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There Went The Neighborhood - Audio Interview: Robert Allen

When: July 16, 2021

Robert Allen attended Jones School from kindergarten through sixth grade in the 1950s. He remembers walking to school along Beakes Street and playing softball on the playground, with custodian Waltstine Perry as pitcher. He never had a Black teacher in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

More interviews are available in the There Went The Neighborhood Interview Archive.

Transcript

  • [00:00:02] HEIDI MORSE: Today is July 16th, 2021. I'm Heidi Morse an Archivist at the Ann Arbor District Library, and I'm speaking with Robert Allen about Jones School in Ann Arbor. Could you please say and spell your name?
  • [00:00:16] ROBERT ALLEN: Yeah, R-O-B-E-R-T A-L-L-E-N.
  • [00:00:23] HEIDI MORSE: Where did you grow up?
  • [00:00:25] ROBERT ALLEN: Ann Arbor.
  • [00:00:27] HEIDI MORSE: Around what time period, if you're comfortable sharing?
  • [00:00:29] ROBERT ALLEN: I was born in 1951.
  • [00:00:33] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Had your parents or family also lived there for sometime?
  • [00:00:41] ROBERT ALLEN: Yes. My mother came up from Tennessee, my father followed shortly thereafter.
  • [00:00:51] HEIDI MORSE: Do you know around what time they arrived in Ann Arbor?
  • [00:00:56] ROBERT ALLEN: Probably, I want to say in the late '40s.
  • [00:01:07] HEIDI MORSE: What did they do for work or employment?
  • [00:01:11] ROBERT ALLEN: My father was a machinist in Ann Arbor, and my mother, she worked a couple of jobs. She worked as a cleaner and she also did domestic work.
  • [00:01:28] HEIDI MORSE: Do you have siblings or did you have siblings?
  • [00:01:30] ROBERT ALLEN: Yeah, I have a brother.
  • [00:01:33] HEIDI MORSE: Younger, older?
  • [00:01:34] ROBERT ALLEN: Older.
  • [00:01:38] HEIDI MORSE: What stands out to you when you think back on your childhood in Ann Arbor?
  • [00:01:43] ROBERT ALLEN: Just all the good memories we had. Just growing up, just realizing how things have really changed with Ann Arbor because I very rarely get back up there now, but just seeing how the neighborhoods have changed, basically identify the neighborhoods from the time I grew up. When I grew up, it was like there was a lot of homeowners, especially minority homeowners, but now that is neither. Plus the price of real estate is actually either went through the roof because when my wife asked me a few years ago, I want to move back to Ann Arbor, and I said basically no, we couldn't even afford to live up in Ann Arbor. I just gave her examples some of the housing prices is basically ridiculous.
  • [00:02:31] HEIDI MORSE: When you were growing up, the neighborhood had quite different demographics?
  • [00:02:37] ROBERT ALLEN: Yes, big demographics. People don't believe Ann Arbor was probably one of the most segregated cities probably in America, which is a little unknown secret, because most minorities were put on one side of town, they were certain sides that you couldn't even think about living on if you grew up in Ann Arbor as a minority, you were not welcome in certain areas.
  • [00:03:08] HEIDI MORSE: Did your family or you look for housing in other areas of Ann Arbor?
  • [00:03:16] ROBERT ALLEN: No, because we basically knew where we wanted and where we could go. It wasn't about the option of looking somewhere else, you knew where you could go, and you knew where you were wanted, so why go somewhere that you're not wanted, and you're going to have all kind of issues?
  • [00:03:35] HEIDI MORSE: What street did you live on?
  • [00:03:37] ROBERT ALLEN: The north side, North Main Street and Summit, that area.
  • [00:03:42] HEIDI MORSE: Okay.
  • [00:03:46] ROBERT ALLEN: Which all that has been leveled now.
  • [00:03:57] HEIDI MORSE: I want to ask some questions about Jones School and we can also tie in more questions about the neighborhoods surrounding it afterwards. Did you attend Jones School?
  • [00:04:09] ROBERT ALLEN: Yes.
  • [00:04:10] HEIDI MORSE: What years and grades?
  • [00:04:12] ROBERT ALLEN: From kindergarten, I went through six grade.
  • [00:04:20] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. How did you get there?
  • [00:04:22] ROBERT ALLEN: Walked.
  • [00:04:23] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Alone, with friends, family?
  • [00:04:28] ROBERT ALLEN: Usually, when I went to Jones School, let me back up a step, when we want to Jones School we stayed on a street called Beakes Street. A group of us would walk to school every day. Nobody walked to school alone back in those days.
  • [00:04:57] HEIDI MORSE: Thinking back, and this could be from whatever year stands out most in your mind, could you describe a typical school day at Jones School?
  • [00:05:07] ROBERT ALLEN: Depends on what grade you want to talk about. [LAUGHTER] On a typical day, probably fourth, fifth grade, you go school, you start your class, you do the Pledge of Allegiance, you go do the basic things, you had gym class, your Social Studies class, English class, Math class, recess. Come back in after recess and finish the afternoon, and after school you just walk home.
  • [00:05:39] HEIDI MORSE: Did you have different teachers for those subjects?
  • [00:05:46] ROBERT ALLEN: To the best of my ability, no. You have one teacher for pretty much the whole day except for gym.
  • [00:05:58] HEIDI MORSE: Are there any teachers that stand out in your mind from Jones School?
  • [00:06:07] ROBERT ALLEN: I'll probably say yes, but now you're going to ask me, do you remember their names, that's going to be a hard part. But probably, maybe three. I'm trying to have it hard because I know that question is probably coming far as names, but no.
  • [00:06:21] HEIDI MORSE: It's okay if you don't remember names, it could just be impressions.
  • [00:06:26] ROBERT ALLEN: Yeah.
  • [00:06:33] HEIDI MORSE: Did you have favorite school subjects or activities that you participated in?
  • [00:06:43] ROBERT ALLEN: Probably Social Studies. At that time growing up, as younger kids you won't be answering, so most kids would probably say gym too.
  • [00:07:04] HEIDI MORSE: Do you recall other staff members or adults who were at Jones School as custodians or other types of roles?
  • [00:07:18] ROBERT ALLEN: Yes. Probably the custodian and probably maybe the lunch attendant. Those were like surrogate parents. The custodian, especially for recess, when we played outside for lunch, we all play softball, he was a standard pitcher for both sides.
  • [00:07:41] HEIDI MORSE: Oh, really?
  • [00:07:42] ROBERT ALLEN: Yeah. There was one who was pitching, we both knew he was pitching. Some days he would let us hit the softball, some days he wouldn't, he put a lot of spin on the softballs, but he was pretty much like a surrogate parent to a lot of the kids.
  • [00:08:02] HEIDI MORSE: Do you happen to remember his name?
  • [00:08:04] ROBERT ALLEN: Mr. Perry.
  • [00:08:05] HEIDI MORSE: Mr. Perry, okay. That's great. Did you end up playing softball or baseball later on in your childhood or adulthood?
  • [00:08:19] ROBERT ALLEN: No, not baseball, more football and basketball.
  • [00:08:22] HEIDI MORSE: Football and basketball, okay. Did you participate in those at Jones School?
  • [00:08:28] ROBERT ALLEN: Jones School didn't have any formalized players, but what we did as a neighborhood, we played tackle football out in the field as I was growing up, that was no pads. [LAUGHTER] That was how we grew up, especially where we played softball, that was just part of life back then.
  • [00:08:58] HEIDI MORSE: How would you describe the education that you got at Jones School?
  • [00:09:03] ROBERT ALLEN: Looking back on it now, comparing to what I know now, I'd probably say it was not the best compared to some the other city schools at that time, but hindsight is always 2020. Just going back, looking at probably some of the high school club, now when we have reunions, stuff talking about education they had. I look at Jones School, say Ann Arbor were being segregated, so naturally Jones School probably did not get the proper materials, etc. far as giving kids education. I didn't realize until I got to junior high how much farther we were behind.
  • [00:09:45] HEIDI MORSE: Where did you go to junior high and high school?
  • [00:09:49] ROBERT ALLEN: I went to Slauson Junior High, at that time it was called Ann Arbor High. When they split our junior year, they split to Huron High and Pioneer High, we went to Pioneer High. We had to physically use their building because there was a construction strike, so the high school wasn't completed by my junior, senior year it wasn't completed, so we actually had to go on a split schedule with Pioneer, so there was a whole different administration. They went in the mornings, we went in the afternoons.
  • [00:10:29] HEIDI MORSE: Now at Jones School as well as Slauson and Ann Arbor High, who were your teachers? What was their gender, race?
  • [00:10:44] ROBERT ALLEN: Gender was probably maybe 60, 40 male. Throughout junior high and high school I never had a minority teacher. To my knowledge in junior high, I knew of two minority teachers but they were at Forsythe Junior High. At Slauson, there weren't any. High school there was only one, he taught drivers' ed, and I think he taught a gym class. There weren't any minority teachers. If you were looking for role models, there weren't any.
  • [00:11:36] HEIDI MORSE: Thinking about the racial demographics of your school experience in Ann Arbor, this could be from Jones School, but also including junior and high school. What was your sense of race relations as a child, as a student, and teenager?
  • [00:11:59] ROBERT ALLEN: Well, my parents taught me treat everybody with respect. It wasn't a racial divide, but once I got to junior high school and high school, you could see the racial tension there. Especially probably when Martin Luther King got killed, that's when it really came to light, the racial divide. Because when I graduated in '69, that's when the Vietnam War was ending, it was a lot of racial issues going on. Especially with Martin Luther King because I never will forget when he got assassinated, I was at McDonald's. When he got assassinated after that everything came to surface. I just found out a few years later, a matter of fact, a few months ago, some of the guys actually I went to high school and played football with, they were some of the most racist people going on. Some of the things that they said about us, it just came to light like I said, maybe a couple of months ago I talked to somebody that--a couple of people I used to play sports with they told me about it, and it was like some of the things they said, my mouth dropped open, and at that time I thought they were my friends. It was a revelation. It goes back to, some of the people you thought were your friends, they truly weren't your friends.
  • [00:13:20] HEIDI MORSE: I'm sorry to hear that.
  • [00:13:22] ROBERT ALLEN: It is what it is. That's life. That's the thing about Ann Arbor. I can be on the public and they say, "You're from Ann Arbor?" A lot of people never thought Black people were raised in Ann Arbor.
  • [00:13:43] HEIDI MORSE: Long time Ann Arbor residents even?
  • [00:13:48] ROBERT ALLEN: Well, no, it is people that are out front, and that can be in our social setting and you'll ask me, "Where you grew up at?" I'll say Ann Arbor, they look at me like, "What?"
  • [00:13:58] HEIDI MORSE: I see [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:14:05] ROBERT ALLEN: But I guess growing up I had, I won't say advantage, but I've always had a job where I was put in position where I could just hear a lot of stuff. I don't know where are you from, how you belong. If you've probably heard of Barton Hills Country Club?
  • [00:14:18] HEIDI MORSE: Yes.
  • [00:14:21] ROBERT ALLEN: At that time, I was a sophomore in high school, and I used to caddy out there, and minorities weren't allowed out there, period. Only minorities who were allowed in Barton Hills Country Club, you worked in the locker room, or you shine shoes or you bus tables, that was it. You hear a lot. I'm the kind of person I don't say a lot, but I listen a lot, what's being said through the members. Because at that time they think all minorities, are just basically stupid. It's like, no I'm hearing what you're saying. That's why I found out, really where the money was at, who had the money, and what their real beliefs were. Just the way they treated us.
  • [00:15:17] HEIDI MORSE: Being in that position, I can see how just opening up your ears could really give you a different perspective on what's going on in Ann Arbor at that time.
  • [00:15:31] ROBERT ALLEN: It really did.
  • [00:15:37] HEIDI MORSE: Thinking about the '60s, let's see. I'm trying to do the math in my head, but I'll just ask you. Do you remember when Jones School was shut down?
  • [00:15:55] ROBERT ALLEN: No. To be honest, I don't know. It was long after I had left.
  • [00:15:58] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. It was mid '60s.
  • [00:16:12] ROBERT ALLEN: They shut it down for a while, then they reopened it back as Community High.
  • [00:16:19] HEIDI MORSE: For a while when they first shut it down, students who had attended were being bused to other schools. I know some folks we've talked to were impacted by that. But that's okay if you don't remember that part. Hearing about how the assassination of Martin Luther King and rising tensions in the '60s, that paints a picture of what the feeling in Ann Arbor was at the time. Let me ask about, you say looking back, you're talking about the segregation in Ann Arbor. Did you have a sense of that as a child growing up?
  • [00:17:18] ROBERT ALLEN: It was more overt than really in your face. They will let you know they really didn't like you. But they wouldn't just come out and say it, it's just something about some of the subtle actions that people would do.
  • [00:17:39] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember any? Go ahead.
  • [00:17:42] ROBERT ALLEN: No, I can just remember going downtown with my mother. Some of the clerks would not really want to wait on you. Then even though they would then follow you around the stores.
  • [00:18:06] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember any discussions about urban renewal in your neighborhood?
  • [00:18:13] ROBERT ALLEN: That was basically, when the NAACP started, it was roughly, back in Ann Arbor, I think it was like '66, '67 something like that. Dr. Wheeler. It was just starting to come to the forefront then, but prior to that, no. There was no mention of urban renewal in Ann Arbor. Especially if you're a minority, because back during that time, I can really only think of maybe a handful of minority businesses, and there were a couple barbershops, barbecue place, those things. Even growing up though, Heidi, I don't know how much they've told you in the past, but there was only one block where minorities had most of the businesses. That was only on Ann Street. You've probably heard about Ann street, between Main Street and Fourth Ave. That was a Black Business District.
  • [00:19:34] HEIDI MORSE: We're always interested to hear what people remember about that area. Particular businesses you recall.
  • [00:19:45] ROBERT ALLEN: Say what businesses do I recall?
  • [00:19:46] HEIDI MORSE: Yes.
  • [00:19:49] ROBERT ALLEN: On Ann Street, there was two barbershops, two pool halls, two bars, all in one block. Then around the corner on Fourth Ave, there was another barbershop, a beauty shop, what else was it? I think, that's all I can remember vaguely right there.
  • [00:20:21] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember a gas station on that corner of East Ann and North Fourth Ave? Might have been before your time.
  • [00:20:30] ROBERT ALLEN: That was probably before my time. I don't remember the gas station.
  • [00:20:33] HEIDI MORSE: [NOISE] Thinking back on the neighborhood you grew up in or what now folks refer to as Kerrytown, what stands out the most just from a sensory memory, or certain sounds, or sights that make up what your childhood was about?
  • [00:21:12] ROBERT ALLEN: Just growing up, there was kids all throughout the neighborhood, and we would just go out and hang out at somebody's house. On their porch. Every day was different. You never hung out the same person's house two days in a row, it's always somebody's house different. Just that whole area; the whole area Kerrytown, like I say, is just growing up just out there then you go up to Jones School playground or you go to the park. It was a true adage: Summer days, I'm not in the house. Even during the rain you still go outside. That was just a thing about it. You're always doing something different in the summer, just being outside. That's why I can't understand these kids today they want to spend all day with a video game in the house. It's like, no, you couldn't wait to get out the house.
  • [00:22:16] HEIDI MORSE: [NOISE] What happened after you graduated high school; did you stay in the Ann Arbor area?
  • [00:22:29] ROBERT ALLEN: Yeah. I stayed in Ann Arbor area, I went to Washtenaw Community College, then I basically like everybody else, got a job.
  • [00:22:34] HEIDI MORSE: [NOISE] What do you remember about that neighborhood and how it developed or changed over the years from when you grew up until now?
  • [00:22:53] ROBERT ALLEN: Well, like I said, both my parents are deceased now. I very rarely get back in Ann Arbor. I kind of roll through there; I took my wife through there just to see it. But basically how the houses have changed, how they basically tore down a lot of houses, built these condos on top of everything, and it's just more, say, gentrified, where you don't even see minorities, especially down through Kerrytown. [NOISE] You will not find any minority houses in there because like I was telling you, I probably out of all the minority people that had houses, I only can probably recall maybe two people still have houses there from their original families in the Northside Ann Arbor. That's about it. When I was growing up, majority of the people on the Northside owned their houses. Now there's only maybe two families left that have been passed from generation through generation. But other than that, there are no minority, you can't afford it. Houses that were basically at that time maybe $30, $40,000, now they want a half a million dollars for them.
  • [00:24:08] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah. It's so dramatic, yeah. Where do you live now?
  • [00:24:17] ROBERT ALLEN: I live in Detroit now.
  • [00:24:19] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to share about Jones School, or that neighborhood, or following up on anything we've discussed today?
  • [00:24:36] ROBERT ALLEN: No. That was probably some of the best times of my life. I wouldn't trade it again for the world. Just the neighborhood, the people. When they're all pieces and clean enough, when you think about it, we were in poverty but we never knew it. We never even thought about it. Look back on it, and it's like, wow. It was so much love. It was truly a village where raising kids because that's when adults had privilege to discipline children whether it was your child or not. That's one thing that was instilled in me. My parents always told me, you don't argue with an adult whether they're wrong or right, you don't disagree with them. Literally I could be across town, do something I had no business doing. By the time I got home, they would have known about it. That's the difference I see now because now you can't say anything to anybody's kids and you respected adults. It's just like I know it's a lot of kids now they want to get into adult conversations. When I was growing up, when adults are talking, don't you even think about interjecting your little voice in this conversation or else when adults came to the house, you had to leave. Go outside. That's what I can't understand. Some of these kids now and parents they say, "My child is my best friend." I don't want to be your best friend. I don't like you.
  • [00:26:16] HEIDI MORSE: [LAUGHTER] It's really changed thinking back between the childhood you're describing until now. Just modes of parenting.
  • [00:26:33] ROBERT ALLEN: I blame it on Dr. Spock. He's come up with this notion where time out is like, [LAUGHTER] you can't hear it. It's like we talk to a lot with friends of mine in the same generation. We went through a lot of this but none of us turned out bad. We drank water from the water hose, we played outside, we rode on the back of a pickup truck, no seat belt. We scraped our knees, and none of us really turned out bad.
  • [00:27:02] HEIDI MORSE: [NOISE] Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge of this time period in Ann Arbor with us and your memories. Just really appreciate that.
  • [00:27:24] ROBERT ALLEN: You're quite welcome.