You Living like most people you know who live in the city don't know who the neighbors that were here Maybe it's because they've been around so long, but everybody talks to each other And it's where everybody helps each other out all the time.
It's a nice neighborhood to live in I think The family has lived here for a little over 60 years and that time Austin was Very beautiful community of homes of people who considered it the suburbs of Chicago the trees are it's door the street and Everybody owned their own homes and lived here for several generations Yeah, but two three years now.
There hasn't been as much moving but one summer It seemed like everybody wanted to sell their house We went up to the lake in summer and came back and had about six new neighbors, you know Most of the families that moved in had been young couples the bought houses You know not like the whole neighborhoods going to practice my hand used to say I Often offers an Opportunity to get away from the same Thing that you were really locked up in before it's a nice area But I mean that's basically your pain for the area after I Pull myself away from the city and become like I'd like to be you know then Somebody's gonna come behind me Great number of the blacks who first move into a community are what I would call upwardly mobile and You know, they're the people with some gumption and know -how with education and that and they Kind of kind of spearhead now, I know many whites minds Who have a they or kind of It's kind of a paranoia or a small amount of paranoia Anyway, we think kind of blacks get together at plan where we're gonna take over this community You know, it's a much simpler process.
I mean, it's just a need for some decent housing And how long you live down Wall Street It's about four and a half months I like it though It's better from what I moved from where you love or something not Cleveland Yeah, what makes you decide on Austin Well, I said I come out here and buy it so that's what I did Well, it's coming price of me and so I had a friend of mine He knows the fellow what I bought the house from so to recommend to him They should find to help us How do you find it? What thing feels you now? Well, I like I think it's real nice is quite In a screen this much better Do you have more space you can get over I didn't have any space Before I move over here at the planet garden.
So now I do So I think I have a nice garden And in the front I think I have a beautiful flower garden Well, actually the neighborhood where we previously lived had really gone down Most of people were moving out the homes were being bought by the hospital so actually, they didn't have no place because the hospital was buying out most of this property and Tearing it down and using it for parking lot and they wouldn't let the children play in it the playground They had put all mobile units in it Actually, they didn't have any any place in which to play all my children are young So actually I needed a family home something that they would have plenty of room that they could play in and plenty room where they could get out and more or less relaxed because Actually from the time that they've been small They've been more or less cooped up one way or the other where they really didn't have the facilities That I thought that they should happen in order to get it in order in getting a family home I felt that I was bettering their condition and their vibrations They made it to their own means, you know new furniture and carpeting and young couple, you know They just love it they can't think of moving now, you know, I tell him gee what if next door for me They're gonna get colors.
What are you gonna do? Are you gonna move and they can't picture themselves moving They just moved in last year, you know, and we laugh about it, but it's not funny I mean and then there was a real estate man talking to the people across the streets and he came across It was on a warm summer day and he was telling my mother what he can get for her house, you know and sort of pushy to her and Then I didn't know what's going so I came outside and came down the stairs and then he mumbled and walked away And she said she was getting nervous because he was pushing on her that everything's going you might as well get out while the going Is good that time of the situation.
These are also the kinds of things that take place in the changing area when Optimism is completely lost that all the professionals all the merchants leave and the educational facilities are good deal more questionable and their function and then their value and You make your decision based on that we made our decision based on that I don't mean to speak for the garbage pickup the Kind of a parkway on West End, you know when decidedly down that's before we moved to You know, not because the people No, because the Negroes hadn't really moved in at that point It's just that just prior to know the change to a black kind of person in the neighborhood there was a slack in Of the services I Know they're the ones I feel sorry for the L a they're all I'm well Fair and you know what? I mean is your old age welfare and they can't afford to sell their home because if they went out and bought a new home They could never get a mortgage for a home.
They won't give it to a person over 65 But you're not going to move not immediately.
No No, we're too comfortable here If we were young people why that might make a difference but at our age we don't like to tear up and make a change So we're playing stay on indefinitely I Think the biggest change in the neighborhood is Is the fear that's taken over the neighborhood? In that now No one's going out at night That's the biggest thing.
So then we thought well, we'll send our son to Lane We won't let our son go to Austin and get hurt So Jimmy's at Lane and I get that dreaded phone call at work, you know, your son's been hurt tonight.
Oh so rush over there and he's in the hospital and a lunchroom fight at Lane with a white boy, you know, so I thought here we sent him clear across the city and You know what happens there was what we dreaded happening here Except I'm happy that he goes to Lane instead of Austin because I'm you know wouldn't want him to go to Austin but why is Oh, well my reason would be I'm just would be afraid of the colored because I've heard they have knives I What made you decide to locate in Austin well One reason was because it's a change in community.
We do have to face that fact and Where there is change there is moving you have a migration of people leaving and a migration of people coming so We feel that we made a very wise choice in locating in the Austin area weird like When you move people into Austin, where do they usually come from? Usually from what we call the inner city and they move out and those that are leaving the Austin area either go to the suburbs Further north further south when you say the inner city do you get more people like from the west side, right? Right? most of the people that move in the Austin area come Well, well they come from what we would call the middle west side and thirty hundreds and on back this right Garfield Londo right go further east and you'll see that You know the decaying of buildings and the tearing down and the only alternative is to move further west where there is a sufficient housing Yes, but they also remodeling But most of them they're not doing anything at all they just tearing down there's nowhere far people to to live, you know It's gonna happen there.
There's nothing I can do about it It's it drives me out of my mind because it's my own parents, you know, they're gonna be victimized like everybody else They signed an exclusive with some real estate real estate company for 90 days and They had a sign out in front of their house where I came home one day and there was a for sale sign in front Of our house.
I almost died You know for sale sign has become a symbol of sin to me and there it was Hey It's To bed see a neighborhood go down Become a slum as many neighborhoods in Chicago have and our block club are trying to prevent that We try to get the people to Keep up their properties And We like our black neighbors and I hope they like us The majority residents in the neighbor when they decide that They can no longer keep out these minorities that are trying to get in and they suddenly decide Along with the realtor that oppression them that we are gonna have to sell That they are coming we can't stop it, okay at that point Most of the people I'd say Decide they're not gonna put any more money into these pieces of property The deterioration sets in before the new residents arrived in most cases it does There were only two in this house now, this is kind of unique nine room Home, I think the husband had died so left two people you only had two people in this building Okay now Dr.
Clark over there on the corner of Waller and West end There is only as far as I know dr.
Clark and his wife That might be some other person, but I'm not aware of it.
Now what I'm saying is just these two places alone.
You had a total of Less than eight people so this is where you get your problem an old established residential area very quiet and subdued suddenly gets an influx of Three times two or three times as many adults and God knows how many times as many kids you see You've got more cars on the street You've got more kids running across the grass That's all of this is deterioration we're talking about deterioration of the the natural aspects the grass the strawberry and the property itself and all of those people that Trying the so -called better themselves Well, here's the chance and unless you've been through this kind of a situation before and more than likely than most Majority people haven't between say 25 35 years of age.
Maybe first home but when you get in a situation you run to the open area and it's quite comical because you're gonna find that you're gonna be running into some of the same people that you saw in the old neighborhood because as I say it opens up one at a time and just you and he were about ready to buy and He lives around the block here and the other guy lives on Washington over there So what do we got the same residents? In some cases the same ones that contributed to some of those conditions that you left He lives next door so You've got the same problem that you left from you you can run but you can't hide as you always say that's about the side We wanted to try to start some type of a recreational facilities for the particular youth in the area So I'd like to get some insight on this particular point from around some of the people around the table now, mr.
Dose of the area Believe me over was 10 there's over 14 kids playing in the alley all the time Now they get instead of playing in the alley like that if they can get a place for to play by It really be something I Think some effort for the young people of community would be excellent and Just what I should think would have to depend on a kind of a survey To get a group of the young people together and talk to them and find out what they would like and get their cooperation You can't just go out and start something if they aren't interested Let's ask them just what they would like us to start for them Well, I don't know how to say it but get basketball and baseball teams and stuff together for the summer and going around To get friends, you know to help put in for something for like to get the bats and stuff So then that way in the summer we can have something something to do Why can't we Squidance right here Why can't we get a teenage I'm not a teenager I'm a square dance caller and I figured I could put on a nice square dance for Every age bracket.
Well, I don't think the teenage is big Oh I'll tell you what you put on a teenage dance and I'll put on a square dance Okay, whoever wants these these free passes you better come over here and get them now so I can make them out Yeah, that's a little better putting them in a nap That's all right, that's my fault I'm good at this.
This is my this is my job all the time washing dishes upstairs That's one way to get my hands clean I'm working in the factory, you know, if you don't have if you don't wash dishes or something like you don't get your hands clean You remember the last block club supper we had oh, yeah, oh what's not a success That's cool Well, I have to have another one before I do too I did too.
You never saw so much food in all your life.
They had turkey.
They had chicken.
They had hams They have the these apple turnovers that they made here.
Uh special Made them right out right on the stove At one time when the program first opened in this this area here was predominantly white so you didn't have the power You've got more of it now So maybe the audience maybe they might want to be considered in this to be in other words take the boundaries further west They want to stop at central now Then you would have to have for each see that's why I don't have community reference here because we don't consider this As a part of the urban project center, but we should start they should start immediately instead of waiting until it's too late Good like in london is too late I've been quite involved since i've been here two months with the uh, water street block club, which is the street that I live on now Uh, I can see more sophistication You know the people are pretty well organized and I think I think now it's become better organized and to try to get some of these things that we see as problems here in the austin area like uh Better garbage disposal and these kinds of problems where Environmental problems where I think some of the women are kind of concerned and me and also about walking the streets at night you know like we want to make it a safe community and They're they're attacking these kind of problems and I don't think just by the people here on wall street.
I think that most of the people here are homeowners and working people so Maybe they don't have the problem of worrying about where the next buck is coming from, you know So they can really deal with some of these problems and most meetings i've been to have been quite fruitful We can see some accomplishments.
It makes me angry.
You notice all this garbage and rubbish and things around in the parking lot and We had really talked to the janitor about this three or four of us had gotten on him about By keeping this area clean So, uh, he came over a lot of excuses, but you can see where he's trying to start around the edges sides over there trying what we plan on doing this saturday about the three or four people in the apartment plan on coming out and uh, Get this parking lot cleaned up because uh, it's kind of it's a sore spot here to come in every day every night Hey, you see Things like this this shouldn't happen That's why we tend to organize the block clubs Much better because things like this garbage shouldn't be allowed to pile up like that in anybody's backyard This is my area here this is right in the heart of the blondie roosevelt road and Sort of like a dividing line the londia see, uh All the torn down buildings all the buildings that should be torn down and not torn down Uh, you see a lot difference, uh in the austin area in the londale area It's buildings and things uh, by any god i'm torn down one of them here Alley's and it's a probable condition sometimes you Drag from these alleys you might not know what to expect Alley's and uh You can see all of the Rubbish Things is left piled up Alley basketball Definitely don't want to see another line there All of this area that you see right in here There used to be nothing but business up and down the street Uh, all of them I can't I can't remember hendriest hamburger stand and places like that used to be all up and down this area And during the martin luther king riots all of them were ram sacked and torn down and set afire.
So All this area area here is being put together for low -income housing This is going to be called the martin luther king junior plaza A lot of these places a lot of these places have moved out There were quite a few more Uh, some of these have changed names because they moved out during the riots, you know, they couldn't get their insurance renewed And it was a bad risk Do you foresee people living in these houses moving to some place like austin? Well, right, uh, they're gonna have to move someplace that's for sure and uh Either if they don't go to londale, then they're gonna have to come further west into austin Uh What the guy told me people out to the realtor company told me I had to get a petition Have everybody in the building sign a petition To get this car and then they try to find out whether they could pay for it or not because they say it ain't Tons of money that's that they have to pay they have to go to the receivership So I don't I don't care about the receivership thing But I think we've got to get these cars out of here and that's paramount, you know And try to clean this lot up now when I talked to that jive janitor the other day He said he's going to do all these things like give us some more garbage cans out here in the back So we had to throw the things on the side, you know And he made about 10 promises and I haven't seen any of them yet except maybe where he started sowing some grass You know, so he's talking a lot of noise, but he ain't really doing nothing And I think that that'd be something we could get Get on his case because these things are certain things that I know he's supposed to do clean those keep those hallways clean Get these replace these screens and get that garbage and thing and keep that front paper litter free, you know Oh We got enough All of us now we thought we could let them take care of it You're not doing that This is mr.
Keeber Because see now we've got everybody out here today and that means that we ain't playing right well like I told them That I got good tenants in here now And they ain't gonna stand for no crap and it's going to be easier for me And I want to say keep it that way You know like we've shown our good faith we are here working today and this ain't hardly I You know, I don't get no pay for this.
It's just I live here.
Right? Our job but we're willing to cooperate in good, you know, surely if we can pay that rent, you know And get out here and do our own labor and not getting any credit guy and to pay for it at least The manager can cooperate with us, you know, I asked for a meeting with the dude If you are late You know that he act like I didn't exist I said hey, you know, we gotta represent this tonight Come on out here.
We want to meet with you one night.
He like I didn't even exist What's all right? I ain't got to run around and meet with him.
I can deal with him some other way We can we can cause some things to happen.
We can cause some things happen because we control the rent, right? Let's face it if you go by yourself You're just so big and you have you know, you don't have much power behind you That's what I think.
Well when you go Things done and mr.
Keeter can't do it Do it ourselves and we got 12 units behind We ain't talking about no one you talking about 12 of them and when we want something done get it done Take that in rent as they hear is your receipt and here's the remainder of your rent from 135 145 dollars a month And let him deal with that since he likes to go to court.
Let him go to court with that Anybody more or less following this up on that particular You form some type of tennis group, right? This is from to understand.
I was getting that.
Mr.
Harbour was trying to get together Okay, and you were supposed to contact the man, right now we were talking about a one -time petition in the area, right? Okay, what did you have to go through in order to get this court appearance with this particular gentleman? Well, they was having meeting court there this morning what? See, we don't have one of this the building is like in receivership.
Yeah And the judge was meeting with the guy that's having a receivership and that got turned When the judge called him we approached the banks and the judge asked us why why was we there? We brought this up And as soon as the judge found out the amount of rent we was playing paying He said I want them all corrected so We're gonna get fences.
We're gonna get uh Across the parking lot.
We'll get chains with locks for each tenant.
We'll get the hallways decorated Everything that we complained about he agreed to correct it Did they make up some type of Report to this factory? No, he was on this one.
He took up but he's meeting at our attendance meeting not this coming tuesday But the following tuesday and he'll meet there and he will personally see the things that we want corrected Come on in.
Mr.
Vapour, right? How are you? I don't Okay, what what we're saying is we the whole business that uh, we have at hand here is we had uh listed here about 14 grievances that were signed by nine out of eleven Tenants of these uh these apartments.
So I think that we'd be in order now that we discussed these individually Uh as to What some of the promises were in in our court meetings and what has actually transpired? I cannot enhance the value of the building, but I can make emergency repairs Now the repairs that they have requested in court Have been granted Because they weren't asking for anything outrageous they weren't trying to enhance the building itself Some had cracked walls bad plumbing electrical work Things of that sort So actually anything over 50 or 100 dollars we have to go in the court but that shouldn't have stopped you from any of the example example, uh doing a cold spell after the Uh heat had been turned off most of us were suffering because it did get very cold we called the office Okay, that was a put on that's what i'm talking about a put on the thing was hey we came too much about it we're going to try to have somebody out here tomorrow the next day and uh, Have you told the janitor about it? Yes, the janitor's very very much aware of it, but nothing was done for about two days Because I dispatched someone out here and uh, they changed the uh, the valve and uh, they also uh looked over the heating plant and so forth, you know I hate to disagree with you the next two two days later when I was on my way to work Because I mean My way to work I saw your janitor getting out with another janitor that he happened to know when they were coming over to do it himself And that was not anybody from any reputable company that dealt with furnaces and things.
So I agree.
I'm saying this didn't happen So there's a break in communication.
No, we're not going to hash over what's happened Prior to court we want to find out what we're going to do from this point, right? These are what we call classic examples of what's happening in our cities We have a realtor Who bought three homes on one block Five thousand dollars apiece from white families Within a couple months he resold them each to black families for 17 -5, 18 -5, and 18 -thousand All the homes are full of building code violations The families are stuck the community's stuck But the realtor he's out in the street.
He's doing more business Everybody has to have a place to live and when you start tampering with such a basic need of housing And the people you know the filling up the frustrations The blacks saying the chicanos saying the whites deserted us the whites saying that the blacks chased us out And until you get to the point of like we're doing today and we have been doing of identifying the common enemy We're all getting screwed by the same guys You know We're not screwing each other somebody's coming in and making a lot of money and taking us all some of the whites will say well You shouldn't run You know and then the blacks will say this and spanish will say that and if you can keep everything divided And you're in trouble and the big guys can come in the bureaucrats come in make a lot of money And for political reasons and just wipe out a community like in a city What's happening is we're all going to be in the suburbs and say from chicago fighting this kind of battle and they're rebuilding the inner city For people like none of us can afford to live there They destroy a community put up a sandburg village it looks great But it's for the affluent suburbanites to come back into it's not for the people who lived there before It's not what was promised them and that's we have a resolution on that also We were promised our home back now.
They want you want to sell me a house for 40 000 townhouse Well, I happen to have a 12 000 house that I was very comfortable in and you said I had to go for urban renewal Now I can't come back if the communities weren't uh changed over the way they are if there was a normal integration if there was The inner city was refilled and you know, I laughed with mcgovern said because that's what i'd been using I go through in chicago 16th street Wondale douglas park it looks like bombed out cities all these big buildings vacant Tremendous good housing and they just leave it go there They don't rebuild it because they want the people to move then they move the next group there the mentality of the bureaucrats If this is the only way to do it We'll just move this crew off and we'll move this group up and we'll keep moving them keep them fighting each other They have the money interest in the bureaucrats and the people losing I think the people are winning today You How long has the church been here I don't exactly know.
I think I think it's been here about 50 years anyway in the church I've been a member ever since I was in the children's section.
That must have I must have been a member here of about 30 years the majority of the congregation are Living in the outskirts and in oak park majority of them live in oak park now And a lot of them have moved on the church we used to have a congregation of about I would say about three to four hundred people but now our congregation has gone down to about a hundred and hundred to a hundred and five and That's about the most we ever get every sunday I come every night every evening in order to check the church over after it's all after after it's all done and all that after Just for check for safety purposes to see that the church is all locked up and all that Yeah, how long have you lived in austin? I've been there all my life ever since I ever since 1925 If you had any trouble being one of the few white families on your oh, yes There's uh, there are three white families.
There are three white families left on my block One in uh one on the side of me on the east And the ones in my folks building Are they going to stay there? No, they're leaving them by by july By the end of july, they'll be they'll be out too.
Will you be the only i'll be the only white family left there And what do you plan to do? I don't know it all depends if it gets any if it gets any worse or anything like that Uh, i'll have to move or else I don't know what's going to happen after they they do leave because I might be forced out of the place.
I couldn't say Well, how would you be forced to have well They might not the the blacks might not block the idea of only white and only white being in the in the neighborhood Particularly and they might not like that idea and I might have to be forced out What about uh right now your relationships with the black families? Well, I have no trouble with the ones around in the neighborhood at all because i've become acquainted with most of them except there's one family that There's one fellow there particularly that I disagree with and he doesn't like the idea and he's pretty he's pretty arrogant But uh, the only way to get along with him is just not to say too much about him He brings his dog around the neighborhood all the time Yeah Stick with us.
Yeah, i'm trying to you haven't been mugged.
I heard a couple times four times i've been mugged Held up.
Oh, yes.
I've been held up four times It doesn't it hasn't bothered me as yet though, but I don't know what's gonna happen My Oh What are the covers for? What are the covers for that? For what? For this.
Well, they're all in there.
Over here.
When you lived in Austin, how many years were you there? Well, I lived in Austin some years ago, and there was a member to church.
And like many of the other members, we all moved away to the suburbs or to different parts of Chicago.
But those people that were dedicated stayed here and wanted to see this church go on, regardless.
So most of us are from distant neighborhoods, and we're still trying to keep this church going until such time as we can teach the black people how to operate a church and what to do to keep it going.
So then the white congregation will stop coming? Eventually the white congregation will stop.
Most of them are old people.
Many of them retire and move away, far away.
Others move too far to be able to come to church here on Sunday.
And most of them that are dedicated now are far enough where it is an inconvenience for them to come here to various meetings and things.
Are you residents of the area? Yes, ma 'am.
Right around the corner.
Right around the corner is right.
How is that? How do you feel about them moving out? Well, I think we should stay.
We should stay and do the best we can.
I don't know.
My family won't come to see me anymore.
They won't? Nope, till I move.
What reason do they give you? The neighborhood.
They're afraid.
Even in the daytime? Yeah.
My future plan is for if I can get enough children in this area, I want bowling leagues, basketball teams.
I want an office where your children are troubled if they would have somebody that has had the training that they could come to.
And I would like a babysitting service with the teenagers.
So these are the things that I have in the future.
How long have you been involved with the church? Well, I've always been interested in children.
I'm working with children.
So many of us say that we don't have the time, and I think that sometimes someone has to have the time.
And this is why no one pushed me.
This is something that I really enjoy doing.
Now this is our hope that again this church will be filled with children and that there will be activities every day in the week.
This is what we're hoping for and praying for.
There's no reason in the world.
I counted 37 children on the street just west of here between Lake and Fulton the other day.
37 children.
And you know, they ought to be here.
Here come the kids.
Here come the kids.
What happened? Two's in his mouth.
What happened to your mouth? You got burnt.
I broke out a rash.
Y 'all want to go down to the crib? Where y 'all want to go? To the crib.
Y 'all dogs nearly ate us because we was playing basketball.
Yeah, man, that mud, we tried to fight.
And that mud back there, Jay.
We ain't got no one else.
Y 'all look at Michael's leg.
Look at Michael's leg.
See, you beat it up.
Thank you, Randall.
Thank you, Randall.
We won.
We're going.
Hey, man, tell them about that pig with the 45 -magnum.
Yeah, he ran.
We get him across the head.
No, we were just coming home from the store.
It was late, and the police stopped.
You know, somebody had broken the store up on the corner.
And we were walking down the street, and he scared of the police.
And the police stopped him.
He tried to run, and he pulled out a gun on him and caught him.
He said, you better stop.
He stopped and started hollering mama.
And he came back.
And that's when he ran to his po.
And he threw him up against the car and frisked him.
And then he told all of us to get in the car, and he slapped him on the side of his head.
He fell in on me.
And then they took us down to the station.
Tell them about what you did to the skin, Sam.
What skin is that? What about Leroy? Oh, that was a long time ago.
Well, we want to hear about Leroy.
When we asked you about Leroy, yeah.
The cops picked me up for some cigarettes.
They asked me, told me I fit a description.
And they said, what's your name? I said, Leroy.
They said, yeah, that's his name, too.
I said, no, but my name's Michael Morris.
And they jumped on me.
Anyway, we were walking at the Austin Town Hall.
I walked up there one day, coming from school.
Walked up there and going in the building.
Two boys grabbed me, told me the place was closed.
And they asked me, do I want to join the gang? I said, no, no, thank you.
So they said, no, you're in the gang, so be back up here at 630.
So I started to walk out.
They jumped on me.
And, all right, we walking home.
Then we go over to the playground.
All right.
When we got there, we looked at gunshots.
Everything was going on.
So we got over there and asked everybody what had been happening.
They said a bunch of dudes that was trying to start a gang had came over there, took all of their money and told them they better be up on the corner of Kilbourne and Madison with $2 to get them a tam.
Or else they might as well not come around that neighborhood no more.
They didn't show up to about a town.
The next day they were up at Marconi School playing basketball.
All of a sudden they heard some shots and kids were shooting at them and stuff like that.
And they had to run home and stay in the house for a little while until everybody had left.
From then on, they would barge from Marconi for a long time.
They couldn't play far there.
Then about a week or two afterwards, a boy got shot running away from an area.
And he ran for about another five to six feet and fell over.
Well, now you guys all come up in neighborhoods that are pretty rough neighborhoods.
What's it like around here compared to...
You can walk up and down the streets around here.
It's just up at Central Madison, back east and back south.
Why do some kids get in gangs and some kids don't? Most kids that get in gangs are scared of themselves.
They're so shaky it's a shame.
But as long as they know they're in a gang, they think they've got a lot of protection and stuff like that.
If you get in trouble, you can go get your gang.
You can rely on your gang to come help you kill somebody.
You can just dodge the trouble by yourself and stay out of their way.
Why do gangs just pick on anybody at random? Well, most gangs just want somebody to recruit.
They just say you're in their gang.
Whether you help them fight, they don't matter.
But if it's a big fight and they ask you to fight and you don't fight, they hurt you.
Why don't you just join a gang then? Well, most of the time you just don't want to.
You join the gang if you're scared for protection.
I ain't scared.
That as far as the gang activity in the neighborhood, that the only way you can control it is through organization.
The only neighborhoods that have controlled it have been organized.
Block clubs, men's groups, whatever.
When you see something, you're going to have to become involved in it.
If you don't want to do that, you might as well forget it.
If you see something, you're going to have to go to court and testify to it.
If you see a kid get beat up out there on the street instead of turning your back and walking the other way, you're going to have to come forward, go to court and testify and point somebody out.
The only way you can be intimidated is that we let you go up there by yourself and let them intimidate you.
In a case like that, they suggest when a person in a block club or anybody sees something, points a person out, when court time comes, you all go up there and give them moral support.
The same thing as the youth gang would give their own members.
Let's face it, you've got a lot of lazy policemen that, you know, when you've got a changing situation like this, there's a tendency on some part of some of these policemen to say, you know, what the heck, you know what I mean? It's going to go anyway.
Why worry about it? I mean, this is, the only difference between here and any other area that is either totally white is the fact that these people are concerned, they have a political influence and they use it.
They get on the phone and they call.
You don't take an action, they complain and they continue to complain until you find out and then you respond to it.
They will do what they have to do to keep you off their backs.
What could they set up something quick like this? Oh, that's a house.
Do you have a backyard? Yeah, I have a backyard.
Well, then that's all you need is a backyard.
You want to tour my house? Well, see, you want to help the kids.
I want to help them, but the thing about it...
You have to get involved.
Yeah, I'm involved.
I'm involved in everything that goes on.
I was thinking you could like furnish the services of the people that want to use it.
Like, there's a lot of things that people have to have done around their houses.
We can have services done and we can go do it for the raffles.
Raffles lost to the raffles.
That's a good idea.
And then it won't cost anybody nothing.
You'll still be making money.
You know, like, each boy might donate one hour.
Like, if you win first prize, you get four hours where you could, you know, get one of the boys to clean up your yard or clean out the garage or the basement or something like that.
I'm talking about how would you set this up on a raffle ticket, though? You get the ticket.
No, we're selling the tickets.
We can sell what it is.
I don't mean...
We were ready to go up our time to do it, so then I just...
That's a pretty good deal.
You go to the block club every Thursday.
You meet new people.
You find out who lives next door, down the street.
And that way, like, you know, everybody knows everybody in the block that's in any way connected to the block club or does anything active in the community.
And I think it helps you feel more at ease.
Like, even though we have a rise in crime rate in this neighborhood and we've had, like, curse -snatchings and a couple of ladies have been assaulted, that you feel more confident when you can walk down the street and say, well, if anything happens, I know that Mr.
Jones or Mr.
Brown or, you know, Ms.
Savage lives, you know, right here next door, down the street.
And you can, like, you know, running and knocking the door and say, you know, somebody's after me.
But I did notice that since we moved into the area, that the things that they mentioned at the block club, like the decrease in services and sanitation in the alleys, like, those problems, I think, are the problems of this whole neighborhood in general, you know, not just a couple of individual cases.
Even though, you know, we have these few small problems in the neighborhood, one of the things that I was happy about was that I noticed that a lot of people in this area care about their property.
They're remodeling the outsides of the homes, fixing up the yards.
And even though you have to spend a few extra dollars, you know, I think it's really worth it if you could have a neighborhood that, you know, you're proud to say, well, you know, I live in a 100 block, unwind.
And I like to, I'm glad we have this much space for the plant, anything we want to plant around here this time.
And so I like to hear that.
I like this place.
We have a large house, plenty of room, and everything is convenient.
And it's nice around here, quiet and peaceful.
And so I like to hear that.
So, and I just hope to be, you know, ten long, enjoying around here.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on, pick it up.
Come on.
That's right.
Come on.
Your mom has a very special day.
I'm going to use the white one.
I love keeping it.
Yeah.
