There Went The Neighborhood - Audio Interview: Grant Sleet

Sat, 08/10/2024 - 6:01pm

When: July 27, 2022

Grant Sleet grew up on Beakes Street and attended Jones School from kindergarten to fifth grade. When Jones School closed in 1965, he was bused to Pattengill Elementary School. He also describes what it was like to travel and compete as a member of the French Dukes precision drill team.

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

Transcript

• [00:00:00] HEIDI MORSE: Today is July 27th, 2022. I'm Heidi Morse, an archivist at the Ann Arbor District Library and I'm speaking with Grant Sleet about Jones School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Could you please say and spell your name for us?
• [00:00:18] GRANT SLEET: Grant Sleet. G-R-A-N-T S-L-E-E-T.
• [00:00:34] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Where did you grow up?
• [00:00:39] GRANT SLEET: On Beakes Street in Ann Arbor.
• [00:00:47] HEIDI MORSE: Did your parents grow up in Ann Arbor as well or did they move from somewhere else?
• [00:00:52] GRANT SLEET: They moved from Indiana to Ann Arbor in the 1940s.
• [00:01:08] HEIDI MORSE: One of our primary goals today is to ask about your memories of Jones School. What years did you attend or what grades were you in?
• [00:01:20] GRANT SLEET: I went Jones School from kindergarten to fifth grade.
• [00:01:29] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Are there any teachers or coaches or staff members who stand out to you from that elementary school experience?
• [00:01:47] GRANT SLEET: Wow. Fourth grade teacher, Mr. [Gudenick?], because he had a weird name. I think he was my fourth grade teacher. I'm trying to remember all the teachers. I think Mrs. Blue was a music teacher and I'm just guessing on that. But it was just a fun place to go.
• [00:02:22] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember how to spell the name of that fourth grade teacher, [Gudenick?]
• [00:02:34] GRANT SLEET: No.
• [00:02:38] HEIDI MORSE: I was just asking because it came up for me the other day and I was not sure how to spell that. Someone else must have mentioned it. What else about the school? Any memories of the playground or friends that you played with during that time growing up?
• [00:03:04] GRANT SLEET: We played a lot of football at Jones School. Baseball. It was just like one big happy family. Played there during school, after school. It was almost like a park for the neighborhood.
• [00:03:40] HEIDI MORSE: Even more so than Summit Park, would you say?
• [00:03:44] GRANT SLEET: Yes. Because we had what we called the Beakes Street gang. Sometimes we'd go up to Jones School and play football up there as opposed to going to Summit Park. Because it had goalposts and it more or less looked like a football field.
• [00:04:22] HEIDI MORSE: When you were growing up, do you remember any discussions about segregation in your neighborhood or at school?
• [00:04:32] GRANT SLEET: No, not really. It was all new. We were sad when they kept saying they were going to close the school and not really understanding why we were being bused to other schools other than because they were integrating. Not realizing that Jones School was, I guess 90 percent Black. You know, we were kids, it didn't faze us.
• [00:05:17] GRANT SLEET: How did that experience impact you, being bused to another school?
• [00:05:25] GRANT SLEET: It was a challenge. I guess worried about--now for the first time we were being, instead of judged on what we can do, maybe looked at because of our color, being the underdog. But I went there with an open mind, I'm a student and I just have to do the best I can.
• [00:06:02] HEIDI MORSE: What school did you attend? That was sixth grade, was that?
• [00:06:06] GRANT SLEET: Yes. I went to Pattengill.
• [00:06:18] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Do you have any memories of that first day or the first week there that stand out?
• [00:06:31] GRANT SLEET: I think the first day I remember that we all went to the auditorium. It was welcoming us to Pattengill and trying to ease us into the school. Because I imagine it probably was a shock for the white students to have so many Black students come into their school because I think they only had three Black students and to my understanding, they were all family.
• [00:07:11] HEIDI MORSE: Wow. Did you feel that the education you received there at Pattengill and wherever you went after that was comparable to what you had at Jones? Did you feel prepared?
• [00:07:45] GRANT SLEET: I would have to say yes because even Jones School was a little bit of a struggle for me. To me, Pattengill was I guess a continuation of the struggle, just with a different teacher teaching. I felt like a regular student there. I wasn't set out because I was Black or, I don't want to say less educated. I guess growing up we've always been taught in a sense that Blacks are inferior. And now for the first time we're in a situation where there's more whites than Black and we're on their turf, so to speak.
• [00:09:03] HEIDI MORSE: Then what school did you attend to after Pattengill?
• [00:09:07] GRANT SLEET: I went to Tappan, Tappan Junior High.
• [00:09:14] HEIDI MORSE: Did you feel that that busing experience for the integration of the schools impacted your experience at Tappan as well, and in high school? Whether that's socially [OVERLAPPING] or academically.
• [00:09:38] GRANT SLEET: Well, I didn't want to go to Tappan. Family, brother went to Slauson, most of our neighborhood kids went to Slauson. So Slauson is where I wanted to go. But because we went to Pattengill, Pattengill sends their students to Tappan, we had to be bused to Tappan. It was just a matter of just trying to fit in there like we did Pattengill.
• [00:10:25] HEIDI MORSE: I know you participated in the French Dukes. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that experience?
• [00:10:32] GRANT SLEET: Oh yeah. Well, in a sense, I was in the Little Angels drill team. There was maybe eight, six-, seven-year- olds. And we just marched in parades and looked pretty. But it was still part of the drill team structure and the French Dukes were high school and we admired them and it was like we couldn't wait to grow up and be a French Duke. I became a French Duke when I was in junior high, actually. It gave me an opportunity to travel [NOISE] because I think that was the year we were very fortunate to go to Richard Nixon's inauguration.
• [00:11:37] HEIDI MORSE: That's amazing.
• [00:11:39] GRANT SLEET: Yes. Being the best drill team, I'll say in the United States, because we were undefeated to the best of my knowledge. Just traveling and competing against other Elks drill teams and I guess any other competition we were hoping to get into. We went to Canada and we were in their Emancipation Parade and they had a little drill competition and we won that. I'm not sure if we competed against Canadian drill teams. It was a good place to go and we were well received in Canada.
• [00:12:47] HEIDI MORSE: Was that in the Windsor area or Toronto?
• [00:12:52] GRANT SLEET: Yeah, Windsor.
• [00:12:58] HEIDI MORSE: Okay. Do you still get together with people that you participated in French Dukes with?
• [00:13:03] GRANT SLEET: Yes. Keep in touch since probably two, three years ago, we got together for the Black festival. We were pretty much senior citizens by that time. That was something that it's great to be appreciative, the travels, the friends. We were loved by the community and enjoyed performing.
• [00:14:02] HEIDI MORSE: Did you have a favorite part about participating?
• [00:14:11] GRANT SLEET: Going different places, [NOISE] I had the opportunity to go to New York, Washington, other cities around Michigan--Grand Rapids, Benton Harbor, Detroit. And just competing. Being a French Duke taught me discipline because we were military steps, lefts and rights, and all the other drill teams were basically dancing. To me there was no comparison.
• [00:15:11] HEIDI MORSE: Is there anything else that you would like to add about your life in Ann Arbor, your memories of growing up here that I haven't asked about, but you'd like to add here?
• [00:15:26] GRANT SLEET: Not really. I was very fortunate I didn't run into too much prejudice. Even when we went to Tappan and it was like a sticker shock, got along, we had our racial disagreements here and there, but we managed to get over it and get through it. A lot of Tappan students went to Huron High with us and we just formed a good friendship, especially when we played team sports. Even today, sometimes I've kept in touch with some of the kids.
• [00:17:03] HEIDI MORSE: That's good to hear. Well, thank you very much, Grant. I appreciate you sharing this with us.
• [00:17:17] GRANT SLEET: Well, thanks for talking to me.
• [00:17:19] HEIDI MORSE: Of course. I'm a little bit starstruck actually [LAUGHTER] because I've seen photos of you in the French Dukes and you're front and center, it looks like.
• [00:17:36] GRANT SLEET: Well, if I was front and center it was because I was--we normally went by height and the shorter people were in the back--so either you saw us from the backside or every now and then, I would sneak in the front. [LAUGHTER] Some of the taller people would let me stay there for a minute or two, but I was quickly put into my place in the back. Being in the back, I had to learn--we have four rows--I had to learn all the positions because every now and then we had too many kids. My row was the third row, that was home for me. But when you have, in the same row, you're out there all by yourself so I had to learn other rows to even it out. Well, we were four across and sometimes five or six deep. Being in rows that went beyond five or six by yourselves was a little bit uncomfortable, so I learned other rows to even it out. But if I had to do it all over again I would.
• [00:19:15] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah, that's great to hear, that's really good. Well, thank you, thank you again.