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Sesquicentennial Interview: Letty Wickliffe

When: 1974

This interview was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

Transcript

  • [00:00:10] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Why don't we start by just talking about how you became involved in what your experience has been in politics in the city?
  • [00:00:20] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Well, I became involved because of this area. This is the North Central area, and when I returned to Ann Arbor, I found out that they wanted to close this main street, Beakes, and some of the other streets in the area and that they had not asked the people about it. It became necessary to become involved with City Hall in order to get some of the things that we wanted. The North Central Property Owners Association was reorganized. It had been organized some years before by my brother, Walter S. Wickliffe, who was trying to save the area from urban renewal. Through his efforts and the efforts of other people in the area who understood the things that were wrong about urban renewal, urban renewal was defeated.
  • [00:01:27] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What is the history of action right in this area about urban renewal?
  • [00:01:36] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Well, about 1959 I guess. It was decided by City Hall that this area would become an urban renewal area. If you know anything about government grants, in order to get a grant you have to have involved the low income and poor people. Sometimes there is an exaggeration in order to get the funds. Not saying that that type of person did not live here. It's true that we did have poor people living here. But this is an integrated neighborhood, and it originated by the people downtown. The store owners lived here in this area. Many of the old stores that were first here in Ann Arbor, the people who owned them lived in this area. Even in 1959, it was a very much integrated area. The relatives of those people live here now, some of them. What was going to happen, the property was going to be taken away from them, and they had this area all planned out for high rise. Of course the people fought it because there were a number of elderly people and if you know that, urban renewal is not good for the elderly because they cannot begin buying property over again. They paid for their homes and they could not go through this process and the amount of money that they would have received would not even have been a good down payment on a decent home.
  • [00:03:55] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You're in the Republican Party, and you represent pretty much for the party this area?
  • [00:04:03] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Well now, this area is not just one political party. We have three political parties in the area. As far as North Central is concerned, one is as important as the other. I happened to be a Republican. My brother was a Republican, and my father was a Republican, but I didn't bother much with politics when I was away from here. But I found out in order to help the area, one had to become involved in politics. The Democrats hadn't given me much consideration because I had gone before the Council and asked for certain considerations, and they didn't give them to me. They just ignored it. I just thought that, well I just go in for politics and work. I believe that government can be honest, that City Hall can work for the people. This is the thing that I'm most interested in, that the people have their rights. I think that there are good people in all parties. One has to relate to the party that best fits the needs as that person sees it.
  • [00:05:38] CATHERINE ANDERSON: As a girl growing up, was your family highly involved in politics?
  • [00:05:43] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Not as growing up. No. My father always felt that one should vote, and so he always voted. But as far as being really involved in politics, no. He thought that every citizen should vote. That's a responsibility.
  • [00:06:05] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Is there a large participation among Blacks in the present political structure with the Democratic and Republican Parties in town?
  • [00:06:15] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Well, I don't think that it's in the manner in which I would like to see them. I don't like tokenism. I feel that nowadays, having as many highly trained Blacks as there are, that in both groups, that the people who are involved in politics whether they're white or black should be capable of doing the thing that they're supposed to do. I think this is one of the faults of politics that sometimes people, both white and black are given positions because they belong to certain political parties and not because they're capable. But I think that in the future, if we're going to have a strong government, we're going to have to choose people who are capable of doing the job. That we won't have council meetings where everybody yells partisan, and we will be more interested in the issues. I think that the young people should go in for politics, but I think they should know what they're doing. It takes a great deal of study and time to understand people, and you just can't yell "I'm going to help the poor and the Black" if you don't know anything about the poor and the Black. It's rather obsolete to talk about Black in one term because Black people live on different levels, just like white people live on. You can't just lump them all together. I think this is what some politicians will have to understand. The problem, as I see it, is an economic problem. The Blacks have passed through many stages. Now the stage is an economic stage, which refers to all people. It doesn't make any difference what race they belong to.
  • [00:09:01] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Have you seen from when you grew up here? Is there a lot? Is there more encouragement for blacks to get involved though? Are the parties becoming more responsive? I guess what I'm saying is, was there discrimination among the parties before more when you were a child?
  • [00:09:22] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Well, I wasn't involved enough in politics. There was the usual discrimination, but I wasn't involved in politics. Of course, we had no Blacks holding office. That would be a form of discrimination certainly. It's just been recently that a large number of Blacks hold offices on all levels, city and state and national. They're just getting more and more involved in politics, which they should because that's the only way that one can really know what's going on. If you're not involved, you don't know what's going on, and that's true of all people. There are many whites who are not involved in politics, and they don't know the issues and they're not particularly interested because they're getting along all right. It's only when people who are not getting along, who have a problem that they really want to become involved and try to change things. As I was talking about the young people, young people want to be involved but my experience with them is that they don't have the background. It's not that they can't get the background, but they're so sure that their youth and their native intelligence will carry them through, and it takes more than that. You find the statesmen who were really outstanding and who contributed to the development of any country, not only ours, or people who not only had intelligence, but they had experience with it. That's what I feel that young people need, and we do need young people.
  • [00:11:37] LETTY WICKLIFFE: We need young Blacks, and we need young Whites, and we need the other races too, involved. As long as we concentrate on race, we're not going to get very far. Because then what you do is divide people, divide people because of race or divide people because of religion, anything like that, and people who want to divide people do it because of the power that they have of control. Poor people have always been handled that way. They're handled that way now. If you can put one person against the other person, then they don't have the strength of unity, and this is one of the problems. The minority groups, regardless of what group it is, they're waking up now, and they're beginning to realize this thing. There's going to have to be a change. Somebody thinks many people think, well, we'll just live along and get along all right with what has happened in the past, but they should see now that that's not true. If we're not going to do that. There has to be a change.
  • [00:13:17] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Professor Colburn told me you just ran for political office?
  • [00:13:20] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I did. I ran for County Commissioner.
  • [00:13:29] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What was the campaign like from a personal viewpoint?
  • [00:13:32] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I didn't care for it. I don't like the way they run for a county commissioner. County commissioners have a great deal of responsibility. I don't think that having these debates offside and not as much emphasis on the debates that are held between the commissioners as between the others is good. I don't know why that is, but it seems that the emphasis is put on the state and the national and maybe the council people, and the mayor. But the county administration is becoming very powerful. When you think of the amount of money that they handle and the people that they're supposed to be helping, for instance, in Washtenaw County. There are a lot of people out in the county that are not in the cities. Here you have to be knowledgeable. This isn't the place for people who are inexperienced and who have weird ideas about how people should live and what they should do for people and that sort of thing. I think in politics, there's too much of what somebody else wants to do for somebody, and not involving the people themselves. You don't have to have a university degree in order to be intelligent. There are a lot of people who are intelligent who have never been in a university and who have much common sense, and who need to voice what they want. That is one of the reasons that I'm so pleased with the way in which the revenue-sharing committees are working because anybody can come in, and express what he feels, and that's the way it should be. The decisions based on the people's needs and not on what somebody thinks they need.
  • [00:16:25] CATHERINE ANDERSON: When did you come back to Ann Arbor?
  • [00:16:28] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I came back about 1969.
  • [00:16:36] CATHERINE ANDERSON: How long had you been away?
  • [00:16:38] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I'd been away for 45 years.
  • [00:16:45] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Before we started taping, you mentioned that you knew a lot about the history of Ann Arbor. I guess, I'd be interested in some of your impressions of that history as maybe it relates to some of these areas. Do you have memories, or maybe heard tales more from maybe fellow Republicans and people?
  • [00:17:08] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Since I've been back, I haven't had time to talk about the history. I've been actually in the making of the history from the time I came back up to now, and we didn't have time to talk about the past history. I was familiar with what happened when my brother was chairman of the North Central because he came in contact with me all the time, and, of course, because my family was here, and we were very close, I used to come back and forth. Because I was located in Indianapolis, and that's not very far. But I was very much aware of what went on at that time. But previous to that time, no. As I say, I haven't had time to think back of what happened. I knew that the town was mostly Republican. Well, that's true, and that had been true in many cases until Roosevelt came along and then there was a sweep toward the Democratic Party. I'm not an historian.
  • [00:18:27] CATHERINE ANDERSON: I just wondered what you were referring to before, whatever you wanted to talk about.
  • [00:18:35] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I was just going to talk about where I lived and how things had changed and the influence of the university. I lived on Forest, where the girl's building is there. That was our home. When the university expanded, then we had to sell our place, my parents, and they bought here. This is another thing that was limited. Blacks were not sold property all over town. What it was that the powers that be decided where the Blacks were going to live. Then you were sold property in that area. I'm afraid that in some respects, they're tired of trying to hold to that. Although the law says, no, but there are more places opened up because Blacks are living all over town now. But that was not true years ago. We were as a child, I was not aware of it because I had always lived in the home. My father had bought the home just before he married my mother, and that was our home. There wasn't any, no thought of moving some place else. It was only after I had graduated from college and gone away that the university wanted that area, and we had to move some place else. But these things, of course, are just known. They happen all over the country. All of the struggle, and political strife, of course, has been evolved around that thing. You can't be Black and be unaware of these things. My attitude is to take it in stride and fight it calmly and coolly when it's necessary. I'm not emotional about anything. I can take things, but I don't take insult. I fight that in my way.
  • [00:21:13] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I find myself very comfortable with the Republicans. I have been thoroughly accepted by them and treated with respect, and that's all one can really expect from anybody. The Republicans aren't any more prejudiced than the Democrats. If they are prejudiced, they're more open with it than the Democrats because the Democrats talk about being liberal, they're supposed to be liberal and to be helping the poor and Black, and that doesn't always turn out that way. They don't help the poor and Black. I believe that poor people should be helped to be independent and not kept poor all the time. I don't like too much welfare. Welfare is necessary, but welfare should be so handled that people are able to become self sufficient and independent and become persons.
  • [00:22:32] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What would you like to see, a lot of these things that we're talking about are based on federal type of programs. But what do you think the city can do? What do you think the major issues are that the city can face and work on within the community right now?
  • [00:22:50] LETTY WICKLIFFE: The city can have federal programs, but they must be administered properly. They don't have to be top heavy with administration, and the people that they are supposed to be helping should be helped. In order to do that, you have to have capable people involved and people who are interested in people, people who are not helping people for political reasons in order to get their vote, promise them something in order to get their vote and give them nothing. One of the most ridiculous programs that we've had is Model Cities, and a lot of people in the city have not bothered to understand Model Cities. They think it's some lovely thing, and when you have Model Cities, you can push the poor off into a corner and let somebody else help them. Not realizing that it's their dollars that go to Model Cities, and the money comes from the federal government. If the people aren't helped, it's wasted, and there are certain people who get the advantage of it, but the poor people don't. A good Model Cities program, perhaps could function, but the way it was set up. I think the idea behind it was good. The people who started and thought about Model Cities, thought that it would be a good thing, and it would help people, but it hasn't done so, and so we have to take a serious look at how these programs are carried out. This, of course, is politics. If you really want to help people, you can help them, and you don't want any selfish gain, it's not only monetary. That's not the only kind of selfish gain. Power is another one, and trying to be self satisfied with yourself, thinking that you're helping people, patting yourself on the back, and yet not really looking into it to see whether you're helping people. Honesty, we talk about honesty, but we really don't know what it means. The things at City Hall are better than they have been, merely because there is some type of trying to straighten some things out. I'm hoping that it will be successful because that's the only way that the people are going to be helped, and you have to have efficiency in City Hall. As I said before, you can't just give a person a job because he needs one, and you can't keep a person on a job who's not functioning because he needs one. That isn't done in business. Businesses would not be successful if they kept people who were inefficient, and that's the first thing they do is to get rid of them. We've got to think about that at City Hall. Of course, everybody knows how I feel about it because I've talked about it before. I don't think it's impossible, and I don't think you have to be unkind to people either. But demand the dollars worth of work, and the people who are in City Hall have to realize they're working for the people. In some cases, they don't realize that. They think that they can do anything. They got a job and people don't count. Until this is realized and carried out, we're going to have difficulty with government, and then people have to be involved in government. They can't expect the elected officials to turn the world over if they don't respond and only yell when something is done wrong. Then in our government, we have to realize that our elected officials are not paid. They're donating their services. They have to have other jobs in order to sustain their families, and so it's not a full time job, and they need help from the people. People could do a lot to help them, to make them understand better. There's great criticism and they vote on something and then the people say they didn't know what they were voting about. Citizens could help.
  • [00:28:36] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Were you active in politics as well when you were in Indianapolis?
  • [00:28:40] LETTY WICKLIFFE: No. I was not active in this sort of politics. I was active in fighting for children's rights in the school. Occasionally, politics came into it, but I was not. I voted, and if I felt that there was something wrong, I might take a stand on it.
  • [00:29:08] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Why did you move back to Ann Arbor?
  • [00:29:09] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Because this is my home, and I always intended to retire here.
  • [00:29:17] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You basically became in politics here because of the Beakes bypass?
  • [00:29:26] LETTY WICKLIFFE: It wasn't just the bypass. The whole concept that the council had at this time of this area.
  • [00:29:35] CATHERINE ANDERSON: They really angered you. I'm trying to ask the question of why now in your life, have you decided to become especially involved?
  • [00:29:44] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Because I feel there's a need for it. I could have gone on, I ran for school board. I was asked to run for the school board, I could have gone on with that sort of thing. But I felt that there was a greater need if I, in politics, being involved in politics, since I retired and had the time. Of course, politics covers all areas. It also covers the schools, and I'm still interested in the schools, but in order to get certain things done, you have to understand how the government's run. I found out you can't understand how to run unless you become involved.
  • [00:30:34] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Right now, are there any Blacks serving in elected office? I don't believe there are.
  • [00:30:39] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Here in the city? The Black councilman Norris Thomas.
  • [00:30:46] CATHERINE ANDERSON: I know Mr. Curry.
  • [00:30:48] LETTY WICKLIFFE: Yes, I know Mr. Curry very well. He is a member of the North Central Property Owners Association who lives in this area. When I first came back and started visiting a council, he was a council member.
  • [00:31:11] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you know what his general feelings were about being a councilman and serving the city in that way?
  • [00:31:16] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I'd rather have him tell you.
  • [00:31:17] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Is there anything else, Catherine, do you have any questions?
  • [00:31:27] FEMALE_1: How large is the Republican Party? I know they were major, and now what is the balance in Ann Arbor, do you have any idea?
  • [00:31:35] LETTY WICKLIFFE: I can't tell you. I don't know.
  • [00:31:37] FEMALE_1: Do we have a lot of Republicans on holding positions now or was the election in town you remember?
  • [00:31:50] LETTY WICKLIFFE: The majority party is the Republican Party on the Council now, and of course Michigan was one of the few states where the governor was re-elected. Of course, he's a very capable person. In the case of him [LAUGHTER] being a Republican, he's just capable. That is the reason that some of the news commentators say that he was re-elected, and of course, that's the way it ought to be. One should be elected because one is capable, but many times that isn't true.