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There Went The Neighborhood - Studio Interview: Audrey Lucas

When: February 1, 2022

Audrey Lucas was a student at Jones School during the 1940s, from third to ninth grade. She recalls having white teachers and classmates of many ethnicities, primarily Black Americans and Greek Americans. At this time many Ann Arbor businesses were not welcoming to Black people.

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

  • [00:00:17] DONALD HARRISON: Audrey Lucas, part one. I'm just going to have you start with your full name, and if you have any nicknames people know you by, and you're going to talk to me.
  • [00:00:31] AUDREY LUCAS: Okay. My name is Audrey Lucas, and I've lived here in Ann Arbor since 1941.
  • [00:00:43] DONALD HARRISON: Have you lived in Ann Arbor? Born and raised in Ann Arbor? Have you lived else where?
  • [00:00:47] AUDREY LUCAS: I lived in Connersville, Indiana, from the time I was born, that's where my families lived. My mother's people were from there, my dad's people were from there. Both of the families had moved there from Kentucky and settled in Connersville. They married and moved to Ann Arbor in September of 1941, just prior to the war starting in December 7th 1941.
  • [00:01:22] DONALD HARRISON: Can you tell me anything about your parents, their names, what they did for work? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:01:25] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh, yes, my father, his name was Benjamin Franklin Sleet. I always tell people I love the Sleet name but not on the ground because freezing rain is dangerous. But other than that, he, as I said, lived in Connersville. Of course, Connersville was not probably the best place for African Americans to live or work, because they only had a foundry, street work, or if you had an icebox, they could deliver ice. My dad worked for one of the doctors in town and he made a dollar a week. That's how we survived in Connersville until it was determined after my brother and I came along that they needed to do better. My mother had lived here in Ann Arbor, her name was Bertha Bell Sleet, and she had come up here to live with her stepsister for a while. They decided that because a lot of people could work in the fraternities and sororities, that maybe coming to Ann Arbor would be a better situation for them. They moved here in September of 1941, as I said earlier, just prior to the war starting in December.
  • [00:02:58] DONALD HARRISON: What did they do when they got here? What work did your parents end up doing?
  • [00:03:02] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, my mother did day work. She worked for a lot of families here, and she ended up working for a long time in a sorority house on Hill Street here in Ann Arbor. My dad, once the war started in December, he worked at one of the plants. Because he had worked for a doctor, he worked where they had emergencies, in the health area at the plant. That's where he worked for a number of years. Then after that he worked with a gentleman who was from our home town who had a rug cleaning business. He worked for a him for a number of years also. Then he worked at Buhr Machine Tool, which is on Greene Street, and that's where he retired from.
  • [00:04:02] DONALD HARRISON: Did your parents like it here? Like did you get a sense they were happy they moved here?
  • [00:04:08] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh, yes, they were very happy that they moved here. My dad would always tell people in a joking way that Indiana was a good place to be from. Then he would just laugh like he had never told that joke before. [LAUGHTER] But he also played a saxophone. When we lived in Connersville his family had a family band and they played all around for social and the little clubs that they had like in Richmond and Indianapolis, and his brothers were in the band and then my cousins, the nephews and things. There were very popular. But they had to be very, very careful because there would be signs in Indiana that would say, "Don't let the dark catch you here" and use the N word. I always think that people think that because Indiana is in the North and Ohio is in the North--but oftentimes they had segregation rules and laws. Like when I lived in Connersville, we had a little money to go down to the corner and get a coke. But you could not stay in there to drink the coke, you had to come out on the sidewalk to drink the coke. You were never allowed to sit down in that place. When I think about it, I think my dad's joke is a good joke. It is a good place to be from. Because even though as we came to Ann Arbor, they had things that were a little more subtle, it was still prevalent. But at least you could sit down in places and feel like you were an integral part of the city.
  • [00:06:11] DONALD HARRISON: When were you born, and how old were you when you moved to Ann Arbor?
  • [00:06:16] AUDREY LUCAS: I was born August 24th, 1934. I moved here after my seventh birthday. I turned seven in August and we moved here in September.
  • [00:06:33] DONALD HARRISON: For you, you were seven when you got to Ann Arbor, what was your impression of it when you remember. What was it like?
  • [00:06:41] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, it was just very different because in Connersville that's where my mother's family lived, that's where my dad's family lived, and one of my uncles had 17 children. Everything was pretty much based around family. My grandparents were still living except for my mother's mother. She had passed when she was eight. But they were very close-knit, they belonged to the same church there, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Connersville. In fact, one of my grandmothers and grandfathers they helped establish that church years ago in Connersville. When we came here, of course, we established going to church right away because that was just part of our upbringing to be a Christian and to always be kind and thoughtful of other people's situations. We joined the Second Baptist Church of Ann Arbor immediately, and started attending there as soon as we came back to Ann Arbor. My mother was coming back to Ann Arbor. They all became very active in the church.
  • [00:07:55] DONALD HARRISON: Where did you live in Ann Arbor?
  • [00:07:58] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, when we first came here, we lived on Greene Street, right down from the stadium. My uncle and his wife, there was a two-story house and they lived on the first floor of the house next door, my mother's brother and his wife. Then when we came, we lived in an upstairs apartment next door to where they lived with a woman by the name of Ms. Blakey, who owned the home. We lived there for about a year until we moved to the other side of town, because I attended Perry School when I first came here. Then when I went to Fifth Avenue and Kingsley, which is where we rented a house, that's when I started attending Jones School.
  • [00:08:55] DONALD HARRISON: Did you stay in that house for the rest of your childhood?
  • [00:08:58] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh, no. As a matter of fact, it's really interesting because I never knew that my dad was never interested in owning a home. Which came as a real surprise to me because I remember when I was an adult and my husband and I were looking to buy a home. He said, why would you buy a home? That's when we had the conversation. That was not even part of his thought process, that he would own a home. Even though my brother, who was 18 months younger than me, sat down one day and wrote out a budget for them and said, if you put this money aside then you could own a home in a certain amount of time. He looked at it and he said, "Oh, ain't that wonderful?" But I really found out later on that that was not really part of his thought process. Which was okay, everybody has a right to their own opinion about things. But I just thought everybody would like to own their own home, so that was a surprise.
  • [00:10:12] DONALD HARRISON: Did you stay in that house though?
  • [00:10:14] AUDREY LUCAS: No, because when you rent, you're at the owner's mercy.
  • [00:10:20] DONALD HARRISON: Did you then stay in that neighborhood?
  • [00:10:23] AUDREY LUCAS: We always stayed in that neighborhood. The reason we stayed in that neighborhood is my mother did not drive. We stayed in the neighborhood so that she could always get to church. We never lived further than a block or two from the church in all the houses that we ever rented. Because while the next house we lived in was on Fourth Avenue, and then we spent the largest time at 327 Beakes Street, and that was right up, half a block from the church. [LAUGHTER] We stayed there a long time.
  • [00:11:02] DONALD HARRISON: Cut this. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:11:04] TOKO SHIIKI: Rolling.
  • [00:11:04] DONALD HARRISON: This is going to be part two, Audrey Lucas. And where we last left off in our story, I think you were giving us a sense for that neighborhood that you had lived--
  • [00:11:19] AUDREY LUCAS: Right.
  • [00:11:19] DONALD HARRISON: Within walking distance, within a block and a half or two blocks from the church. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:11:23] AUDREY LUCAS: For my mother, convenience.
  • [00:11:26] DONALD HARRISON: Right. So you were walking distance to Jones.
  • [00:11:29] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes.
  • [00:11:29] DONALD HARRISON: Can you tell us about Jones and your experience? It might've been, what, 1st or 2nd grade that you started?
  • [00:11:36] AUDREY LUCAS: I started in Jones School in the 3rd grade. I had spent my first year in Connersville. Then when I moved here, as I said earlier, and we lived on Greene Street, I spent my 2nd grade at Perry School. Then when I moved over to 5th Avenue and Kingsley, that's when I started going to Jones School and I was in the 3rd grade. I can remember because, I share this with people, I went into the class and the teacher said, this is Audrey Sleet, and she looked at one of the young ladies who were sitting on the floor because they were reading, and she said, "Fran, I'm giving Audrey to you, and so you have to take care of her." She was a person who was Greek, who lived down the street from where I lived. She and I were friends until she passed away. We just established a relationship, and I would say to her all the time, "Remember Fran, you have to take care of me. No matter what you're doing you have to take care of me." [LAUGHTER] We did remain friends at Jones School and had lot of fun. Elementary school, of course, you know Jones School went right from elementary school into junior high school. All we did was change the side of the building that we went to. It was always fun walking to school because we'd all meet up. Fran had brothers and sisters and so sometimes we'd catch up and walk with them to school, even though they were coming in a couple of blocks further down. They would join up with me and we'd go past Detroit Street where Kerrytown and all this stuff is, and just cross the street and be at our school. And of course, there was a big playground there. That's where they played baseball. I was not very good at sports, but I enjoyed watching it, so that's where I spent most of my time on the sidelines. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:14:03] DONALD HARRISON: Did you like Jones? Do you remember what it was like? What stands out when you think back on your time there?
  • [00:14:11] AUDREY LUCAS: All of my time was very pleasant at Jones School, I would have to say. I never ran into anybody who discriminated against me or was racially unkind. Because for one thing, the school was primarily African American because of the way the neighborhood was set and the fact that our redlining had us all pretty much in a certain area, so almost everyone came to Jones School. In fact, we would even talk about the fact that when I lived across the street from the Calverts, I found out that Mr. Calvert had gone to Jones School that far back. One teacher had lived such a long time, she was a young woman and had taught him when he was in Jones School. Ms. Donnelly was her name, she still dyed her hair red. We just knew Ms. Donnelly was still there and able to teach. It was a good experience because we made very good friends. There, of course, were African Americans that would come in from further out, but at that time, most children walked to school no matter how far [LAUGHTER] away they lived from it. Then we had other friends that I made that I ran into later on in high school, and even worked at the university with because a lot of people started to work at the university. The friendships that I made even in Jones School, I was able to continue as a young adult and into adulthood.
  • [00:16:10] DONALD HARRISON: It doesn't have to be the exact years, but when would you have gone to Jones? What time period are we talking?
  • [00:16:20] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, let me see.
  • [00:16:21] DONALD HARRISON: Well, like early '40s?
  • [00:16:22] AUDREY LUCAS: That would have been '42 probably because we moved here in '41, and I had already been in the 1st grade. That Perry School experience would have been during September when I went to school at Perry School. Then so in '42 when we moved over on Fifth Avenue, that's where I had probably started going to Jones School.
  • [00:16:50] DONALD HARRISON: Did you go all the way through 8th grade or 9th grade?
  • [00:16:54] AUDREY LUCAS: Ninth grade.
  • [00:16:55] DONALD HARRISON: You went there 3rd through 9th? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:16:57] AUDREY LUCAS: Third through 9th grade.
  • [00:16:59] DONALD HARRISON: Basically we're talking 1940s?
  • [00:17:02] AUDREY LUCAS: Right.
  • [00:17:02] DONALD HARRISON: The war and then the war ending. [OVERLAPPING] The time period you were there?
  • [00:17:07] AUDREY LUCAS: That's exactly right. As I said, good friends. We began to have parties there. Mr. Gene Maybee was one of our principals. I really liked him. He let me work in the office sometime, and so I felt like he was a good boss and a nice person. He was always interested in the well-being of our class and that we had good thoughts and really upstanding ideas and those kinds of things. He was just a real person who was interested in you succeeding as an individual. There was only one incident that I can remember that happened. Because I sang in the choirs, and there is a verse to "Ol' Man River" that uses the N word. And the teacher just started singing the prelude to "Ol' Man River" and she used the word, and we didn't sing. It was like, you expect us to say that and to sing that? We were not only disappointed, but really thought that it was inappropriate. When I think back on it, though, I think the woman was just naive and thought that was the way the song was written, so that's what she was teaching. Of course, Mr. Maybee, he came and talked to us about the situation and apologized, and we never sang it again.
  • [00:19:08] DONALD HARRISON: I was going to ask you about that because I know that you told Heidi about that as well. I'm just going to, I said it, but to have you say roughly again, the years that you went to Jones just so that we have it.
  • [00:19:26] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes, I attended Jones school from 1942 until I left there because we went to Jones School through the 9th grade. That would have been what, '49? Because I graduated from Ann Arbor High School in 1952, and that was three years. I spent the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade at Ann Arbor High School. After leaving Jones School for all those years, that was kind of a different thing, because most people don't stay in the same school [LAUGHTER] that long, but that was just the way it was designed at that time. I think, again, because of the way the housing was done, that was just the place that we ended up. I have a girlfriend who went to Slauson, and I asked her, "How did you bypass Jones School [LAUGHTER] and get to Slauson?" But I think her mother, after she came to Ann Arbor, decided that she did not want her daughter to go to a school that was primarily Black. I think she thought that we didn't get the same kind of education and so consequently, she did not want her daughter to go there and so consequently she made enough confusion in town that she did get to go to Slauson.
  • [00:20:54] DONALD HARRISON: Was she also Black?
  • [00:20:56] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes. She was African American. That's why I was teasing her all the time. She was a member of our church. I just was wondering, how did you get to Slauson? Because she lived on our side of town. She had to pass Jones School to get to Slauson. That's why I was asking the question that how did you end up there when the redlining was still going on? But anyway, evidently people had ways to get around things. I think I understand what the mother was thinking because in all fairness to Jones School, there were not a lot of teachers that encouraged you to think about college classes. They didn't discourage you. But it wasn't one of the things that they were saying, "We're going to be preparing you to take college classes or prep classes so that you can be online and in line to go to college." And there were a lot of smart people in Jones School who would have taken that and ran with it and then some who didn't get it but ran with it anyway and ended up in very wonderful positions internationally and in this country.
  • [00:22:29] DONALD HARRISON: It's hard to say what those reasons would've been. You might not know, you might have a sense of it, but did you get the sense that was that maybe race but also class because was Jones also seen as maybe whether you were Greek or white or African American, Black. Was there also a sense that Jones School was socio-economically not as well off as Slauson or some of the other schools?
  • [00:22:58] AUDREY LUCAS: That is exactly right. I think even though Ann Arbor, the people in Ann Arbor worked, it wasn't like there was any fooling around and you didn't go to class because your mother was not pushing you to go to school. That's not true. Everybody wanted their children to succeed. But I think the teachers, sometimes in their mind, just thought that their parents are going to clean others people's houses, they're working as janitors and those kinds of things. That is probably going to be these students' life. Why are we going to talk about college? I don't know that that's true, but I'm thinking that that might have been part of what the thought pattern was at that time.
  • [00:23:58] DONALD HARRISON: When you think back on it, for you at that point, it sounds like race and discrimination because of the color of your skin wasn't as much of your experience, but do you feel that class-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:24:10] AUDREY LUCAS: The expectations were just different.
  • [00:24:12] DONALD HARRISON: Do you think for the Black students as opposed to the white students at Jones?
  • [00:24:16] AUDREY LUCAS: Right.
  • [00:24:17] DONALD HARRISON: Okay. I don't know if you can tell me just about that again how that felt.
  • [00:24:22] AUDREY LUCAS: That just felt like, because my parents did menial work, or did janitorial work or did housekeeping for people. The other reason is that because Ann Arbor did not have a lot of other different types of jobs for African Americans to do. That's what they were allowed to get into as far as their employment was concerned. I think if you think the city is never going to change, then the expectations for the children that you're looking at as a teacher is that they will follow in the same footsteps and end up working in food service or custodial work, or doing menial kinds of things for other people and not really succeeding in a professional type of position.
  • [00:25:28] DONALD HARRISON: There is also a question I had about the school song. Is there a school song at Jones? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:25:37] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes, we had a school song and I don't remember it right now. Did anybody sing it while they were here before? [LAUGHTER]. It's really funny because I had a guy that I grew up with and we were passing the school when it was Community High and he said, Audrey, I don't care what we do. We have to stop and sing the school song. We stopped in front of the school and we did sing the school song which I remembered at that time. But the only song that comes to mind is the one they put at Ann Arbor High School. Because I guess I had moved on in my mind, I left Jones school song behind. [LAUGHTER].
  • [00:26:17] DONALD HARRISON: So there was as a song, but I don't know if we'll ever find that out. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:26:21] AUDREY LUCAS: I don't know if anybody will, somebody will remember it I'm sure.
  • [00:26:26] DONALD HARRISON: I think you answered this question in terms of the quality of education. It sounds like it was okay but again, it wasn't really encouraging you towards college. I guess anything else as far as what you remember as far as school, did it feel like kids were really engaged? Was it fairly integrated? You said you had kids--
  • [00:26:50] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes, I mean, the color of the skin never counted. It was just who you were. If you didn't like a person it was because you just didn't like them. But I can't even think of anybody that I disliked in school. They were just all my friends and when you saw them, you were happy to see them. When you left at the end of the day, you're going to be happy that you're going to see them the next day. Sometimes every once in awhile you would run into little clicks and maybe feel like you were an outsider on a certain day. But you know, with children, that kind of thing never lasted that long. We also had the Dunbar Community Center where a lot of us went after school. You would run into some of the same people. Now, that was strictly African American. The Hispanics and the Greeks did not go to the Dunbar Community Center. But we had a lot of programs, dance programs, singing programs, and things that we were part of. Jones School was just another part of our life. The people that were there were just part of our life also because they were our friends and the people that we saw every day. I think some struggled more than others. But friends were friends and you didn't talk about those kinds of things. In fact, I had a Caucasian friend who I ended up working with for a long time at the university hospital when I started there. She lived in a neighborhood that her neighbors were all African American. Her father unfortunately, was an alcoholic. They were right there for her family and her mother. She felt very close to African Americans because she knew that her neighbors had been the ones who stepped up to the plate and helped them out when they had difficulties in their home.
  • [00:29:11] DONALD HARRISON: You went there early '40s and late '40s, World War II was happening and then it ended. Do you remember anything about being in school at that time? Were there like victory gardens at Jones, or-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:29:30] AUDREY LUCAS: There was always the war impact because even today, sometimes when they run old pictures years ago in Ann Arbor News, I could see pictures of my mother in line to get rationing stamps. That was all just part of the war. You just knew that there were some things that you could get, other things that you couldn't get. Then you had to have stamps to get other things, and some things you just never could find because they were out of your range. Because of the type of work that my mother and father did, we never had a lot of money. But I think in school, most of the children there didn't have a lot of money, so there was never, "Oh, I'm envious of that dress or I'm envious of that coat or the shoes that you wear," because most people, were on the same plane and you got a pair of school shoes to start school with and that's what you usually ended up school with. Those same shoes. And one of the things though that you always had to be aware of that no matter what your status was, you had to be clean and neat. You could not just walk around in dirty clothes or not take care of yourself physically because my mother would always say there is too much soap and water around for you to be unclean ever. That was a standard that we had in our house. She would always say nothing is dirty as long as there's soap and water to clean it.
  • [00:31:25] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember much more about the teachers? As I understand that they probably didn't have any African American teachers.
  • [00:31:34] AUDREY LUCAS: We did not have any African American teachers. As a matter of fact, my girlfriend that went to the Slauson, graduated from the University of Michigan, and she taught Spanish and French. They would not hire her In Ann Arbor Public School system. That's why she went to Massachusetts. I always laugh at that because she ended up being the head of the department there. She could speak those languages fluently. I mean, that's just how well versed she was. I often think that it's too bad that people let that kind of thing happen because they're the ones who missed out. They are the ones who did not have the opportunity to really get an integral part of somebody else's knowledge because of race.
  • [00:32:43] DONALD HARRISON: Did you ever have any African American teachers even through high school?
  • [00:32:47] AUDREY LUCAS: No. I did not have any African American teachers.
  • [00:32:54] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember Mr. Pitts, the janitor? [OVERLAPPING] Was he there when you would've been there? Was there anybody who-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:33:04] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh, Mr. Pitts? Gilbert Pitts? Oh, yes. He was a custodian there and I knew his family. Mr. Pitts was always Mr. Pitts. He was wonderful to everybody. Everybody loved him.
  • [00:33:23] DONALD HARRISON: He worked at the school and he was Black, African American? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:33:27] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes. He worked there for years and he was the same every day and you could tell him anything that you wanted to. If you had problems, he would look out for you. He was just a wonderful guy, when I'd see some of these programs now where people are honoring a custodian or a nurse or somebody that's worked with them because they took special interest in the children, that was Gilbert Pitts.
  • [00:33:57] DONALD HARRISON: You already touched on this, but the question being back then, did some parents feel that Jones wasn't as good as the other schools which would have been predominantly white schools?
  • [00:34:14] AUDREY LUCAS: There was Tappan and Slauson and then of course they had University High too.
  • [00:34:20] DONALD HARRISON: Let's talk about the middle schools.
  • [00:34:24] AUDREY LUCAS: The middle schools, I'm not sure. I knew that they had a University High School. I didn't know whether they had lower grades or not. But I know Tappan and Slauson were the other junior high schools that people could attend.
  • [00:34:43] DONALD HARRISON: Did you ever have a sense back then that they were better, if they were or how Jones fit in to this?
  • [00:34:49] AUDREY LUCAS: I think probably at that age and stage in my life, I didn't even think about it, one being better than the other. I just knew that what we went to was Jones School because that's where we lived and the only other reason than I ever thought about it was because my friend who ended up going into Slauson and I'm thinking how did that happen and why did it happen when she went by Jones school to go to Slauson and I'm thinking what is the deal? But that was because her mother wanted something better for her and she thought she would not get it at Jones School.
  • [00:35:33] DONALD HARRISON: Did you ever get a sense of whether that was true by talking to her.
  • [00:35:39] AUDREY LUCAS: I know that she ended up being a French and Spanish teacher [LAUGHTER] and graduating from the University of Michigan.
  • [00:35:49] DONALD HARRISON: I'm guessing French and Spanish might not have been at Jones.
  • [00:35:52] AUDREY LUCAS: Right. Right.
  • [00:35:57] DONALD HARRISON: I'm curious too then for, I think as far as jumping ahead, I also want to ask more about the neighborhood, but later when you got through school and you said you graduated in '52, and then Jones would've been closed in '64, '65 time frame, were you aware of that [OVERLAPPING] Did you follow that story?
  • [00:36:24] AUDREY LUCAS: No. I knew that they were closing the school, of course, because I had always loved reading the paper and so I kept up with things that were going on in Ann Arbor. I still do today because it's where I live. I knew that they were at closing Jones School. Of course, things all around us were changing because they were talking about, the business about discrimination was becoming alive. There were the other things that were going on eventually down South with the busing and them not being able to go to schools at all. At least here in Ann Arbor Jones School was integrated. But then they started to bus, even here in Ann Arbor, so that the balance of integration, they wanted to be sure that that was happening in Ann Arbor because we didn't want to be looked at as a place that discriminated and had a school that was just full of African Americans, so I'm sure that's one of the reasons that they decided to close Jones School at that time because the world was changing and the view of how the school looked was also changing. And Ann Arbor being a progressive kind of city, I'm sure, did not want to be viewed as a school that just had a school that, was primarily African Americans.
  • [00:38:05] DONALD HARRISON: Then did you follow the story much as that played out and what was happening in Ann Arbor in those late sixties?
  • [00:38:14] AUDREY LUCAS: I was very aware of things even when they started the busing, because I took a job at the university hospital in '52 after I graduated and I kept in touch with everything because I wasn't that far from high school at that time. I just knew I needed to get a job to work. But I can remember in high school planning on going to the prom and hoping that my mother would be able to afford a dress that I could wear to go to the prom. I missed out on going and when I was in Ann Arbor High School, they always took the senior class to Washington D.C. and my parents could not afford it. Only three of the African Americans that were in my class when we graduated, went on the Washington trip. I was just talking to that same friend who now lives in Georgia, the one I've known since I was seven. She finally told me about that trip, it was terrible. It was a terrible trip. They did not let them go to any of the things with their white classmates on that trip.
  • [00:39:50] DONALD HARRISON: Because they were Black?
  • [00:39:51] AUDREY LUCAS: Because they were Black and Washington D.C. discriminated at that time in '52. They were put in a car when it was breakfast time and taken to a place where they could eat breakfast. They did not stay in the same hotel. They never went to the same places that the white students went, they found something for them to do and I said, "You never told me that that's what happened on the trip to Washington D.C." And I thought why would the public school here in Ann Arbor say to African American students, you're going on a Washington trip with us and then know that it was going to be so discriminating that they were going to be treated differently. It's still amazing to me because she and I will just on the phone this past week and we were laughing about that. And I said, "I am so happy [LAUGHTER] my mother was too poor to send me on the trip."
  • [00:40:58] DONALD HARRISON: That wasn't quite the educational experience you would've imagined nor wanted.
  • [00:41:02] AUDREY LUCAS: Right. Right.
  • [00:41:05] DONALD HARRISON: Just to get your perspective on segregation and discrimination when you were growing up in Ann Arbor. You were mostly in that neighborhood. Were you aware of the redlining at that time or was it unspoken but everybody kind of knew it? What is your sense of-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:41:23] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, really and truly, I knew that there was discrimination because when I was growing up and going to Jones School, the gentleman who lived across the street from us housed African American student men who were attending the University of Michigan, because they did not have housing for them on campus. My mother, who fed everybody who was hungry, fed those young men across the street. We had waffle suppers on Saturday night and they were at our house all the time because she wanted to be sure that they did not go hungry. They ended up graduating from the University of Michigan and having wonderful jobs. They became doctors, they became engineers, and the one that became an engineer, he's the one who tried to help me with my algebra when I was not doing so well in the algebra class [LAUGHTER] at Jones School. He just would come over and spend time with me to try to help me get through algebra. I got through it but it was not a star. But anyway, at least I made it through and I graduated [LAUGHTER] on to go to Ann Arbor High School and I had a good experience there.
  • [00:42:55] DONALD HARRISON: I'm curious, Audrey, going to school in that neighborhood, living in that neighborhood, church in that neighborhood, the Dunbar Center, all within a few blocks, how much did you venture out into other parts of Ann Arbor? Did you feel that you could? Did you feel there were places that you weren't welcome?
  • [00:43:13] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes. We knew the places that we could go and feel comfortable. We went to the Whitney Theater every Saturday and stayed all day and watched the same movie over and over again because our friends were there. But we knew that at certain places you would not going to stop to get a hot dog or a coke. There were some places that were happy to see you and always waited on you and then there were other places that you knew you just did not go into. It's like a sense of experience. I can remember my mother when she was coming and stopped at the Kresge's that was right there on North University and State Street. She came home and I remember her saying to me, I sat down there and I waited for that girl to wait on me and all she did was walk around me all afternoon. She said I'd still be sitting there until I finally said to her, "I'm sitting here and I would like for you to wait on me." She did begrudgingly, but I don't know that it was a store policy. It might have been just an individual who felt that she did not want to cater to African Americans. But I just thought that was strange because my mother was one of the sweetest people in the world and I would just laugh when she said, she walked all around me like I was nothing [LAUGHTER]. She was really incensed about that. How dare you? I ate at that same drugstore when I went to high school every day at the hot dog counter. Mary was the woman who waited on us. I love Mary and she was always so lovely to us. That's because it was quick, it was cheaper. We had our hot dog and we went back to class. I didn't really know, I understood what my mother was talking about sitting at the counter, but I never went to the counter, so I never had to worry about anybody walking around me because I was never sitting there.
  • [00:45:23] DONALD HARRISON: Your sense of the business community in the old neighborhood, Ann Street, Fourth, what is your recollection of what that neighborhood, I think the historic Black business district, what was that like when you were growing up?
  • [00:45:40] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, the business district of course on Ann Street, we were not allowed to go up there, because it had beer gardens, and they played pool, and they did all these things that our pastor, Reverend Carpenter, did not feel was wholesome for young people. Consequently, we would walk all around and I never went on that block. I never went on that block until I was grown, because there was a grocery store on the corner, and we went to that grocery store, but we always went down Fourth Avenue, up Main Street, into that store and we came back home the same way. We never walked down Ann Street, which we could have done. It would've been easier to go back to our house. Some things are just innate, that it's what you know, it's what you do because that's how you live. There were other friends who I knew that worked on Ann Street because they had to work and that's who hired them, to shine shoes or to go in there and help sweep the floors and that kind of thing, because those people who owned the businesses were African Americans, and they, I understand, did very well. So they would reach out and help some of my friends who came from poorer situations. As I said, it was just the way the lifestyle was. Fortunately for us, even though we were poor and didn't have a lot of things, you accepted that for what it was, but there was so much love around, especially in my family that you never thought that you had lost out on anything.
  • [00:47:53] DONALD HARRISON: Did you feel that in the neighborhood?
  • [00:47:55] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes.
  • [00:47:56] DONALD HARRISON: How would you describe what that was like?
  • [00:47:59] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, when you had good neighbors, you spoke to them and in ours, that's where we went to the same church, some went to the Methodist Church, but you just were accepted wherever you went. And because I sang, I was going different places a lot of times, and if somebody passed at the Methodist Church, I would sing for their funeral or I would sing at my church for funerals or just because I was in the choir. Then I was blessed to sing at other things as like I sang for G. Mennen Williams' inauguration years ago. Then I sang at a Republican dinner and they said, "The last time she sang it was for a Democrat." [LAUGHTER] But anyway, it was that thing. They always treated me very kind, nobody ever said, "Oh, here comes the African American girl who's going to sing for us." They just treated me as a person who they had asked to sing and I was doing it.
  • [00:49:15] DONALD HARRISON: Did you venture much down to Summit Park in that area?
  • [00:49:19] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes.
  • [00:49:20] DONALD HARRISON: What do you remember?
  • [00:49:21] AUDREY LUCAS: I just remember that we were blessed to be in a park that had a big trash bin across the street from us [LAUGHTER].
  • [00:49:32] AUDREY LUCAS: Also the slaughterhouse was right next door and then we just figured this was a Black neighborhood. That's where they put those kinds of things and you just accepted it as something the city gave you as a gift. [LAUGHTER] You were just stuck with it. But you make the best of it. You go in there and get the cracklins. And they were good and you can just come out and smack on those and be grateful for it and run home. Because you could smell that slaughterhouse all over the neighborhood. That's just the way we lived.
  • [00:50:12] DONALD HARRISON: When you look back on it now, what's your perspective on what that neighborhood was like when you were growing up, and then what it is now?
  • [00:50:22] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, as I talk about it now and when we talk about it, some of my friends, we'd always talk about the cracklins. But it was just so inbred that this was the way we lived that they came up with a solution to get--where they haul trash there across from the Summit Street Park--they were able to get that out of our sight, that was truly a blessing. I can remember walking down the street and it being gone and it was like, I never thought this would happen. I just thought this would always be in the neighborhood. Then of course, after integration. Integration, as far as I'm concerned, it's like I just saw the information that they're talking about Idlewild. Idlewild just going bust after African Americans had the right to go into places on an integration level and that's what I think happened in Ann Arbor. I think that because of the area, and this is just my thinking that some of the housing was not as expensive as other areas in Ann Arbor. All of a sudden, other people became interested in the neighborhood and then when they started playing songs and things on the porch up on Summit Street and Peach--not Peach, but the thing that makes it Water Hill, what is that? [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING]. Spring. Fountain. It was just wonderful. I thought, look at this, people are coming into our neighborhoods. But then the price went up. Real estate went sky high, and everybody wanted to live in Water Hill. Then people who had been selected [LAUGHTER] to live there couldn't afford it anymore. They were just the odd man out. I can remember a friend [LAUGHTER] calling me on the telephone and he said, "I just went by where I used to live, Audrey, and they got two houses up there, bigger than what we ever had." And he said, "I am ticked off about it. They have come into our neighborhood and they have taken it over and taken it from us, that was his attitude." And like I told you the one girl will not even ride down the street because she said when she looks down that street and sees that housing that now has happened. And some of them even though they don't have a lot of property, they had put houses sideways so that they can live there because it was, I guess, the most reasonable place for them to put their money in and build a new house. Some of my friends live there and he said to me, "Yeah, I saw my new neighbor and I spoke to him. They didn't speak." I said, "They didn't speak? Maybe they didn't hear you." He said, "That's what I thought," he said, "but I saw him again and I spoke again, 'Good morning' and they didn't speak." He said, "They will not get another good morning from me." So I don't know whether the neighbors speak yet or not. That was I thought it was unusual unless this person was just not happy he was living next to an African American. But I thought why, you knew that before you moved in, before you built, so everybody's got their own view and way of doing things. I just say people have to be who they are and we keep stepping.
  • [00:54:27] DONALD HARRISON: How are you feeling? Do you want me to put the heat on, take a little break or do you want to keep going? I've got a handful of questions, this is great.
  • [00:54:35] AUDREY LUCAS: I'm fine.
  • [00:54:36] DONALD HARRISON: Okay. Let's go ahead then, I think. I'm curious in terms of what you remember of urban renewal. Right now we're talking about Water Hill and what is there now, but there was this whole shift, Jones closing in '64.
  • [00:54:55] AUDREY LUCAS: Have you all talked about the fact that they were going to put a highway through our neighborhood?
  • [00:55:01] DONALD HARRISON: I'd love to hear your take on that.
  • [00:55:03] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, Reverend Carpenter, who was our pastor, was very well-known in the community. He knew the politicians and they respected him as one of the African American leaders of the community. He got wind of the fact that they were going to run this highway off of Broadway down Beakes Street, turn on Main Street, go out Huron and connect to 94. That was before we had M-14. We, of course, were not aware of it, but he was aware of it and he fought tooth and nail against it. Because in the planning my understanding is that they were going to remove us but they didn't have a place to remove us too. It was just like they'll be gone. Where are they going to go? Needless to say, he fought it and brought it to the light. The questions that were not being answered really detoured us from having this happen.
  • [00:56:26] DONALD HARRISON: You remember roughly when this was playing out?
  • [00:56:30] AUDREY LUCAS: I was still on Beakes Street so it had to be in the '50s. I don't think we had gotten to the '60s yet. I think it was before all the other things were happening down South with Martin Luther King and things like that. This was just our little brush with somebody trying to change our whole way of living without having a place to live. [LAUGHTER] In fact, The Observer some time ago--and I have that somewhere in my house because I kept it--had brought it to people's attention about what Reverend Carpenter did during that time to prevent them having us all moved out of that area to run the traffic so that it could come right through the city and downtown and connect to 94.
  • [00:57:32] DONALD HARRISON: I'm wondering too, Audrey, I have a note here as far as you've mentioned redlining a couple of times and why the neighborhoods were pretty much where most of the African American community lives. Do you remember when that came to light or to what degree it did?
  • [00:57:48] AUDREY LUCAS: I'm not sure, all I know is that there were people--I overheard one of our members talking about them not being able to buy a house. The employer that they worked for who happened to be Caucasian, they fronted it. That's how they were able to get the house. That they turned it over to them after they purchased it with their money, and that's how they were able to get a house and that was up on Miner Street. I often wondered how many other people had that kind of problem. Now that I found out that my father wasn't interested in buying a house anyway [LAUGHTER] I'm sure that it was not an issue for us, but I think of other people who really wanted to buy houses and bought in the redlined areas. Then all of a sudden when things were changing, the redlining, I'm assuming, came in front of everybody's view. Of course, at that time, more professionals, African American professionals, were moving into Ann Arbor and really had money to buy in other areas. They didn't have to settle for the areas that we were in at the time, even though the homes were nice. People who had homes, they were nice homes and they took care of them. They took pride in cutting the grass and painting and make sure we didn't have shabby houses. We did not have run-down real estate because if you took the money to buy a house, that meant that you wanted to keep it up and have standards for the house.
  • [00:59:48] DONALD HARRISON: Do you remember into the '70s when the neighborhoods did start to change? I forget what year Summit became Wheeler Park.
  • [01:00:05] AUDREY LUCAS: After Mayor Wheeler.
  • [01:00:07] HEIDI MORSE: I think it was '70s or '80s.
  • [01:00:09] DONALD HARRISON: So you had things like in the early '80s Zingerman's replaced Diroff's. Do you have a sense of--it didn't happen real quick, but do you remember feeling like, I guess I'm asking about gentrification.
  • [01:00:28] AUDREY LUCAS: I'm trying to think now that she said '73, I had my first child in '65 and then we bought a house out off of Stone School Road. I was out of the neighborhood when things like that were happening, even though my aunt, who lived to be 102 had a home on Summit Street and my cousin lived right next door to her. She lived to be 102, but she was really with the program. And I think you could see some of the changes as people would tear down some of the older homes that were in the redlined area and build new houses on sites. And they felt like it was a choice that they made. It wasn't because they had to go. It was because they found the property that they liked and they could build another home on it. It was that kind of thing that I saw happening at that time. Then people were also buying in other areas. Like I know out there where I live was for low-income housing because Ann Arbor knew that they had a need for it. And Bert Smokler built all these low-income houses, but then they decided that they would build also some medium-income houses. So they put some tri-levels and bi-levels up. That's when my husband and I went out and we purchased one of the tri-levels. But of course, that area is changing also now. Just because if you keep living, life changes. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:02:23] DONALD HARRISON: I'm curious to hear your perspective on that. Because it seems like there was the pros and cons of the fact that it was such a tight-knit community, it was because of redlining and discrimination that the Black community was pretty much in two or three neighborhoods near Jones and Mack Schools. And then in the '60s, you have this opening up and busing and desegregation efforts. People started moving into different places, had a lot more movement. But then you started to not have that close-knit community. So I'm just curious of your perspective. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [01:03:07] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, we had Black people who lived in other areas. They had little pockets. Like when we were talking about the walking tour, Joyce decided she did not want to include them because she didn't want people walking all over because there was people who lived up on Pontiac Trail, Plum Street, which is now John A. Woods. Woodlawn had a street full of African-Americans, just that one block, and Sheehan, which went around the corner. And they were isolated because somehow they got a foot in the door and I'm thinking personally that once they got the foot in the door, if there were Caucasian people, maybe they left. That gave other Black people an opportunity to get into the neighborhood also. You kind of wonder about those kinds of things as to why those little pockets developed. But if you think about the times you know that if one got a foot in the door, maybe other people got a foot in the door because other people did not wish to stay in the neighborhood. But now I see Ann Arbor is such, especially with the pricing of things, people will live wherever they can get into, that they can afford. But I can remember when my cousin, who was a superintendent of Hawthorne, she worked with emotionally disturbed children and Dr. Rabinowitz's who was over there, the governor asked him to start a school out at Hawthorne and Plymouth. She worked as a teacher of the university and she asked if she would go with him. She ended up running the place and she was excellent in her field. She moved to Detroit and then she decided she was going move back to Ann Arbor. I went to live with her. I found out later on, the people who rented us the home had gone door-to-door and said, "We're getting ready to rent the house to African American people. Is that okay with you?"
  • [01:05:43] AUDREY LUCAS: I was just floored that they felt the need to go and ask their neighbors who they could rent their house to. And there was only one family who did not want it to happen. Everybody else was in agreement, so we rented there and we were good neighbors. Even the people who did not want us there got to know us and we became friends. As I think about that, that to me--I was a grown person--I thought, "Who still does things like that? Ask your neighbors if you mind if African Americans move into your house."
  • [01:06:36] DONALD HARRISON: Is there anything that we haven't asked you yet that you feel that you would want people to know? Because I think there's so much history of Ann Arbor that I think people don't know, people who live in what's now called Water Hill. Some of them now, people who are younger, don't know this. So in many ways we're making this project for people who are younger, and don't know some of this history. But are there any things you'd want people in Ann Arbor and beyond to know about your sense of Ann Arbor, whether it's related to race, whether it's related to your experience in that neighborhood and Jones?
  • [01:07:18] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, you and I had a chance to just mention some things that I have some concerns about. Now, I think I'm disappointed in the city because I thought the city was always a lovely place. Now, they seem to be willing, for money, to do anything. Put up ugly buildings in neighborhoods and say that that's okay. To me, that's not okay. It used to be that we took pride as a city in how the city looked. And to me, it was always a beautiful place to be. Now, I think to myself, I don't need to go downtown because this town is now just interested in bicyclists and pedestrians and eating outside. That seems to me like what the city concentrates on. Then every once in a while, they talk about, ''We're really going to work to get some more low-income housing.'' My cousin worked at the YWCA that had low-income housing for people who came into the city. When they tore that down, I can remember the people in charge at that time said, ''We are going to be getting more low-income housing for people who come into the city so that they won't have to worry about the expensive rents and all the other things because we're a university town.'' That has not happened. It has just been a conversation. To me, it's just like, I don't even bother to read it anymore because you know that it is not true, that they say it, but they don't mean it. It's those kinds of things that I see happening in the city. I don't think the city is racist, I think they're greedy at this point in time and that there are people who want things to be their way and what is perceived as being cautious. They looked at the accident rates about some of the streets on campus. Well, now that they're starting to go out State Street and going down to Eisenhower and all those other places, and they're going to whine and they're going to worry about the bicycles and pedestrians again. They said the accidents, they're going to try to have less accidents. I've lived in this town so long. Those students are up there. They just expect you to stop. They don't care that they're maybe walking down or texting or on the telephone. Then you wonder why we have accidents? It's not necessarily the car's fault, it's because we have given them the feeling that you're going to stop no matter what and who I am and that's it. I am not mad at them. I just think that's just how we live here in Ann Arbor. It just makes me think as an individual that I don't have to deal with any of this. I don't go up there anymore. I love to go to the Michigan Theater. I'm a Premier member up there. I love going to the movies up there. But the town has just changed and I am old enough and smart enough to know that if you keep living, things will change. Nothing stays the same. And the only person that you have control over is yourself and what you will accept and what you will not get involved in.
  • [01:11:26] DONALD HARRISON: Is there anything, Heidi, that you want like me to ask, Audrey about that we didn't. Because you've seen Ann Arbor since the early 40s.
  • [01:11:44] AUDREY LUCAS: Right. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:11:44] DONALD HARRISON: That's a really good perspective on-- [OVERLAPPING]
  • [01:11:47] AUDREY LUCAS: There were 35,000 people here when we came. And the university.
  • [01:11:56] DONALD HARRISON: It's got a lot bigger then.
  • [01:11:57] AUDREY LUCAS: Right.
  • [01:12:02] DONALD HARRISON: It sounds like you've really had a good experience and that you like it. [OVERLAPPING]
  • [01:12:08] AUDREY LUCAS: I love Ann Arbor. I don't love everything about it like I used to. [LAUGHTER] Because when the councilwoman says, "Yes, we put up an ugly building, but we get a lot of taxes from it." I thought, is that, are we coming to a city that that's all you care about, long as you get the taxes from it, that anything will go? That saddened me.
  • [01:12:39] DONALD HARRISON: Then also I know Ann Arbor has had a reputation, especially in the '60s and '70s for being very progressive, liberal.
  • [01:12:48] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh it's all over the map.
  • [01:12:49] DONALD HARRISON: Even radical.
  • [01:12:51] AUDREY LUCAS: Right. And now, it used to be that the Republicans were all in charge. Now the Democrats are in charge and so they lie. Even though they are Republicans, they swear they're Democrats or they're Independents who are still Republicans. [LAUGHTER] You just know that that's the town that you live in. Then you make a conscious decision about what is acceptable to you as an individual and let the rest go. But I just pray every day that maybe somebody will say money is not everything. Because I know when you have a university town and so much of that you don't get taxes on, you've got to find a way to support the things that you need for a city. I'm not so stupid I don't know that. But to what degree do you just say, anything goes, and let the rest just go to heck in a hand basket. Fortunately, I am an 87 year-old African-American woman, who is in reasonably good health and glad to be here and I'm just going to enjoy my days [LAUGHTER]. And let it go with that.
  • [01:14:15] DONALD HARRISON: Yeah.
  • [01:14:16] AUDREY LUCAS: But I read the Ann Arbor paper, I read the Detroit Free Press because I want to know what's going on in the world, and I love reading the paper and the magazines and articles and historical stuff. I'm at that age and stage where I just love to get involved in those kinds of things.
  • [01:14:34] DONALD HARRISON: Yeah. I have note here too. I think you said this when you talked to Heidi before, but in terms of your growing up in Ann Arbor for most of your childhood, there were these incidents and moments you remember that you felt discriminated against, but it sounds like that didn't impact your experience as much as maybe some other people that we've talked to, maybe who are even younger.
  • [01:15:03] AUDREY LUCAS: Right. I think a lot of it depends on your own attitude. See I was raised by people who said that you're equal to anybody. You don't have to take a back seat to anybody. I don't see it because I don't look for it [LAUGHTER]. I don't look for people to discriminate against me because I don't discriminate against them. I came from such a loving family that I think that if you project a loving attitude to people, most of the time, they just will project that same thing back or at least leave you alone and they're not going to be ugly to you. I think that's been the blessing that I have experienced. We've always been people who went out of our way--like my brother, the one that was next to me, started a tutorial program. He started in the basement of the Methodist church. Then the university hired him and they sent him all over the country to start tutorial programs based on the program that he started here. My cousins all went on to teach and be in charge of things. I had good role models. Then of course I went to the university. Even though I started as an elevator operator, I went to business school at Cleary. And when I went into HR, I guess I came at the right time and I don't think I was promoted just for affirmative action kinds of things. They just saw something in me that allowed me to grow. They asked me, they said, "We want you to be in a professional position." I'm thinking, "Oh, wow." But I know in my heart of hearts that I was chosen for that role, because I knew how to help people. Because I would talk to the young people who were coming in there for part-time jobs. And I see some of them on the street today, and I say, "Do you remember that the speech I gave you when you came in for a job?" They said "Yes." Because I would tell them, "I can help you get this job. I can't keep it for you, you have to work for it. That means you come to work every day on time to work. Period." When they'd come back and something had happened, I said, "You remember we had that conversation. I can't save you." I've saved a lot of them several [LAUGHTER] times. But I count it a blessing really and truly, that I was put in a place where I could help people because that's what my family has always done. I get that naturally from my mother. As I said, who didn't let anybody--any bum that came to our door ate. Because she wanted to be sure that they were not hungry. Anyway that's the way I was raised and I count it a blessing that I was put in that kind of place. I think I was rewarded by the people that I was able to help on the way up.
  • [01:18:41] DONALD HARRISON: Audrey when you retired, what was your last position that you were? [OVERLAPPING]
  • [01:18:44] AUDREY LUCAS: I was a human resource consultant. I was what they considered a content expert for the AFSCME contract. Because I handled AFSCME contract, the trades contract, and they had the police had unionized and I handled that contract.
  • [01:19:05] DONALD HARRISON: Was this as and independent or were you at [OVERLAPPING] ?
  • [01:19:08] AUDREY LUCAS: No, at the university.
  • [01:19:09] DONALD HARRISON: Great. Is there anything else that you would?
  • [01:19:17] HEIDI MORSE: I have a couple of questions. I know singing was important to you. Were you ever recorded singing alone or as a group?
  • [01:19:26] AUDREY LUCAS: I did when I was with the Robbins and Willis.
  • [01:19:31] DONALD HARRISON: I'm going to have you pretend I asked that question, so you're still looking at me. So, singing, recording?
  • [01:19:37] AUDREY LUCAS: No. I didn't stay in the group because I was doing other things. But Willis started a group, Willis Patterson. He runs "Our Own Thing" group now and he's known internationally anyway. I was the girl singer, and then there was a tenor, two basses, and a baritone, and myself. We sang all around here at parties and things and had a good time. Then of course I sang in the Choral Union, and I sang different solos and for, like I said, the G. Mennen Williams and the Republican Party dinners and those kinds of things. But as far as recording, when I retired, somebody made a tape. Somewhere they had been that I had sung and they had me on that tape, but I never tried to go out and record things on my own. Because I love to sing, but it was just a sideline for me. It wasn't something that I was trying to go out to be Diana Ross and things. I didn't get to Motown [LAUGHTER].
  • [01:21:03] DONALD HARRISON: There wasn't an A town.
  • [01:21:05] AUDREY LUCAS: Yeah [LAUGHTER].
  • [01:21:09] HEIDI MORSE: You have younger siblings, right?
  • [01:21:11] AUDREY LUCAS: I have yes. Just my brother. The one I was just talking about, started the tutorial programs. Just the two of us who were 18 months apart. It was always Audrey and Dick, Audrey and Dick, Audrey and Dick, Audrey and Dick. And then when I was 15, my mother got pregnant, and I was so angry at her. I thought, how dare you have a baby? I'm 15 years old. She had Phil, and when I was 19 for a P. S., change of life, she had Grant. I had two younger brothers, same mother, same father. We're just years apart, but we are so close because we were taught the same values and they learned what we learned from our mother and dad. They're just a blessing. In fact, when I spoke at my brother's funeral, I said I was really angry at my mother for having these two boys what I thought late in my life. I said, but somehow God knew when I lost Dick, I would have two brothers. We talk all the time.
  • [01:22:33] DONALD HARRISON: That's great. Is there anything else?
  • [01:22:42] HEIDI MORSE: I found a photo of you in the archive the other day working on a newspaper that a group of you were doing for, I don't know whether it was Second Baptist Church or the Community Center.
  • [01:22:56] AUDREY LUCAS: It was the Community Center. Yes, it was a Community Center.
  • [01:23:02] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember what went into that?
  • [01:23:06] AUDREY LUCAS: They were teaching us different skills and how to do certain things. I think they were trying to get us ready for job opportunities that might come along. Really and truly, I will have to say Reverend Carpenter was very influential in my life because Reverend Carpenter taught us how to eat when going out, he sat us down, he set plates in front of us, he put silverware on both sides, he identified the silverware. He taught us how to say "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," and "How do you do?" and how to address older people. Those were standards that I learned to live with from the people that surrounded me. Of course I was blessed because my mother and father spoke the King's English, which helped us to speak well. Consequently, I remember when I went to the Human Resources department, which was Personnel then, somebody got sick and they asked me to answer the phone. They said, "Who taught you how to answer the phone and sound so professional?" And I thought, "That's just the way we talk". [LAUGHTER] But it really meant, as far as I'm concerned, that I was really blessed to be in certain circumstances and to take pride in the way you lived and to be truthful and honest. Those are things you don't see hardly anymore. People just lie all the time, and I'm thinking, who does that? Why do you do that? To me, if you do something, you should be honest enough--if it meant that much to you, you should be able to stand up and tell the truth about it. But that time is gone, I think a lot of times. .
  • [01:25:22] DONALD HARRISON: What really also strikes me with you, Audrey, is that you lived within two blocks of your church, [OVERLAPPING] an anchor of the neighborhood, one or two blocks from your school, another anchor, the Dunbar Center. So within a couple of blocks, you had these anchors.
  • [01:25:41] AUDREY LUCAS: I had anchors everywhere. I really did.
  • [01:25:43] DONALD HARRISON: And then other kids and families and you all knew each other. I think as things opened up and everybody started moving around. Now it's very common that kids don't live in the same state as their parents, let alone [OVERLAPPING] driving them all over the town to go to school, and to go do different things. I do wonder if that's something that really [OVERLAPPING].
  • [01:26:06] AUDREY LUCAS: It makes a difference because I grew up in a--my mother had standards. She wasn't a loud speaking person and she really just let me sing and go and do things and take advantage of things that were offered to me. But I can remember after I got out of high school, I decided I wasn't going to sing in the church choir anymore because all the kids were leaving. She said to me, "Aren't you going to choir rehearsal? " I said, "No. I've quit the choir." She said, "Oh no, you didn't." She said, "There's only so much you can do for the Lord and you can sing, and you will sing." That was the end of that conversation, so I put on my coat and went to choir rehearsal [LAUGHTER]. But she just had that wonderful quiet way about her about, you will be doing the right thing.
  • [01:27:10] DONALD HARRISON: Both churches ended up moving out of town, right?
  • [01:27:13] AUDREY LUCAS: They went to different areas because we were right their neighbors for a long time. I loved Reverend Woods when he was a pastor of the Methodist Church for all those years, and he always called me his Second Baptist member. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:27:32] DONALD HARRISON: Audrey, I think there's anything else, anything else you want to add?
  • [01:27:38] AUDREY LUCAS: Well, I hope I did you some justice. That's all I hope.
  • [01:27:42] DONALD HARRISON: We're going to do you justice, having to hear your story and perspective is the goal of this, and then ultimately putting together a film that helps tell an important story of Ann Arbor for the whole community.
  • [01:27:55] AUDREY LUCAS: For the whole community. Well, I never thought Jones School would end up getting this kind of highlight. So it's kind of an interesting blessing. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:28:05] DONALD HARRISON: Are you still friends with a lot of the kids that you went to school with?
  • [01:28:09] AUDREY LUCAS: Yes. People that I worked with, they named an award after me because I don't let people go. If you're in my life, you usually stay in there. Because I don't let people go easily, because I fall in love with people. [LAUGHTER] Like I, last month, had lunch with the ladies that I work with. One had moved to Texas, she's back here now and the other one just lost her husband. We went out to Karl's Cabin, and had lunch, and caught up on everything. It's just hard for me to let people go once you're in my life. For which I'm glad [LAUGHTER]. That's why I just talked to my girlfriend that I met when we were seven years old, the other day, we had to catch up on stuff. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:29:29] DONALD HARRISON: I think you have the best laugh. Thank you for putting it on camera [LAUGHTER] for us a few times, and we get a little bit of the glasses as well. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:29:39] AUDREY LUCAS: Oh, is it still on?
  • [01:29:40] DONALD HARRISON: Yeah. But I think we're done.
  • [01:29:44] AUDREY LUCAS: Okay. [LAUGHTER]
  • [01:29:44] DONALD HARRISON: Nice to get a little bit of the style [OVERLAPPING] [LAUGHTER] .
  • [01:29:50] AUDREY LUCAS: It has been a joy meeting you all and spending the afternoon with you.