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There Went The Neighborhood - Studio Interview: Omer Jean (Dixon) Winborn

When: August 23, 2021

Omer Jean (Dixon) Winborn attended Jones School from kindergarten to sixth grade, from 1955 to 1962. She recalls having many strong Black role models, including her parents William and Minnie Dixon, the Jones School custodian Mr. Perry, her pastor Rev. Carpenter, and U-M professor Albert H. Wheeler.

This interview was filmed during the making of the documentary film There Went The Neighborhood: The Closing of Jones School, produced by the Ann Arbor District Library and 7 Cylinders Studio. More interviews are available in the There Went The Neighborhood Interview Archive.

Transcript

  • [00:00:05] DONALD HARRISON: This is going to be Omer Jean Winborn, aka Jean. Let's get started. We're going to start off with a little simple basics. Your name in whatever forms you want to share it, and when you were born.
  • [00:00:24] OMER JEAN WINBORN: My name is Omer Jean Dixon, maiden name, Winborn. I was born in 1950, June the 6th, in St. Joe's Hospital, when it was on Ingalls Street in Ann Arbor.
  • [00:00:40] DONALD HARRISON: Excellent, and where did you grow up, so you were born at St. Joe's.
  • [00:00:44] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I grew up 620 North Fourth Ave. We first lived on Fifth Ave and then we moved over to 620 North Fourth Ave, my dad purchased a home, 620 North Fourth Ave.
  • [00:00:57] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember roughly when and how old you were when.
  • [00:01:00] OMER JEAN WINBORN: He bought that house in 1952, so I was about two years old.
  • [00:01:04] DONALD HARRISON: You probably don't remember that too much.
  • [00:01:06] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, I don't.
  • [00:01:09] DONALD HARRISON: Growing up on Fourth, what cross street is that?
  • [00:01:14] OMER JEAN WINBORN: That is between Beakes, and Main, and Summit, and Fifth Ave, in a square.
  • [00:01:24] DONALD HARRISON: Right. Okay. What was it like, Jean?
  • [00:01:28] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Absolutely wonderful, because I grew up with people that looked like me, and bought from businesses that were owned by people that looked like me. In fact, one of my relatives was one of the first Black businessmen in Ann Arbor. His name was John Easley. A lot of people didn't know that he was related to me, but his mother and my great grandmother were sisters, so he was a close relationship.
  • [00:01:58] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember what his business was?
  • [00:02:00] OMER JEAN WINBORN: He had a barbershop.
  • [00:02:02] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember the name.
  • [00:02:05] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, just Easley's Barbershop, and my brother used to go there to get his hair cut from him all the time. He would complain because cousin John, we called him cousin John, he would nick him a lot, because he wouldn't sit still.
  • [00:02:19] DONALD HARRISON: What else stands out when you think back to growing up there in that neighborhood. What else comes to mind? What jumps out at you?
  • [00:02:28] OMER JEAN WINBORN: The Community Center, Second Baptist Church, downtown Ann Street, the Farmers Market. I could go on and on. Summit Park.
  • [00:02:43] DONALD HARRISON: What about those, when you think of each one of those, what about those do you remember, or why does that stand out for you?
  • [00:02:49] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Summit Park is where we used to play, and the name has been changed to Wheeler Park. The person that it was named after was one of my mentors. He was very instrumental in getting that park situated the way it is now, because there was a slaughterhouse there, and a junkyard. I remember-- I wrote a funny story, because I remember going down there once, and swinging on the swing, and then coming down on the swing and seeing a pig come towards me from the slaughterhouse. The Peters Sausage man was chasing it, and I was almost in shock as a little kid, I was down there by myself, nobody on the park, and he finally caught him. It went back into the slaughterhouse, but the smell, the all of Fourth Ave smelled like two-week old chitterlings, and there would be rats coming out of the Lansky's junkyard. My mom and a lot of the people in the neighborhood, all of the people that went to Jones School, got together, went down to City Hall, petitioned to have it removed. Dr. Wheeler was a leader of that and so they named the park after him.
  • [00:04:06] DONALD HARRISON: Summit Park is the place you were playing, that's really stands out for you.
  • [00:04:11] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes.
  • [00:04:11] DONALD HARRISON: And even the smells as well.
  • [00:04:13] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes. I'm a historian to my family history, I do family history and genealogy. Those were places where the underground railroad was. Summit-- Right across from the park, we knew that there was a house that the people that were enslaved at one time used to hide in. I have pictures of that and I talk about it too. A lot of wonderful memories about Summit Park and that neighborhood. The community center was another place where we used to go for recreation and play. All of our activities were around Second Baptist Church. At Second Baptist Church we had Reverend Carpenter, who used to talk about Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver constantly. And I thought he was teaching us a history lesson, until I got older and went to the Bentley Library and found out that he really was a student. I was sitting there in that library in tears, because of his close connection, really close connection to Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, and how much that man meant to me and my life, my spiritual connection, everything. I had wonderful African American men mentors besides my father.
  • [00:05:36] DONALD HARRISON: I'm going to have you give us the basics about your family. Parents, names, what they did for work, and you have quite a few siblings.
  • [00:05:46] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, my parents were sharecroppers. They were from Brownsville, Tennessee. My mom and dad did not go any further than the sixth grade. They had six children, all of us were college graduates. Two of us from the University of Michigan, I'm one. My brother was the first one before affirmative action to graduate from the University of Michigan. No trouble, none of us ever in jail, or prison, or anything like that. Had wonderful, amazing parents. What else would I say about them? They were very strict, we would play within the park, we'd go to the community center. Education was the very first thing in our lives, it meant a lot to my parents. My mom was very involved in our school. In fact, she taught me how to be a parent, because even though she wasn't educated, she would come up there and I would be afraid to act up in school, because she would walk those halls. Then she was on the PTO. Anything to do with the school, she was right there. She was very much involved in our education, even though she didn't have education herself.
  • [00:07:07] DONALD HARRISON: Did your parents talk much about their life before they moved from Tennessee? Was that something you heard a lot about, or not as much when you were growing up?
  • [00:07:18] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I didn't, but they began to tell me parts of it as I got older, when I started doing my own family history and genealogy. But my sister Catherine, who is no longer with us, was the one that was most effected by the sharecropping. She used to tell me stories. She was five or six, when they moved to Ann Arbor. She told me how hard sharecropping was. We had a much better life in the North than we did in the South, according to my sister.
  • [00:07:56] DONALD HARRISON: You wouldn't have been born when this happened, when the move happen obviously. But as far as hearing about it, do you know what their reception was like, when they came to Ann Arbor? Were they well received, was it a difficult transition?
  • [00:08:11] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Well, what I'm finding is that most of these people were related, and I didn't know that. My father told us a story, after we got older, he told us a story about him picking cotton, and it cost $17 for a one-way bus ticket to Ann Arbor. He dropped the money, and had to pick it up in the light of the moon. But he says he was so thankful and glad that he picked all that money up and he bought that ticket, and he didn't look back, and he came North.
  • [00:08:47] DONALD HARRISON: We'll get into a little bit more of the neighborhood, but I want to hear a little bit more about Jones Elementary. Can you tell me roughly when you went there, and what it was like?
  • [00:09:04] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, I remember my first grade teacher, and if I think a little bit, I can probably remember all of them. I can remember being in a classroom with all the kids who looked like me, and decided when I got a little older, and after I graduated from high school, that I didn't have to sit next to a white person to learn. Desegregation came by, and I didn't know how much until recently from my sister, how much that affected us. They had to split the school up and people had to leave, be bussed to another school. I don't know what that was, but my sister was traumatized by it. She just told me two years ago, she told me how much it was. I didn't think about it because we could walk home for lunch, always had a hot lunch. I never ate at school, so I didn't know what eating at school and taking a lunch to school was, until I got to middle school. For her to imagine going into a classroom with people that didn't look like you. It seemed like, and it did, that people cared about us, and if we were lacking anything from our environment there at the school, we would get it when we came home, we would get comforting and soothing and support from home. I can remember having to do that more so after leaving Jones School than any other. All of my teachers were white in Jones school. All of my teachers throughout my whole school-life were white. I never had an African-American teacher until I got to college.
  • [00:10:55] DONALD HARRISON: Did you at the time think about that or looking back on it, how do you feel about that?
  • [00:11:00] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I didn't think about it then, I thought about the support that I got from not only my mom, but a lot of people in the community were real involved in Jones School, all the parents were always there. If you were a parent and something was going on, then my mom or another parent would be there to support you.
  • [00:11:21] DONALD HARRISON: Just so I have it, the years that you went there, you went K through six, it was going up to sixth grade that time when you were there?
  • [00:11:28] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes.
  • [00:11:30] DONALD HARRISON: Was it '55 to '62?
  • [00:11:34] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Let's see. Yes, I think so.
  • [00:11:37] DONALD HARRISON: I'm going to have you tell me roughly when it was just so that we have it.
  • [00:11:48] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Let's see. Oh my goodness. I'm 71 years old, and so I went there 1955, and then just add the years up until '60 something. My sister was born in '57, so '60. I would say around '60 when the school closed around '62.
  • [00:12:11] DONALD HARRISON: '62, '64.
  • [00:12:12] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes.
  • [00:12:15] DONALD HARRISON: Then where did you go after Jones?
  • [00:12:17] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Slauson.
  • [00:12:22] DONALD HARRISON: Going back to Jones, you were there in the mid to late '50s?
  • [00:12:26] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes.
  • [00:12:27] DONALD HARRISON: How would you describe it? I guess you could walk. It was just a couple of blocks away, but how would you describe, like the other students?
  • [00:12:33] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes. It was a couple of blocks away. So much support. I remember Mr. Perry who was the custodian. He was like our principal. I remember my brother broke one of the windows in the school. My dad was really upset. The principal called him and said that window was $25. My dad, oh how he was going to make my brother pay for it. So Mr. Perry followed him home and told him, "Look, make him come up here to the school, and we'll have him clean the school until he makes up that $25." Mr. Perry was like the principal and the support. That's what my sister was saying, that Mr. Perry really was like her principal. Everybody was involved in our education. The custodians, Miss Wayne was one of the custodians, and Mr. Perry.
  • [00:13:26] DONALD HARRISON: Were they Black?
  • [00:13:26] OMER JEAN WINBORN: They were Black.
  • [00:13:28] DONALD HARRISON: I'm going to just have you say it again.
  • [00:13:31] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes. Mr. Perry was African-American, and I just found out through doing DNA and genealogy that I was related to him. [LAUGHTER] I didn't know it. I just found out really just a year or so ago that I was related to Mr. Perry. When I told my sister she was so happy. Mr. Owens was a school policeman. Now they have crossing guards, the kids have crossing guards. But at the time we had a real policeman. Mr. Owens was an African-American, one of the first African-American police officers in Ann Arbor, and he was always there to assist us going across the street.
  • [00:14:12] DONALD HARRISON: One of the areas that we're really interested in is the story of race and racism within the school, especially how it played out at Jones. It was opened in the '20s and then it changed over time, and so by the time you got there, it was, I believe, predominantly Black or starting to become. What do you remember in terms of the ethnicities, or the makeup, or your sense of that at that time?
  • [00:14:39] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Without naming names, not naming the teachers' names, in about 5th grade is when it started really focusing on mostly Black people in that community and going to that school. I can remember being in class when I noticed the difference. The teacher asked me to take a piece of my hair so she could put it under a microscope and compare it to one of my Asian classmates and another white classmate. Without me knowing until I got grown, my mom took care of it without telling us because that was something between two adults. She was a parent. I told her what happened, she never discussed it with me. She just took care of it, and how she took care of it I didn't know until after I was grown-- That they were instrumental, her and some other people in the community, of getting that teacher removed.
  • [00:15:42] DONALD HARRISON: This teacher who was trying to do this, was that something she ended up doing? Or did you get in trouble?
  • [00:15:49] OMER JEAN WINBORN: She told my mom. My mom just said, "What happened?" I told my mom. She didn't have any expression on her face. She didn't discuss it with me at all. She just kept quiet like nothing happened, and I was really upset, "She should do something about this," because I thought that was not right. I didn't want to put my hair under so she could show that my hair was kinky and another person's was straight, a Caucasian person, and then an Asian person. I thought that was just so terrible as a kid. I thought it was horrible and my mom wasn't doing anything about it. But she quietly took care of it, went to parent meetings, didn't discuss it with us kids, and just took care of it. When I got to be an adult, s he told me that was a social studies lesson, and I told her, "That's not social studies." That's what my mom said to me. I was grown and I had my daughter before she told me how she handled that situation.
  • [00:16:50] DONALD HARRISON: She waited. So you learned a lot of this stuff much later?
  • [00:16:55] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I was married and grown, and had a child when she told me what happened. That she had taken care of it and they were instrumental on getting her removed.
  • [00:17:06] DONALD HARRISON: Thank you for sharing that story. I'm wondering as far as your everyday going to school there if you can think what that was like, as far as your experience going to Jones.
  • [00:17:19] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I felt a lot of support. If you Google or however you look up racism at Pioneer High School, I'm one of the people on the panel that was NAACP that spoke out against racism at Pioneer High School. Dr. Wheeler was our mentor, and we were junior NAACP. After that incident with my hair, I was always hurt feeling. I can remember reading Huckleberry Finn in high school and sitting in the back because my parents insisted that we be in college prep classes and having that N-word used so many times. Then the teacher asked me how I felt about it, and I said, "I don't feel good about it, and I don't think that this is a book that should be taught in public schools." I was outspoken after that hair incident even though I didn't know my mom spoke up, but I felt comforted because I was in junior high and I didn't know, but I did have the protection of adults and I felt it. They may not have said it to me, but I felt it.
  • [00:18:48] DONALD HARRISON: As far as when you talk about Jones you say you felt a lot of support. Mr. Perry. How did you feel the teachers were aside from the one?
  • [00:19:00] OMER JEAN WINBORN: The teachers--kind of forgettable. Not any one that made any kind of impression on me. I knew what was expected of me, because my parents drilled it in me, but I didn't know of any that would come to me and tell me, "Yeah, you should do this or you should do that." None made an impression like that on me, none of them.
  • [00:19:34] DONALD HARRISON: And do you feel the education you're getting from the teachers, and from the school was okay or, at the time or looking back on it?
  • [00:19:42] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I felt like it was okay. Like I said, I felt like I could learn if I sat next to another Black person because I left one year of my education, I went to Central State in Ohio, and I can remember the warm feeling that I got from the support of all the instructors. I was so amazed that everyone of my instructors was Black, and at how they comforted me and how they wanted to make sure I knew and understand and supported me. I had a work-study job and the person that I worked for, she would invite me over to her house on the weekend. How close the instructors were to the students. I felt like that in the community, but as far as the schools and the teachers, they weren't involved in our lives like that, for me, and I'm only speaking for me. My sister may have a whole totally different take on it and I think she does. But for me, I'm just saying for me. Because I was a little, I express my opinion and stuff a lot.
  • [00:21:00] DONALD HARRISON: When you left Jones and went to Slauson and then, did you go to Pioneer?
  • [00:21:05] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I went to Pioneer, yes. There was only one high school then. [LAUGHTER] I was the last class to graduate from Pioneer High School.
  • [00:21:13] DONALD HARRISON: Did you feel that you were prepared? Was Slauson pretty integrated at that point? Because Jones was predominantly Black, right?
  • [00:21:21] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah, Slauson was pretty integrated but I didn't feel the same, as Jones. It was a lot different. There were a lot more white people in Slauson and I felt excluded from a lot of things. I liked to participate in a lot of activities, and I didn't feel like I did at Jones School. The teachers were about the same. I felt like in Jones School, the teachers were about the same as the ones at Slauson, but the people and my friends and being around them and that feeling was better at Jones School for me.
  • [00:22:05] DONALD HARRISON: Did you know most of the kids at Jones? Was it mostly the neighborhood-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:22:08] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, I knew all of the kids at Jones.
  • [00:22:12] DONALD HARRISON: How would you describe the dynamic with the kids, not 100 percent Black, there were some, I believe some kids that were white or other nationalities?
  • [00:22:22] OMER JEAN WINBORN: At Jones School?
  • [00:22:23] DONALD HARRISON: At Jones School, yeah.
  • [00:22:24] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah, I didn't have very many, yes I did. I had one or two. I remember the Asian person I had in my class was Eddie Lum. I think he's still around here, I saw him years ago. Then there was another white girl called Judy Culture, I don't know where she ended up, but we were good friends and yeah, she came to my house, I went to hers and we played together, and that was Jones. But I didn't have friends like that at Slauson.
  • [00:23:00] DONALD HARRISON: In terms of I guess, any other activities or memorable things from Jones, are there any things that when you think back to your time there that come up? Are there any extracurriculars or any subjects or anything that really stands out?
  • [00:23:15] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah, the involvement of the parents, we had cake walks, we had a lot of activities that were social activities. The church was involved, it was just like one. The Ann Arbor Community Center was involved, the church was involved, Reverend Carpenter was involved. Dr. Wheeler, everybody was involved in our education. Every African-American person, education at Jones School everybody was involved.
  • [00:23:46] DONALD HARRISON: Do you feel that was happening after school, it was happening within the school?
  • [00:23:51] OMER JEAN WINBORN: After school, and just the support that you felt after school. Even like Zingermans, that used to be Diroff's store, and I can remember going in there one time, and Mr. Diroff was mean. That didn't matter to my mom, I still had to be respectful. I said something to him because he threw some money at me, and I said something smart to him. By the time I got home, I was in trouble because Mr. Dirff had everybody's phone number, and he called my mom until I got in trouble for that, for talking smart to him. Because Mr. Diroff supplied African American food, the greens and all of that kind of food that African American people ate. Sometimes people got stuff on credit, I don't know if my mom and dad had credit from him or whatever, but he knew them and so I got in trouble.
  • [00:25:00] DONALD HARRISON: It's interesting to think back to that pre-Zingerman's era. I'm trying to think in terms of when Jones was closed, you would have been probably been in middle school, maybe [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:25:13] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I was in middle school, I think, when Jones closed.
  • [00:25:21] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember hearing much about it? There was a whole Jones' report. This is also the era that Civil Rights Act and movement is very prominent in the news. Even though you weren't in school at that time, do you remember that happening, and if so, was your mom involved in it? There's the group, CORE, I think Dr. Wheeler was even in support of closing? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:25:44] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah, he was, and you know what, I loved Dr. Wheeler. He was, like I said, mentor. I could go and sit in his office, where he was at University of Michigan, I was working there, or I could go sit at his house, in his window. His house is still there. I would sit there and talk to him for hours, and I think that was one of the things that he regretted. He thought that, it probably would've been better if we stayed together and that they didn't bus people. But you see that's what they were doing at the time, busing the Black kids out of the community and not busing people in. I think that was one of the things that we talked about that I think that he felt sad about that, because we were just breaking up the African American community.
  • [00:26:48] DONALD HARRISON: Looking back for you now, do you have an opinion as far as, the pros and cons of that, because you can see in the news, there was quite a big push to close Jones once it was shown that it wasn't delivering as good of an education. Looking back on it do you have thoughts as far as what ended up happening?
  • [00:27:09] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, I do because I'm an educator, I'm a retired teacher, so I do. Like I said before, I don't think that you have to be sitting next to another white person to learn. I think that it's about the curriculum and what you teach, and what the kids learn. You know what, you can't teach kids if you can't touch them. When I say that to people, a lot of my co-workers where I was teaching, I told them if that child will let you touch them on the shoulder, you'll be able to teach them, but they have to feel you care about them. Unfortunately, I told them, I'm sorry, I can't teach caring. But I can just demonstrate to you what it is to care for someone. It could be a little thing, it could be anything. Listening to the music that they listen to, anything. But yes, I feel that way. I think that it takes a special kind of person to come in a situation where you're all African American kids, and how you reach and teach them. That goes for white kids too if you teach them. I had a unique experience because I taught in Grosse Pointe. I was the second African American teacher in the entire district. My feeling was I had to come in there, and I had to show those kids that I cared about them and they had to learn about me. A lot of them shared how they felt. They said that they never had a Black teacher except for a person being their maid. I made some genuine connections with those kids. In fact, they've got in touch with me recently and told me how much they care for me and stuff. I know that white teachers can also do that to make kids feel like that.
  • [00:29:13] DONALD HARRISON: I want to make sure I get your thoughts on Jones. When you talk about Jones and what they chose to do, I guess how would you describe that in your view of whether or not that was a successful approach?
  • [00:29:32] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I don't think it was a successful approach simply because of my sister. Had I not had her, my baby sister, I would have thought that maybe it would be better. But no, she told me that that support from those people, the custodians and everybody made her feel wanted and welcome and willing to learn. I think that my approach now because of what she said and then I watched her, she said little things, the devastating things that she told me that happened to her while she was there. Then some of her friends came back but some of them moved to California, and they came back and we met at someone's funeral. I was horrified at some of the things that they had gone through. They were saying how important Jones School was to them. They wish they had kept Jones School.
  • [00:30:34] DONALD HARRISON: That was their experiences after it was closed having to go to other schools. I'm going to ask you to try and reference Jones School. Can you try and say Jones [OVERLAPPING] just because we're going to edit it together, but it's helpful if [OVERLAPPING] we know which school you're talking about, things like that. [OVERLAPPING] Yeah, I guess for you when you left Jones School, and you got to Slauson and then got to Pioneer, as far as it sounds like you got support from the community, and from the community center, or the church and the janitor, and obviously your parents, did you feel a discrepancy, a gap with the education that you got and what the other kids got? Was that something that became clear to you or not, or you didn't feel that way when you got to middle school?
  • [00:31:33] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I did. Jones and going into Slauson was different just because of adolescence too, the different age groups and all of that. Then things are very different now. Kids only go up to the fifth grade. What does that look like? What would it have been if I was a sixth grader going into Slauson as compared to a seventh grader, a little older, a little mature, little different stages in my life? I think that I treasure the Jones School experience because of the support that I had and the community. I don't know now if it would work because it's not the same. It's a whole different community, and we're looking at people that are gone. Wow, where are these mentors? Well, it's me. I have to be one, but I don't live in that community anymore. I live somewhere else. So how are these kids getting support and what's going on in these elementary schools that is different from my experience? Not that I'm a super success, but I went to college and all of that from the support, not only from my parents, but from the support that I got from that foundation that I got from Jones and being in Jones School and being in that community and growing up in Jones community.
  • [00:33:15] DONALD HARRISON: I think this would be a great point to get your quick CV, resume. Maybe give me the run down after you went to Jones, to Slauson, to Pioneer and college and then the profession, just the main pieces of that.
  • [00:33:32] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I went to Jones, Slauson, and then Pioneer. At the time, Pioneer only had one high school. Fortunately and unfortunately, I fell in love with a young man who at the time when I was in high school, could not go to college because he had to go to the Vietnam War. He has a very prominent family in Ann Arbor, the Jewetts and the O'Neal's, yeah, I was engaged to Ricky O'Neal and he got killed in the Vietnam War. He fortunately gave me enough money, so that I could go to college for a year and a half. I started off at Washtenaw and I ended up in Central State for two years, and then I graduated from Eastern and got a degree. First degree, I got in foods and business and I went back and got one in education. I have two bachelor's and then I graduated. Then I went back and got a Master's in Reading. Don't tell my school district because they would have made me be an English teacher but I'm retired, so it doesn't matter. Then I graduated from U of M with a Master's in Social Work.
  • [00:34:55] DONALD HARRISON: Then professionally career-wise, [OVERLAPPING] Grosse Pointe.
  • [00:34:59] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Grosse Pointe. I taught in Grosse Pointe for seven years. I lost a friend, a college friend, and she had a son. I left Grosse Pointe and came to live here because I brought him here with me, because I was staying with her when I was in Grosse Pointe, I would come home on the weekends. But I taught there for seven years and she passed away. Then I started teaching at around the area. I taught at Pioneer for a year or two, my alma mater, and then I ended up retiring from Lincoln Consolidated School in Ypsilanti. Yeah, so I'm retired.
  • [00:35:45] DONALD HARRISON: Now you're?
  • [00:35:47] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I am the president of the Ypsilanti District Library Board, and I am the Vice-President of Fred Hart William's Genealogical Society, and I'm also on the board for the Washtenaw Genealogical Society. I've been doing a lot of genealogy and family history and history of Ann Arbor and all of that, African American community in Ann Arbor.
  • [00:36:14] DONALD HARRISON: Thanks for giving me the rundown. Jean, I think with this Jones story, there's this big Jones report, the Civil Rights era in the '60s, showing that it's just not delivering an education on premise and getting attention of our segregated society that's just not equal and equitable, and then things start to happen, busing, desegregation, all these things, and things like redlining are starting to be more known and start to come to prominence, and then you get into the mid and late '60s when things really changed, like things become a lot more combustible. There's rioting and protests and a lot more attention. I guess that's all to say is that when you think about growing up in that neighborhood that was where if you were Black, you are pretty much really only allowed to live, and then things started to change. I guess, just big picture, what's your take looking back on that era and being young when that was happening, but now having perspective, thinking back on that, the good and the bad of what happened?
  • [00:37:34] OMER JEAN WINBORN: How do I think about it now, or how was I thinking about it then?
  • [00:37:37] DONALD HARRISON: Both.
  • [00:37:39] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Then I was beginning to get sad because there's newspaper articles with my father and my brother and my mother standing on the porch talking about my father not selling the home, and I went there for a while and lived until the rest of my siblings decided, well, they wanted to sell the house. That was sad for me, and going into the community and seeing the breakup of the African American community, that was all sad. I had some real deep feelings about education, and the kind of education that I did or did not get. I can remember my mom and dad trying to help us with math, and they couldn't, so then they asked a neighbor, and they started a tutorial program there to help, just all kinds of support when I was young at Jones School. Then to move on and to see what happened is really sad and then to participate, and you can go look my story up in a 1967 article about the way I was feeling about being in Pioneer High School and the racism that I had to go through and not being able to participate in the student council, they excluded. Not having scholarships for African American students, and most of the scholarships go into the white students, and one of my friends being the first person to get the award that we established after we spoke out. Just looking at what's going on now, it's basically the same thing, no African American teachers because that's one of the things that we requested when we were protesting the report from Jones School in protest, also. I guess I have mixed feelings. I'm sad because I know that there's a lot that you can do. There's strength when we're together as African American people and the support that we have from each other. It's sad.
  • [00:40:18] DONALD HARRISON: When you said that it's sad what happened, how would you describe what happened? I have my own understanding of that, but when you would describe it to somebody who doesn't know what happened as far as how and when and why the Black community was starting to break apart, how do you describe that?
  • [00:40:38] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I can remember being somewhere, and the support that we had was unbelievable, and someone asked the question of home ownership, and I said that every African American person that we knew growing up owned their home, and they said, "How could you know that?" We knew that. I would love to have found out a little more, and I'm going to do a little more research how my father bought his home, but white people had to buy for you, and then you paid them back, and it was sheer luck, honesty, or whatever that person was, but I remember Mr. Snyder bought our house and my dad paid him back on land contract. Most of those people that lived in my community owned their homes, or if they were renting, they were renting from Black people, and so that kind of support. Then my father had a garden across the street and anybody could eat off that garden. If you didn't have food, he would plant tomatoes, anything. You could just go over there, you plant them, you go over their and just help yourself to the food, so that support. Anybody needed anything, and I remember at my mom's funeral, one of the neighbors came and said, "You know I ate at your mom's house so many times," and they always talk about my mom how she would cook and feed the whole neighborhood, all of our friends, and I could remember the Bakers and the Foundry, and my sister ended up marrying one of the Bakers, and I remember Mr. Baker, when he owned that foundry, made my mom a skillet that could fry two chickens at one time, and how she did that on an on-going basis and the support that we had, and then losing that, the sadness, and people moving away. Like we said, we knew everybody, everybody knew anybody at Jones School. You were never hungry. We didn't know if you are poor. It didn't matter because we shared, and a lot of that's gone now, too.
  • [00:43:00] DONALD HARRISON: What do you think caused that to change? I know it's not a simple answer. There's not any one thing, but do you remember when that started to change, or why you think some of the reasons that it did start to change?
  • [00:43:11] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Well, urban renewal. They were moving Black people out of the neighborhood and taking over. Just moving folks out of the neighborhood. Yeah, I remember very distinctly when that happened and the sadness of seeing people move and being displaced out of their homes. Urban renewal. There's a lot about that. [NOISE]
  • [00:43:39] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember roughly what year you saw that happen? I think Shirley was one talking about how her family home was [OVERLAPPING] It was taken, but do you remember roughly?
  • [00:43:53] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I went back and lived in the house. I can't remember what years I went back there and lived in there. After, it was in the '90s. My siblings just decided that they wanted to all sell it, because they were all different places. We sold it and I bought my home in Ypsi, we each bought our own home, which was rightfully so. One person staying in it, like my dad had. You talk about wealth among people and I just look at my father, I say, wow, how he did this with just the education that he had, and purchased that home, and that was something that we could sink our feet in, like we had money to put down on another home or pay for education, or whatever, but if it hadn't been for dad, I wouldn't be where I am right now.
  • [00:44:52] DONALD HARRISON: Jones being closed in '64, '65 is part of this neighborhood managing that urban renewal, when this bypass is being pushed through and homes are being built?
  • [00:45:05] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Right.
  • [00:45:06] DONALD HARRISON: So for you, I guess that seems like that's the beginning of the change. Were there any other things that started to break that community apart, that you remember?
  • [00:45:16] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Church. The church moved, and down there in the church and I've got lots to do, I'm working real hard, but those churches down there, it just hurts me so bad, because Second Baptist and Bethel, 1865, when they were started, and Bethel is now condos. All the people that were buried there. That support from Reverend Woods, Reverend Carpenter is all dissipated and it just hurts me to see a place of worship turned into condos. That's hard. That's really hard, because our faith then was very important, and now that young people don't attend church like we did, all of our activities. I spent the night in the church. We had pajama parties in the church. Reverend Carpenter had pajama parties for us, girls' pajama party, and the boy scouts, my brother, so much of that, and all that's gone. I think Second Baptist on Beakes was a daycare center. I don't know what it is now, but it was a daycare center. And to go in there and to see that, where we used to worship, and Reverend Carpenter was so particular about the church. I can remember. I close my eyes right now, smelling the wax on the floor. It was so clean in there. Remember him getting up and running that press. Because like I said, we spent the night in the church. We had pajama parties, all kinds of activities. We had teas. Somebody sent a picture of me at one of the teas. It was social, everything, all the support, it's sad. It's just gone.
  • [00:47:18] DONALD HARRISON: I'm curious too, Jean, when you think back to that time and how close-knit the community was as you're describing , how much you went outside of that neighborhood and outside of those areas, and if so, what that was like? I know the Washtenaw Dairy was mentioned as a place where it may have been okay to go to another part of town. Did you leave that neighborhood very much, and if so, what was your experience, your impression of the segregation of Ann Arbor?
  • [00:47:52] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, we socialized with the people in Ypsilanti. Then we had the Como Club. I don't know if you've heard about that. A lot of famous people came there at that Como Club.
  • [00:48:09] DONALD HARRISON: Where was that?
  • [00:48:12] OMER JEAN WINBORN: My gosh. Shirley would be a better person ask. Around Hill Street area, somewhere.
  • [00:48:26] DONALD HARRISON: A different neighborhood?
  • [00:48:28] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, not really a different neighborhood. Yes, kind of, but not really. Within our community somewhere. I can't remember, but I remember going to the Como Club just before it closed. I don't even know if they have any research on it, but there were a lot of people that came there. Mr. Hill used to take us to Detroit to the Motown Revue all the time, but we were together and we would go to another African American community to socialize outside, like what places we talked about like Dexter.
  • [00:49:13] DONALD HARRISON: Were you just doing like downtown Ann Arbor or?
  • [00:49:17] OMER JEAN WINBORN: We did downtown Ann Arbor. That was within walking distance of where I lived. In fact, there was Kresge's and there was a Woolworth's, but we didn't shop in the Woolworth's. My parents wouldn't go in Woolworth's and told us not to go, because that was the counter where they wouldn't serve African-American people. So we never were allowed into Woolworth's. We didn't go in there. They had Cunningham's Drugstore, they had Kline's. We shopped at those stores. Kline's downtown. All of Ann Street, we had our own grocery stores down there, barbershops, beauty shops. That whole downtown area was mostly African American people shopped there. I'm trying to remember what else was down there. We had a bakery, a drugstore. There's a bakery right there on Fourth Ave. There was a meat market. Everything we needed was right there. There was Diroff's where Zingerman's was, and Diroff's had a full line of beautiful meats, very nice vegetables, everything. My father, of course, had his garden. You could go get anything you wanted from there. Just say, hey, I'm over here picking some tomatoes or whatever. Everybody was welcome. There's a park there now, but it was directly across from our house.
  • [00:50:59] DONALD HARRISON: Are there any other things when you think of that neighborhood that stand out? I know you talked about playing at Summit, which is now called Wheeler. Are there other things that stand out in terms of a historic Black neighborhood?
  • [00:51:11] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, all the famous people that I didn't know at all, like the Arays. The Aray family, if you look it up, they were one of the people from New Jersey, Pittsfield township. They helped some people who escaped from the south, some enslaved people going to Canada. My sister married into the family. I didn't know that until I started doing research, and I believe that they helped some of my ancestors that I am now connected with. [NOISE] My goodness. Turn that off. That's my phone. That's mine.
  • [00:51:52] DONALD HARRISON: This is part 2. Took a little break. Jean, did you want to say anything about your [inaudible 00:52:00]
  • [00:52:00] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, our birth order. I had a brother and sister that were 9 and 10 years older than me. Then I had a brother a year older, a sister a year younger, and then Paula, the baby, was young enough to be my sister's daughter, 17 years. My mom had a baby in her 40s, and that's unusual then, so a lot of people thought it was Catherine's baby, my older sister, but Paula was my mom's. I remember when she went to the hospital and had her. It was unique because my mom went through the cycle so many times, graduating, and then three altogether, and then finally the baby. That's why Paula was out on her own when Jones School closed. We were all gone. We had all graduated and gone, left home, and so she really felt alone by herself and struggling, and left here and decided that she was not coming back. She went to Spelman, graduated from Spelman, and lived in Texas for a while, because her husband was in law school in Texas, but now she lives in Philadelphia, where she's a teacher and a good artist, a wonderful artist. She draws beautiful pictures and stuff. We all did really well for our parents.
  • [00:53:32] DONALD HARRISON: You went to Jones with a sibling?
  • [00:53:36] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, my two siblings. Then all of us had the same second-grade teacher, Ms. Donnelly, and so we all could compare along, but she didn't have that. She just had Madeleine Coleman and then they closed the school down after.
  • [00:54:06] DONALD HARRISON: Is there anything also, Jean-- We're sort of looking at Jones and what closing that did and didn't do. As you read the history, it's like, "Hey, we're going to fix this problem." Then they closed it and started busing. Although I think some kids weren't bused. Some kids had to walk a long way. But yeah, I'm curious again as far as if there's anything as you think back on what Jones represented for you or for the community and what closing it did or didn't do?
  • [00:54:46] OMER JEAN WINBORN: You know what, I don't think they got the result that they wanted to because they put those African American kids and I guess if you look at statistics right now, they're still not doing well, they're still below. What is it? Like I said before, you have to have teachers that care about people. You have to have teachers that care. It's not saying that because you're white you can teach Black kids but you to have people that care. You just can't say there's nothing we can do. It was an attempt at making things better but in essence, it made it worse. You'll notice that at African American colleges, the kids do really well. They do really well. Like Howard and all those places, Spelman, Morehouse, you have lots of African American people graduating and they do well. I can remember going to Central State and the support that I got from the African American instructors that I had. I was so tickled and so pleased. They were so concerned about my learning and just caring. It wasn't just that they cared for you as a student, but just as a person and I think that that was missing.
  • [00:56:28] DONALD HARRISON: When you think of Jones and your time there, are there any other activities, whether certain activities you did or music or any things you did beyond just class? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:56:39] DONALD HARRISON: Music is funny because I took piano lessons from Ms. McKinney and I wouldn't practice. I remember my dad bought a piano and it came from the beer garden in the window and he used to go there and listen to them play and so then he wanted me to play music so bad. My sister when she talks to you, he wanted us to play music. My brother ended playing, she played the violin. All the rest of the kids learned. I could not play the piano. Ms. McKinney said, "Your daughter is lovely, take your money and put it in your pocket. She does not want to learn how to play the piano." But my dad paid for lessons for us. I wondered why and I know why because he came from a musical family and so it was a big disappointment. I can remember just before he passed away, that piano would sit in our house and Ms. Jewel Clements would come across the street. She was related to the Rushes and the Calverts, Mr. Calvert's sister. She'd light up that piano. She'd be in there playing the piano. She'd come over to use the phone and then she'd get on the piano and play it and we'd have church up in there. I was feeling so bad that I had not listened and couldn't play the piano for my dad like that until he was passing away and he was sick with the cancer. My great-niece had a keyboard. I listened to her play and I went, "Oh my gosh, where did you learn how to play like that?" She says, "I just listened to music and play." I said, "Come with me." I took her to my dad's house. She was bouncing up the steps with the keyboard, it was a button on the steps. She set the keyboard up. He was really sick with cancer and she start playing the Michigan Fight Song. My dad sat up, he started grinning and I said, "Oh my gosh, the lesson goes on she learned." He was so happy because I was so sad that I couldn't play that piano for him, but she did.
  • [00:59:01] DONALD HARRISON: Were there any other activities that you remember from Jones or the Dunbar Center?
  • [00:59:10] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Now, a lot of the kids ice skated at the park. They did ice skating, they played basketball. My oldest brother was real good at football. If you look up in Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, you'll find his name because he did a lot of sports and he was in the paper a lot. Then Steve was musically inclined, and he also wrote beautiful poetry, and he was in plays, he made movies. A lot of activities. Our parents kept us busy. If we didn't have piano lessons at school or any instrument at school, they would have us do some. Every day we had some activity planned. Whether it was in church, community center, we'd be doing something.
  • [01:00:10] DONALD HARRISON: I think the last couple of things I want to ask you about is just, when you look back on the neighborhood then became Kerrytown and now all that side is called Water Hill by some people. When you think about what it is now, what's your take on it? Or what's your impression of where it's at now, what's happened to that area?
  • [01:00:38] OMER JEAN WINBORN: It is sad because it's like we never were there. It's like they're covering it up. They're such historical-- and I even found out more stuff about what was going on then and how supportive Ann Arbor was to the African American community. It just makes me sad because it's like no Black folks lived here. The churches are covered up, there's no markers on the churches. Those churches were started in 1865 and no historical anything and it's just sad. It's like we weren't there and we weren't a part of that community.
  • [01:01:19] DONALD HARRISON: Are there things that you would most want people to know? Because I think some of this history a lot of the younger people don't realize the level of segregation that was in Ann Arbor. I think if you're under 40, a lot of people don't know. Are there any things you'd most want people to know about that history now?
  • [01:01:37] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Absolutely. How supportive and strong that Black community was. The people that were there, and the Reverend Carpenters and the Dr. Wheeler's. Dr. Shelton was a doctor that was in our, and how involved these people were in our community. They weren't too good to talk to us. We all meshed together. It's sad to see that it's like they wiped us out and we're not there. It didn't matter to have somebody tell you that, "Well, the person that was here before said that they didn't want markers or anything." That's not true. We do. That needs to be recognized. We need markers there in that community to show that we were once there and how important that community was. I'm a living witness and my family is a living witness of what a community like that could do and how we grew up. If you check most of the African American people that are around my age are very successful, that came out of Ann Arbor, very successful.
  • [01:02:51] DONALD HARRISON: Are there any lessons or takeaways for somebody again to look at what happened and why that community that was in many ways thriving despite this situation? Are there any takeaways or lessons that you would want people to learn from, if there's another community that's doing well and trying to stay that way?
  • [01:03:15] OMER JEAN WINBORN: You don't have to be in a classroom next to a white person to learn. You could be in there with all the same people. But that was devastating to take and remove somebody. Just think about it. You're a white person. Think about what it would be like if they put you in the middle of all Black kids. How would you react? What were the things that you would do or say or not do or say? How would you have to learn about our culture instead of us learning about who you are? How would that make you feel? That's something that for the first time in my life, I was in a place where I felt welcome, I felt wanted, I felt like I could learn, and then all of a sudden I go to the next phase. I'm in the back of the class. People are ignoring me. I'm raising my hand, nobody's paying me attention. That could also happen in an all-Black class. Yes, it really affected. Just think about how you would feel. Most African Americans, that's how they are. Especially if you grew up in Ann Arbor, you're always one only in someplace with people that don't look like you and you have to learn how to adapt. I was speaking to a relative that came here from the South in middle school, and that's exactly what she was saying to me. How she had to maneuver going through, coming up, being around a lot of white people and not knowing how. Just feeling not wanted, not welcome. How would you feel, you open up a book and nobody looks like you? In fact, if you go to my house right now, I have all African American dolls all over my house because when I was growing up in Ann Arbor, I didn't have a Black doll. They didn't make Black dolls. I have all these beautiful African American dolls in my house and people look at me like I'm crazy. What's wrong with you? Because I never had the chance. My mom bought me a Tiny Tear but Tiny Tears were white.
  • [01:05:27] DONALD HARRISON: Jean, is there anything we didn't ask you or anything that you would want to say related to this project, to Jones, or your own perspective on Ann Arbor, and race, the Black neighborhood, and what's happened?
  • [01:05:45] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Well, thanks for allowing me to tell my own story. Like I tell, most African-American people, don't have anybody tell your story for you. You tell it yourself. I won't even speak for my sister or sisters. I let them tell their own story. Tell your own story. Everybody has a different perspective. My sister may not say the same thing or feel the same way that I do, but you need to tell your own story. Thank you for allowing me to do that.
  • [01:06:14] DONALD HARRISON: Thank you.
  • [01:06:16] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Because of the kind of work my mom did, like cleaning houses, she got exposed to white people that were middle and upper-class. One being G. Mennen Williams, the governor of Michigan. I didn't realize, until she had a scrapbook under her bed and there was a picture of him, and I went, ''Mom what are you doing with this picture of him?'' She says, "Oh, that's Soapy Williams, he's a real nice man." I said, "Yeah, well, I used to work for him." She worked for him and she worked for Dr. Frye, and they had a relationship. I am writing about that relationship. They had such a relationship for a white man and a Black woman. Nothing sexual but a genuine respect that he had from my mother and she had for him. She used to clean his office on Ingalls Street and his home. While she was cleaning the home, she took care of and raised his son and they ended up being our loyal doctors. I mean, if anything went wrong, she would preface with, "Dr. Frye said". We'd end up in that, like when I was five and I was in the hospital and I remember something happened. I wasn't being taken care of by the nuns. Dr. Frye came up there, I remember five years old, he had those nuns, they were running down the hall trying to get to me. Then I remember when my mom was sick with the cancer and she was up in the hospital and she was surrounded by the best cancer specialists from all over everywhere. The best doctors, a team of them were standing around her bed and she was leaving the room, and so the nurse came in and said, ''How do you know all those people?'' She said, "Oh, that's Carl Marvin, I raised him and his dad." But she had such a relationship, and I didn't find out until I was really old. It was almost when she was getting ready to pass away. It was in the '90s, that she never went to the U of M Hospital, and I didn't find out until then that her mom came to the North, because like I said, they were sharecroppers. My uncle would say that sometimes they would eat and sometimes they wouldn't. My grandmother got sick, had an asthma attack and went to the hospital and my mom went up there to take her some things and they told her that she had committed suicide. My mom was just devastated, and we knew that that wasn't true. She never really trusted another hospital except St. Joe's and she went there and trusted Dr. Frye and became good friends and everything he said he took care of us, totally, everything. Delivered all of her babies, everything, because she trusted in him. I asked dad why they never investigated or any of that, he said it just wasn't something that they would do, coming here from the South. Then finding out doing genealogy, that my dad, for three generations in his family had lost the women in his family. He knew from losing women in his family, and he was raised by cousins, the importance of family. I think that's why he had so many kids, and I think that's why he knew that education was the way, and that he stressed it, he lived it every day. We were never on welfare, we were never hungry. He was the amazing parent that I had. He knew that my mom would take care of getting us educated. He knew what his job was and that's what he did. We had the support, not only from them, but also from the community. I had an amazing community to raise me. I had a village, and that village was wonderful. My baby sister, unfortunately, did not have the opportunity like the rest of us did, but she got the support from my parents and from those people within the community, but not the support like Jones School, and we did. I thank you so much for asking me to tell my story.
  • [01:11:13] DONALD HARRISON: Sounds like your parents made the most of the opportunity. That's an incredible network that they built up.
  • [01:11:22] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah, they did. They had wonderful people. They worked for Washington Lumber Department, down, and so I remember, and I think Theresa still has a bookcase. Books were important and she bought us books. Do you still have that bookcase?
  • [01:11:40] Theresa Campbell: You have it.
  • [01:11:40] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, I don't have it. [LAUGHTER] I don't have the bookcase. What happened to the bookcase?
  • [01:11:45] Theresa Campbell: [inaudible 01:11:45] .
  • [01:11:47] OMER JEAN WINBORN: No, that's mine, I bought that. Anyway.
  • [01:11:49] DONALD HARRISON: I wonder if we conclude this but the two of you just getting on camera together, if you don't mind.
  • [01:11:55] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah. You don't have the bookcase? [OVERLAPPING].
  • [01:12:02] DONALD HARRISON: You're both here at the same time.
  • [01:12:02] Theresa Campbell: No, I don't. I helped build it down there.
  • [01:12:03] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I have my own bookcase. I bought that--
  • [01:12:04] Theresa Campbell: Okay, sweetie. Anyhow.
  • [01:12:07] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah. We have a bookcase we're fighting about. We're going to tell she says I have the book case, I don't have the book case?
  • [01:12:12] Theresa Campbell: Because I helped you build that bookcase.
  • [01:12:14] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I know. From the lumber yard, we got the bookcase, and you said I have it?
  • [01:12:25] Theresa Campbell: Jean, the thing is let's focus.
  • [01:12:27] OMER JEAN WINBORN: I don't have the book. You had the bookcase, what did you do with it?
  • [01:12:32] Theresa Campbell: No, I don't have it.
  • [01:12:32] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yes, you do.
  • [01:12:36] Theresa Campbell: Yeah.
  • [01:12:36] OMER JEAN WINBORN: You have the bookcase?
  • [01:12:37] Theresa Campbell: No, I don't.
  • [01:12:37] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah. Well, we got the book case. [LAUGHTER] I was just thinking about the stuff that we had. Remember Ms. Day that lived across the street?
  • [01:12:45] Theresa Campbell: Yeah.
  • [01:12:46] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Ms. Day was part of the Aray family, and Ms. Day had the china cabinet.
  • [01:12:51] Theresa Campbell: Yeah, the china cabinet.
  • [01:12:51] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Also, Tim had the table.
  • [01:12:55] Theresa Campbell: The table.
  • [01:12:57] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Now, the table's being passed and those were part of the Aray family and the Day family. All of our things that we have in each other's houses, we have parts of my mom. Paula has the china cabinet.
  • [01:13:09] Theresa Campbell: Yeah.
  • [01:13:10] OMER JEAN WINBORN: My baby sister Paula has a part of the china cabinet. It has a round glass.
  • [01:13:13] Theresa Campbell: Yeah.
  • [01:13:14] OMER JEAN WINBORN: It's probably worth a million dollars, maybe not to some people, but to us it was.
  • [01:13:18] Theresa Campbell: Yeah, to us it is.
  • [01:13:20] DONALD HARRISON: Have you two just briefly introduce the other and say whatever you think makes sense. Introduce each other and then we can wrap.
  • [01:13:27] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Okay. This is my sister Theresa, and she's a year younger than me. You know what, we fought constantly, and you know what our mother used to make us do when we fought? We had to hug each other and kiss.
  • [01:13:40] Theresa Campbell: Oh, my God. [LAUGHTER].
  • [01:13:41] OMER JEAN WINBORN: We had to say, "I love you, sister." [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING].
  • [01:13:47] Theresa Campbell: Oh, my God, I remember that.
  • [01:13:47] OMER JEAN WINBORN: We stopped fighting after that.
  • [01:13:48] Theresa Campbell: Yeah, because it got gross to me. [LAUGHTER] This is my sister Omer Jean. A lot of people call her Omer, I don't know her as that. I call her Jeanie, and she's a year and a half older than me. [LAUGHTER] We did, we fought but my parents said, fight at home, don't take it out in the streets, and we love each other. There's just a few of us left, so we're supportive of each other in the family.
  • [01:14:19] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah. There's only three of us left. My baby sister and the three of us are left.
  • [01:14:23] Theresa Campbell: Yeah. We've got to live with each other.
  • [01:14:26] OMER JEAN WINBORN: Yeah. Thank you for having us. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [01:14:29] Theresa Campbell: Thank you.
  • [01:14:29] DONALD HARRISON: Thank you, both.