Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
First memory of my life. Oh, probably when I was three,
like I was saying there. Down on Oakley, you know Hunts Barber Shop is? Ok. Down on
Oakley that was known as the ball field. That's where all the community would gather and go
play ball there. They used to have during the summer
it would be married men verses single men. Playing softball and they would play it on
that field. and I lived on Wheaton Ave right down there
by, um, that white church there. That was on the North
side of of the white church and whenever Jessie Owens
um, would come up and down the street there he would gather those young kids and say,
"lets walk over there to the ball field." And we would
all walk over to the ball field there, and they used to
tell there my uncles, who lived right across from the
ball field, the Carden family, they would all talk about
how they used to let Jesse Owens, when he would
they would let him hit the ball and instead of tagging
him out there they would just let him run the bases
cause they like to see how he ran. His stride was so
beautiful. And then, during those days there, we as
kids always were out on the street there. We would be
talkin' to another walking up and down the street and
everything. So, that's how I met Jessie. Who is my oldest relative?
My grandmother and grandfather lived on Oakley I said. Right across from the ball field.
Now, they had like eleven kids. And, as my mother was the oldest...
We was always out on the streets. It was not unusual
for me and my brothers to go over across the street
and stay at somebody elses house. We would go there
and sleep. Our doors were always unlocked and open.
And anybody that come by there we would welcome in.
them in, feed them, even let them sleep over night
and everything there. We always were out on the
street walking up and down talking to one another.
Everybody knew everybody on the Hilltop there. Now, at that time there was a certain area
of the Hilltop. It was from Wayne to Clariton.
From Oakley, from Celephan to Paul Meadow was where the blacks lived. We were pocketed
in there and we couldn't live anywhere else there.
At the time I grew up there, it was an unwritten law they would not sell a house to anybody
that wanted to move and any black person that wanted
to move. move into a white community, so they would
not loan any money out because my mom wanted to move
and she couldn't get the money from the bank where
she had been banking for over twenty years. They just refused.
Uh, it was usually a community-like celebration there
Now at the same time Jessie Owens won four gold medals
Joe Lewis was a boxer. I don't know if you heard of Joe
Lewis. Ok. Joe Lewis was a boxer and at that time
there Joe Lewis, uh, became the heavy weight champion of the world. Well, actually it was
before he came. came. Uh, Max Smelling was from Germany, and
Max Smelling and Joe Lewis fought. Well, for first time,
they fought Max Smelling beat Joe Lewis and the second time, uh, he fought... of course
at that time there, there was no, not everybody had
radios, not everybody had telephones, not everybody
had anything. What we would do, uh, to listen
to the Joe Lewis fights We would rent a radio, and at that time,
we rented a radio and the second fight that Joe
was fighting Max Smelling, we all gathered at my
mother and father's house down there on Wheaton. and we rented a radio for five dollars, and
everybody came over. Well, Joe Lewis had made a promise
to this country. That he would beat Max Smelling the
second time time there because the second World War broke
out.