss him a lot.
• [00:39:57] JOYCE HUNTER: I understand that.
• [00:39:58] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah. Sometimes when you're not looking for something, it's there, you don't see it. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:40:07] JOYCE HUNTER: That's what people say all the time [LAUGHTER].
• [00:40:12] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: It was just so weird. I tell the story, even when he was alive, I would tell the story of how we met. I was teaching part-time at the Washtenaw County Jail. I would see this guy, but I didn't pay any attention to him because I wasn't looking for nobody at that time. Every time he had a break, I would see him on his break looking at my door. I was teaching inmates, whoever wanted to come, and when they would come. So when nobody would come, I would have the door open. Sometimes I would stand in the door, get some air. I don't know what air was down there, because it has this odor. But in any case, but most of the time I stayed in the room, and so one day, he asked me, could he come by to see me. So I said, "Oh, yeah, sure. No, problem." So I gave him my phone number but he was going to come by, it was a Friday night. Well, I was a party girl at that time. I forgot he said he was going to come by, I mean, totally forgot. I was hanging out at the bar and I forgot. So I come home and my youngest daughter said, "Well, mom, some guy came here looking for you." I said, "Really?" I said, "Who could that be?" She said his name. I said, "Oh, he came?" She said, "Yes." So he calls me, he said, "I came by but you weren't home." I said, "I'm sorry. I forgot because I was somewhere else." [LAUGHTER]. He said, "Okay." I didn't think no more about it. A few days later, he calls me again and he says, "Well, how about we go out to dinner?" I said, "Okay." Well, I had a roommate then and she was dating this guy--was starting to date him. It was almost the same situation here. I said to my roommate, I said, "He wants to go out to dinner, but I don't feel safe going out with him." I don't why I felt that way, it's just the way I felt. She said she felt the same way. So we cooked dinner and had them over for dinner. Oh, what can I say? We both ended up marrying the guys.
• [00:43:00] JOYCE HUNTER: [LAUGHTER] I love it.
• [00:43:03] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: [LAUGHTER] So that's how that went.
• [00:43:08] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. I'm curious. What did you cook? Do you remember?
• [00:43:14] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, I don't know. It probably was fried chicken. [LAUGHTER]
• [00:43:20] JOYCE HUNTER: [LAUGHTER] Okay.
• [00:43:21] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah.
• [00:43:24] JOYCE HUNTER: All right. How was life when your children were young and still at home?
• [00:43:31] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: It was hectic for me at that time because I had lived in Detroit with my first husband. We were separated and my children and I moved back to my parents' home. I had filed for divorce. A friend of mine helped me get a job at General Motors Hydramatic because he was working there. I knew nothing about working in a plant. I say this all the time, I was 118 pounds and the supervisor was having me take out of a railroad bin that they'd bring inside the plant to lift the hubs that were steel or whatever they were, out of the bins and place them somewhere else. Well, my God, I did not have the strength to do that. But I did the best I could because I needed a job. My 89th day, and the guy said that he was going to let me go because I wasn't moving fast enough. I'm like, "For real? " Because [LAUGHTER] I'm only 118 pounds and these muscular guys are standing around me watching me. I'm like, "Oh, my goodness." Any case, there was a foreman there. What do you call them? Not a foreman but a union guy, that's what he was. He was the head of the Union. He had been watching what was going on. When this happened, he called me and he said, "I just wanted to let you know, you don't have to worry about your job, but I'll call you back and let you know when you could come back to work." He said, "Because we've been watching this guy and we believe he has some issues with Black people." I said, "Okay." I didn't think any more about it, but I needed a job because I'm still staying in my parents home, my kids are there. I wanted to get out and have my own place. In the meantime, there was a HUD program through the city of Ann Arbor. I heard about it, I applied, and I got accepted for the house I'm in today. I did get rehired back, and this time they had me resurfacing hubcaps. I could not get away from hubcaps. But I had to do this job, but I did okay. I did better than okay. I was making nice money, so that really helped me a lot, but I wanted to go back to school. While I was there I had started taking classes at Washtenaw Community College. It was a holiday break, so I said to myself and my parents, I said, "I'm not going to go back to work. I'm going to go to school full time." And that's what I did. I researched how I could get some scholarships or money from somewhere. I applied for financial aid, I did all of that. I went year-round for a year and a half at the college and I had gotten a scholarship to go to University of Michigan. Everything went fine, got in there and that's how I met other people, Dr. Moody and a couple of other people. I just had to study so so hard because not only is it just me, but I'm in this house, I'm not working, and then I started working part-time. But in any case, I had my two young kids. Now, my youngest daughter stayed with my parents and they helped me with her because they were raising her, but the oldest one stayed with me and it was difficult. I'm sorry.
• [00:48:35] JOYCE HUNTER: You had a lot to do.
• [00:48:36] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I had a lot to do.
• [00:48:37] JOYCE HUNTER: You went to school and you were working. You had three jobs.
• [00:48:41] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I had three jobs plus part-time jobs that were early morning, afternoon. I worked at the law school and typing up briefs. I worked part-time in the summer at the City of Ann Arbor. It was just a lot of stuff that I had to constantly do so I could finish school and still take care of my girls and make sure that nothing happened to them or they wouldn't get in trouble. You know what I'm saying? Head of household, make sure they had furniture. It was just so overwhelming. I think about it now, it was overwhelming for me, but I did it. Sometimes I look back and I just can't understand how I did it. I really don't, but I did it.
• [00:49:39] JOYCE HUNTER: You should be proud of yourself. You really should be.
• [00:49:43] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Right.
• [00:49:45] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm going to step back and ask a little bit, a couple of questions before we go to the next section. We talked about you raising your children. Did they experience any difficulties in school? Because oftentimes you hear about children having problems with teachers or racism or low expectation. Did your children deal with any of that?
• [00:50:10] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I think Angela did. It was an experiment at that time at Forsythe. I put her in that program and don't ask me what the experiment was. It had to do with something, I can't remember the exact terminology. But Herb McCullough was there and he was her counselor. He really helped her. She played instruments, she was musical. I can't think of Linda's last name, but she was the music teacher there at Forsythe. She was the union rep too I think.
• [00:50:54] JOYCE HUNTER: Linda Carter.
• [00:50:55] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Carter, right. Linda Carter. And she helped Angela a lot because Angela was going through that phase of preteen, teen hormones working and everything. Now, my younger one, she was still with my parents. If there was I didn't know about it, my mom would take of that. But I would pretty much was out of that picture because I was trying to concentrate on me and Angela at that time. But those two I know that when there were some issues, they handled it. They kept me apprised of what was going on and I still give them praises. I don't see Herb anymore, but I see Linda every once in a while. I still think that she was great.
• [00:51:47] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great.
• [00:51:48] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah.
• [00:51:49] JOYCE HUNTER: Let me ask you, step back one more thing. We asked about employment for your parents, but tell me a little bit about your father's business.
• [00:52:01] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, yes. I'm going to go back too. Part of him cooking out in the summer time, about the barbecues in the backyard. [NOISE] It took off in another direction that nobody really thought because everybody would say, "Oh man this is so good." Because you could smell it everywhere. He had a very good friend from Detroit that said-- You know, my dad and my mom said, "How about we try out a business?" My dad went, at that time it was Ann Arbor Bank. Well, he couldn't get--not a nickel from them, and I know it's because he was Black. He went to another bank, they said no, couldn't give him money. So his friend in Detroit had several businesses in Detroit so he loaned my dad the money to get started. That's how he started the business and he started on Detroit Street, on the side of a gas station. The gas station was owned by this older white lady and she wanted to sell it. My dad had gone and he had heard about it. He went to her so many times, they had a lot of meetings about this building. And she said, "I'll tell you what, you start on the side, which is not going to be a part of the gas being sold. But you'd be on the side and you can sell it out the window." He devised up a cooking mechanism. Inside, my mom made all the sides and stuff. She made everything: potato salad, cakes, pies. They made the sauce. They did everything themselves. It got so big and busy that the lady saw that it was going to be worthwhile for her to sell the business to him. I do not know what it was. It wasn't much. But he got the building, but because it was a gas station, they had to remove all the gas tanks out the ground and they had to do a lot of renovation to that building. Eventually he was able to open, and he opened in 1964.
• [00:54:45] JOYCE HUNTER: Diana, tell people the name of the business in case people don't know it.
• [00:54:49] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, I'm sorry, I do this all the time, Joyce.
• [00:54:51] JOYCE HUNTER: It's okay.
• [00:54:52] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: DeLongs Bar-B-Q on Detroit Street. People who were going to the Elks Pratt Lodge up on Sunset, when the club would close--because that's where all the Blacks would go on Fridays after work because there was music and dancing and just a lot of drinks and stuff. So when they'd leave there, they would go straight--at that time when he was on the side, the people were wrapped around the block and it was hard for them to keep up. Once he got the building together and he was able to hire cooks and maybe start delivering, it just took off. It really was a business that was for its time. I say that because [NOISE] at that time, there was really nowhere, there was no place to go to get decent ribs unless you went down to Detroit. Everybody didn't want to drive to Detroit, to get these ribs or chicken, anything barbecued, and the sauce was the hit. Then he decided, well, let's spruce it up. They had fries with sauce. They had trout. Dinners, sandwiches, shrimp--by the pound, half a pound, quarter pound, however you wanted. Besides the ribs, half slab, full slab, barbecue chicken. And then later on he had chicken boxes, and that was another big hit. Basically, they were in business for 38 years. My mother started getting sick and then my dad start getting sick. My husband and I, we said, well, let's see if we can do something, but by that time he got sick. I don't think we ran that business nine months, if that long. He got sick, and so we had to just finally let it go and my dad went ahead and sold it.
• [00:57:20] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm so glad to hear all that, let's get that recorded Diana, and the fact that he started it and the banks wouldn't give him any funding. Which is problematic for Blacks trying to start their own businesses and buy homes and so forth.
• [00:57:38] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: That's correct. You're right. It is interesting because he had--the house that is still there, my daughter has the house now. Somehow or another, his mother bought the house and I just found that out and the house was built in 1885 or something like that. His mother bought the house and I have the documentation of who owned it and then when she bought it. [NOISE] The banks sold it to her. I don't know if there was another person to help her buy that house, but it was bought. That's interesting how they treated him when he wanted to borrow money to open up a business which would have benefited the city. I can't even tell you what the city was doing. So many times through the years, they were trying to change the direction of the streets or they would come up with some type of citation against them because they were the only Blacks. They owned that building. They owned that property. But yet, the city was constantly trying to do something to disrupt them. My mother wrote many many letters, going to City Council, fighting this all the time. Finally the last time she said, "I'm tired of coming here. Leave us alone. We pay our taxes. We do everything that is needed for us to stay here. This is our property and our business." Last time I heard they left them alone.
• [00:59:42] JOYCE HUNTER: They were in business for 38 years?
• [00:59:44] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Thirty eight years.
• [00:59:45] JOYCE HUNTER: And continuing to deal with them. Here they are running a successful business, as the people say, minding their own business and still the city was trying to disrupt that.
• [00:59:56] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yes.
• [00:59:58] JOYCE HUNTER: I'm going to go into work. What do you value most about what you did for a living and why? I know you had multiple jobs, but your primary one you might want to talk about?
• [01:00:15] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I would say the Washtenaw County. I was hired as an employment counselor. But I worked my way to become a supervisor and then a manager. I really liked it a lot. I went back to school, and that's when I got my masters and I got it in guidance and counseling because I was working with people who had lost their jobs. People who immigrated to this area from Russia and other places where oppression was at. I liked doing that because I felt that I was really impacting someone's life. I felt that it was not just beneficial for me, but it was beneficial for them, what I could help them with, and where the services were located, childcare, transportation, training. I just went whatever I could do or get away with, I did it.
• [01:01:39] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay.
• [01:01:41] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I did it. To me, I really liked that job a lot. It was great.
• [01:01:52] JOYCE HUNTER: It sounds like something that would really be fulfilling. I mean you can help people and do for others.
• [01:02:00] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Without a doubt, and from that, which opened avenues, you never know when God is going to open up an avenue for you. You don't know what that street sign say. But God tells you, I think you better go down this road, not that road. It didn't dawn on me. Someone asked me whether I would like to be a co-chair with someone in the county, for the United Way. They told me it was Janice Barbara. That was the best experience that I had with her as a co-chair for United Way. I learned how United Way, how they divide up their pot of money and who gives what. The committee would say certain things. Well, I'm on one end of it because I'm looking at services for Peace Neighborhood, I'll just throw that out. Or people that are underserved. That's where I was at. Janice Barbara was on the same page as I was. We really, really worked together very well. Leading up to this is that one day she just asked me a question. She said, "Well, what are you going to do once you get your master's degree?" I said, "You know what, I would like to be a counselor at Washtenaw Community College." I said, I think, "I'm there part-time now so I would really like to do that, because I like working with people." She said, "Oh, that's great." Well, by the time we had finished working with United Way, I get this phone call. It was this lady from the college. She told me her name and she said, "I understand that you would like to be a board trustee at Washtenaw Community College." I said, "Yes, but right now I'm blah blah blah." She says, "Well, I can tell you this, there's going to be an opening pretty soon. Would you be interested in applying for that?" I said, "Sure, sounds like fun." She said, "Well, I'll get all of what you need, I'll have the president's secretary to contact you." [NOISE] At this time I'm in the union and we have a conference in San Diego. So I'm there and I just happened to be in my hotel room. I get this phone call from the board secretary and she tells me, she says, "My name is Mary, I'm the president's secretary, Gunder Myran's secretary, and I'm calling to see if you're still interested in being hired as a board trustee." I said, "Yes, I am." She said, "Well, I'm going to send you all the information and what you need to do, but we have to have 50 signatures by--" a certain date in July. Now, this is in June. I only had about three weeks. I think I had like three weeks before that due date for it to be in at the county. When I get home, I have the information. I start going out, I went everywhere, Kroger's, Meijer's, churches, [LAUGHTER] door knocks [LAUGHTER].
• [01:06:02] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great.
• [01:06:04] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I actually conducted my own campaign. I asked people. I had been in contact with Robert Malcolm because I was trying to work with him and the union and so the union gave me money. I was everywhere. I did my own campaign. I called Janice Barbara, she told me what to do. She gave me money, sent out postcards, designed my fliers, just everything. Okay, there was another trustee who was running at the same time. We both were unopposed and I beat him in the votes. [LAUGHTER]
• [01:06:58] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great.
• [01:07:02] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah. Things happen in strange ways. You always say that, but you don't know it until it happens to you. People are there but you don't know they are there.
• [01:07:16] JOYCE HUNTER: That's great. Thanks for sharing that.
• [01:07:18] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Yeah.
• [01:07:19] JOYCE HUNTER: Thank you. Thinking back on your working adult life, what important social or historical events were taking place at that time? How did they personally affect you and your family?
• [01:07:36] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Oh, that's a good one. When I read that question, I was just trying to think. There was so many historical things going on at time. March on Washington. I remember I was 18, my mom said I couldn't go. I wanted to go when the youths were doing sit-ins at the countertops down in Mississippi and wherever else. I said I want to go and my mom said I better think about it because I wasn't going. [LAUGHTER] For me, the Civil Rights Movement, from youth to adult, even now has such an impact on my kids because I've always talked to them about what's going on. Even my grandsons now. It affects your life. You don't want to think about it all the time, but you do. Because you don't know what's going to happen to you or your family member. I'll never forget when the Detroit riots happened. My daughter must have been like three years old, my oldest daughter was like three years old. I'm watching this on TV and I'm just shaking my head and I'm like, "Oh my God, this is just unreal." It was just so unbelievable. Then to see the riots in LA. One thing that I always say, like I said before, I always said that Ann Arbor was like a utopia or fairy land because you didn't see that here. It's almost like it only exists somewhere else on another planet, but we're on the same planet. It can happen here. I do remember when I was a student at the U of M, the BAM strike, Black Action Movement. I was in there. I'd always been trying to weasel myself into something because I felt it was the right thing to do. I felt, why is it that in Ann Arbor has this feeling that people of color are just visiting? Why did they throw out this feeling that we're here and we'll take our money, we pay our taxes, we pay our utilities, we do everything right, but yet when you want something from the city or the government, "Wait a minute, what are you talking about? I don't think I can do that." It's not right, when you know that the other race will get it with no problem. I can give you examples, but I'm not going to do that on this interview but it's very frustrating. It's frustrating for Black people. It's frustrating to people that have been here. I was born and raised in my house on West Kingsley, born and raised. There was a midwife that brought me in the world because my mother was too scared to go to the hospital. You know what I'm saying? I've been here all my life. I wanted to go--at that time it was called Preketes' Restaurant. You couldn't sit at the counter. I tried and they told me I had to go in the back. I know football players that played at U of M. They were stars, but they couldn't go through the front door and sit down with the rest of the team because they were Black. There's other restaurants, Greek restaurant. I can go through the list. When I was younger I didn't understand why--why did we always have to eat everything at home? Why couldn't we go to a restaurant? Until I got older and I realized we weren't welcome. If we wanted to eat in a restaurant, we would go to Detroit and eat at Black restaurants. But there were no Black restaurants here. That was another reason why my parents decided to have a Black restaurant, to open up a restaurant, because there were no Black restaurants. Somehow or another, somebody in this universe, in this town's universe, needs to get a lightning bolt struck in their brain that says, we've got to do better for people of color who are here. There's some that are doing okay. But you have to ask them between the lines, how are they doing okay? What obstacles do they have to go through and are they still going through those obstacles? It's frustrating. I know a lot of people, I know Black, white, green, yellow, I know them all, but I'll tell you this. You can hear where the division line is. Now that I've been on the board 27 years, going on 28 years, and I hear when something comes up and what we're trying to do at the college, and how the opposition rears its head about what we're trying to do. To me, Washtenaw Community College is the best thing since sliced bread for this community. We've done a lot through the years. The current president is my favorite president. I know the other two. This president has gone way out--but she is a futuristic thinker. Not saying the other two didn't, because that was during their time, but this is her time. She has done so much for this community and for the students. My thing right now is, understand where we are. My thing also is, and this is my emphasis, is that Black people, things are there for you. Look at what is there for you and capitalize. It is open for you. Don't stay here, I tell everybody. If you are young, leave Ann Arbor. Get out of Ann Arbor because there's a world outside of Ann Arbor, a world that will open up for you. It will open your brain. It will open up your eyes, of what's out there. That's what I told my daughters. Angela left and she'd come and then she'd leave and she'd come and then she'd leave. Now she's back home permanent now. But she was able to travel. She was able to find out what was out here and where she wants to go, what she wants to do. I just feel and I have been to a lot of places myself. My thing is, right now, the youth and young people need to wake up, stop being the follower and be the followee because you are the person. That you have to do it for yourself because nobody else is going to do it. When times get bad, when you look around and nobody there behind you, that's when it tells you, that you have to look out for your own self. I'm sorry, I'm through.
• [01:16:05] JOYCE HUNTER: You know what, that was perfect because it was very passionate. I love that. You also answered the next question. That was going to be, what advice would you give to the younger generations? You answered that, but I have one more question. Thinking back over your entire life, what are you most proud of?
• [01:16:25] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I'm most proud of my family. I feel that I taught them well. I feel that they have listened to me and I feel that they understand what's out here and that they have to do it for themselves because I don't sugarcoat. I don't tell them a lie, and I let them know whatever you want you have to go after it. That's what they're doing. They're meeting their goals. When Angie left here, real quick, when she left Ann Arbor and wanted to move to California. She had gone to Dallas, the school down in Dallas, when she got out of Dallas High School, a college down there and she came back. She only had one year left, so she comes back home. She said, "I'm going to go to Eastern to get this last year." She was in interior design. But then she was there for a half semester, she said, "Mom, I'm going to move out to California." Now, what can I say? This is what I said, "I don't think so. I think you need to stay here." But she's an adult by now and I said, "You do what you feel is best for you." Her father was living there. She did go out there and she stayed a long time and she did the things that she wanted to do. I feel that's best what you have to do. I don't care how many times you come back home, you got a home to come to. I feel that my best that I have given them was my best. We don't have a lot of money, we've gone from nothing to a little bit.
• [01:18:43] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay.
• [01:18:45] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: That's all I have to say.
• [01:18:46] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. Diana, I want to thank you for doing this interview. It's been wonderful. I've really enjoyed doing this interview with you. If you have any final thoughts before we conclude.
• [01:19:00] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: The only thing I would like to say is I think this is wonderful. But is there any way, I don't know how you're going to do it this time. Is it still going to be in the library? Is that what you're going to do?
• [01:19:18] JOYCE HUNTER: We're going to probably do it--last year we did the event online because of COVID.
• [01:19:25] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Okay.
• [01:19:27] JOYCE HUNTER: I don't know what are the protocols are for the library. We were just happy to have even continued last year. Otherwise, if we hadn't done it online, we would not have been able to do the interviews. But go ahead what you were going to say.
• [01:19:38] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: What I was going to say is, if you do that, if there's any way that you produce this online, I'm hoping that you're able to put it where anybody can see this. Because not just because me, but the work that you guys are doing. This work is so important. This work shows people--"Yeah, I know that person," but you really don't know.
• [01:20:09] JOYCE HUNTER: Don't know them. That's true.
• [01:20:11] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: Right. There's a lot of things--you and Joetta. I used to babysit Joetta's kids.
• [01:20:17] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. [LAUGHTER]
• [01:20:19] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: I used to babysit their kids, isn't that right, Joetta? [LAUGHTER] But yeah. I think that people, new people, old people, they need to see this type of thing. Because not everyone knows what's going on and what Ann Arbor was like. What we had to go through in Ann Arbor and it's not bad like it used to be. You couldn't even walk--you couldn't even open the door to go to a restaurant. You know what I'm saying? You couldn't.
• [01:20:55] JOYCE HUNTER: Right.
• [01:20:56] DIANA MCKNIGHT-MORTON: But now we're more free, but still there's obstacles. I think the more people see this, the more that it will give them insight of what Ann Arbor is outside of the University of Michigan.
• [01:21:10] JOYCE HUNTER: Okay. Thank you for that, Diana, I certainly agree.