Faith
Should we start by introducing the people who are here?
Mama Mel
Ms. Jackie, can you introduce yourself?
Jackie
My name is Jackie Williams, and I'm a native of Rochester of 74 years of the eastside.
Michael
My name is Michael Swinton. I am a transport from Brooklyn, New York. From Washington, DC. So I came from Washington and went to Brooklyn, and I used to say I got kidnapped to stay here in Rochester. I hated this place when I first got here.
Mama Mel
When you come from New York City, that first couple of years is hard. I'm from the Bronx, so the first couple of years are hard. Especially if you came back then before Rochester— I tell people it was like down south without the overt racism.
Michael
I stayed in Bed-Stuy, I did a little time in Flatbush. So you move fast, grow to hear sounds, and smells, and people, and so Rochester didn't have that quite at that time.
Mama Mel
It was too quiet and the air smelled funny because it was fresh.
Michael
I stayed on the eighth floor in the projects and so I got up and went to bed by the sound of the trains.
Mama Mel
I get it. No, I could go to sleep and wake up to the sound of the 6 train going by my house. And so when you move up here and you actually can go outside at night and see the stars or you hear crickets or people walk on grass.
It took me years to be comfortable walking on grass because when I was coming up, unless you were in the park, anyplace else where there was grass, you couldn't walk on grass because there wasn't enough of it. So people just walk across grass like it's no big thing up here.
But thank you so much for giving us your time. And I am going to turn it over to Katie and Leka for you guys. What? Y'all knew this was coming. So y'all are leading.
Katie
Do we want to start with a group discussion a little bit, or should we immediately split up?
Leka
I think we should start with a group discussion.
Katie
Okay, so just to start off the discussion, do any LEAFs have a question about village that they want to throw out there?
Faith
I guess the most basic question would be, how do you define village?
Michael
Village is a unique experience because you see the diversity, the socio-economics of that place. The both of us came in, we grew up in a place called the projects, which was Hanover Houses. It was the big model for Village because your—I guess you would say your ranking, your age groups, you all knew your elders received the proper respect that they needed. In turn, they were a lot about raising you to be respectable of yourself and making sure they took care of you as much as they could. But they tell you don't do something, you stop in your tracks and you didn't do that. So that would be my explanation.
Jackie
I agree with him. Village, Mr. Swinton really tapped into it. To go even deeper, in my mind, village for us was a unit. We took care of each other. It didn't take a biological family to correct me or feed me or guide me. Spiritual guidance, whatever guidance I needed. It didn't only come from my biological family, it came from the village.
I was fed by the village, I was corrected by the village, I was groomed by the village. So the village is basically to me, a unit of people that had a caring heart, that whether you belonged to them biologically, they claimed you as theirs. We had plenty of mothers, we had a lot of sisters and brothers and cousins, but not biological.
So today, 74 years later, I have family that I grew up in the village and they're my brothers. They're my sisters. I'm loyal to them. It's a unit that has sustained me during my journey in my life because of the unit, because of the Village. So that's my definition of village.
Katie
Do any of the LEAFs have thoughts on what you can add to this? Your own definition of village? What do you view village as? Just so we can all engage in the discussion…
I know that for me, one of the experiences I had with Village was growing up at my babysitter's house. I think that for me, Village is a space where your needs are met to an extent that you're able to dream and imagine. Cause I think that is really only possible when you are completely supported. It's also a place, which kind of what you mentioned, it's a place where it's safe to learn and a space that encourages your growth. At least that's what I think.
Max-Yamil
I would say too, proximity. Just working with what's around you. I think for me, at this point, I'm just like trying to be that example of a village because there's a sentiment in Rochester that's kind of like broken village, and just not positive influence. So I’m trying to be an example of the village and keeping that at the core. That would be my answer to that.
Mama Mel
And I realized I didn't introduce myself, I'm Melanie Funchess. And because you don't recognize me, Yvonne Smith is my mother—was my mother. Last time you saw me, I didn't look like this. Charlene Smith was my sister.
Jackie
Wow. No, I did not.
Mama Mel
I knew you didn't.
Jackie
You said my name like you knew me. I said, “She's so really free with that name.”
Mama Mel
Luis, these are our LEAFs. Leka, can you do it one more time for him? What is a LEAF?
Leka
LEAF is the Local Ethnography and Archiving Fellowship. We work with a professor at the University of Rochester, Dr. Kate Mariner, to do anthropological research on race, placemaking, and kinship. A lot of that is studying the historical context of Rochester and the history of segregation, redlining, things like that. Currently we're working with Mama Mel and the Ms. Almeta Whitis on Locus Focus and Healthy Village to bring those ideas together. Focus on the question, what makes a healthy village?
Mama Mel
The Leafs have been around talking about placemaking. How do you make healing, how do black folks specifically, people of color generally, make healing spaces in the midst of all the things that happen in our community? And how have they done it historically? And what does it look like? This is the third cohort of Leafs, they've been doing this for three years going around the community finding out stuff. And they partnered with Ms. Almeta on her Locus Focus Project. The Locus Focus Project is collecting stories from people who lived in the 7th Ward between the 50’s and 80’s. So from 1950 to 1989. To say, what was it that made that neighborhood the Village? Cause that was the bomb.com, that was the Village. So what made it, what was it? And what we're going to do is there's going to be an art installation put in at—
Katie
Quamina Park.
Mama Mel
Thank you, Quamina Park. With QR codes, so people will be able to go up to the art installation with their phone, pull up the interviews that you're all going to give us, and that other people have given us, to talk about what was here, and what this neighborhood represented from that period of time, and it'll be a lasting memorial to the Village, to all the things.
In partnership with that, I'm working on a project called, Healthy Villages. What the goal of this is, because we're a health planning agency, what makes a healthy village? And if you ask ten people, you get ten different answers. So what I'm seeking to do is, we're going to talk to a lot of different folks and say, “What makes a healthy village?” So we can come up with an answer for us that we came up with to say, what is the definition of our healthy village? What are the things that we have? What things do we have? What things do we have that need work? And what are the things that we don't have? And how do we build all these things—to literally make a plan for us as a community, put things in to rebuild the village from the ground up, set from the top down to make our village healthy.
And that work is part of a bigger work that I'm doing called Healers Village, which is seeking to create an ecosystem of wellness for people here in Monroe County. To say that no matter where we go, it's going to be things that touch us, that affect us, that are going to feed us and make us healthy—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
…
Almeta
🎶 A meeting here tonight. Come on. There is a meeting here tonight. Come one and all. And gather round. There is a meeting here tonight. Come on, y'all. There is a meeting here tonight. Come on. There is a meeting here tonight. Come one and all and gather round. There is a meeting here tonight. Here tonight. 🎶
And that is from my Jamaican peoples. I'm not Jamaican, but I love that song, and there is a meeting here tonight and we want to thank each of you for showing up. My name is Almeta Whitis and I am a former resident of the Seventh Ward and came up with this idea about telling our story. What I realized and what I didn't like was that almost everything that's out there talks about the riot, which I call an uprising of 1964, and all of the negativity that followed it.
Nothing is said about it prior to the uprising, from the 1950’s through the 1980’s, where Seventh Ward, Northeast was the most diverse community of the whole city of Rochester. And everybody treated each other like family, no matter what you look like, no matter what God you worship, no matter where you went, whatever.
We were all in the same boat. Everybody was pretty much at the bottom of the ladder. Even the shop owners, they understood. I remember being at my grandmother's house on Vienna Street when I was five years old, and then later on she moved to Rhine Street, and then she moved to Joiner, and then ended up in the Hanover houses.
That's where our whole family moved from Buffalo. My mother, my stepfather, my three siblings, and myself. And we moved into my grandmother's sixth floor apartment. Two bedrooms. Nanny and Black Harry, her husband Black Harry, who used to run the numbers— they stayed in one bedroom, and then they already had four kids that my mother had after she had the four of us. So us eight kids slept in one big old double bed. And it was magical coming from Buffalo where we had been homeless for five years. Homeless back in the 50’s was not like it is now, meant you just was staying with relatives and friends, you weren't in any program, or at risk.
We moved here and our life became wonderful. We lived in Hanover houses, then we moved to Leopold Street, which doesn't even exist anymore and it makes me cry because so much of my teenage years as an activist, as a community artist, it was formed when we lived on Leopold Street. Then we moved from Leopold Street to 3rd Street and Pennsylvania, right down the street from the Public Market.
Then in 1963, my mother and my stepfather had earned enough money where we were able to buy our first home, 51 Superior Street off of Genesee Street. It's only a one block long street, but we moved in at night because they both worked two jobs. The next morning, there was seven For Sale signs up on the street.
That was the beginning of the We Are Staying movement of the 19th ward. There were people that put big signs in the window saying, “We are staying,” so realtors don't come up here trying to talk us into, white flight, being afraid of Black people. “Get on out of here.” And those same people, they still live here today. I see them, and they got their little cane and they'd be just shuffling along and walking. “How are you doing?” I'm like, yeah, I remember you. And now I'm shuffling.
My impetus is, I am a world citizen. I've lived and worked on five of the seven continents. I embraced the whole world.
Tree, you remember them little kids? I had them doing things, and songs, and dances from all over the world when I did that at the old Baden street.
Michael
They loved it
Almeta
Yes, and they were learning languages and everything. So that's the reason why I wanted to document these stories.
Then when we all went to the Local History at the downtown public library, there is virtually nothing in their archives between the 1950’s and the 1980’s for that particular area of Rochester. So, this is very important because your voices are being recorded for posterity so that hidden and forgotten history will be pushed to the forefront.
That's why I feel so vested. I'm vested in this because I'm almost 80, and there's no telling how much longer I'm going to be around, but I want Rochesterians and also tourists to put their phone next to a QR code, and hear, and see one of y'all talking about, and “This was here and this was,” and talk about what was good about it.
And what was good about it is that we were a community. We were a strong and united community. That's what I want to leave for posterity. I thank the three of you for coming and consenting to tell your story.
Joseph Avenue, Clinton Avenue. I have so many fond, fond memories, and my grandmother, and people I grew up with, and going to number 26 school. I'm telling you 26, and it was the last day of school, and I had these little spoolie heels, remember them spoolie heels?
My mother made me wear socks and I was so embarrassed. I'm crying all the way in school and I get into my classroom and Mary Laspina, she was Italian and she's, “Almeta, why are you crying?” “My mother made me wear these socks.” She said, “Almeta, just take the socks off. Put some lotion on your legs and it'll look like you got on stockings.” I'm like, “Oh! Oh!” So I took them socks off, and I pranced out. Oh, I felt so good. But I put them socks on before I went home. Yeah, I mean, those are the kinds of things that I want to have y'all share with us. The fun times, the good times
Tree, you were a basketball star. Nobody got past you.
Michael
I played.
Almeta
Oh, come on. No, that's why they call you Tree.
Michael
Yeah, you said something to remind me. My family used to stay on Rhine Street. Rhine Street was a street that runs right through No. 6 playground.
Do you remember Rhine Street?
Almeta
Yeah, it was one block before the big street where Hanover Houses stood, it's the back of Building 6. I think it used to be—what was it called before it was Upper Falls Boulevard? What was it called?
Luis
Herman and Buchan Park.
Jackie
You had Herman—It was Herman.
Michael
And it would cross over, by Buchan Park.
Jackie
Yes. Buchan Park went over there by the church.
Almeta
But this was Herman Street, the big street. She lived in a big gray house right on the corner and we could look out the window across Herman Street and see those brand new Hanover Houses that had a bunch of white people, Black people hadn't moved in yet.
Luis
What year was that?
Almeta
Let's see. I was five years old, so that would have been 1954, ‘55. It just opened. You remember?
Luis
My family moved to Rochester in ‘54. When I was born in ‘59, we were in here.
Almeta
We moved in there December 26th, 1959. We came from Buffalo.
So let's talk. I want us to just chat, and young people, now's the time. Do you have any questions?
...
Michael
Again, my name is Michael Swinton. I've been in Rochester since 1966. I gotta say this to you guys, I'm very proud to look around this room and see the diversity that you bring to the table. Because that's also a tapestry that just doesn't come out of anywhere. It's a weave or thread to a much larger picture. And it is great to see that you're undertaking this and doing this, because the diversity in our community, we didn't recognize that. I don't want to speak for your family, but at one time there was no Black and Hispanic.. It was Hanover House. You can knock on his door and get something to eat. Or you can come to my house and get something to eat. So it was that net, that no child left alone is going to call home for you. And this diversity I'm looking around the room and seeing, I think it's fantastic. I'm glad you're undertaking this because if you don't, the history will be lost. Or somebody else will write it, and write it incorrectly.
I think, diversity is a very important ingredient to life and freeing people up, because if you can accept someone else's culture, you can teach them your culture. And so that culture that you’re created on is very important for maybe the generation after you guys. You can't limit yourself to one way of looking at things. You got to open your mind.
We went to high school, all three of us went to high school where we probably made about. About 5% in a high school that was about 2,500+ individuals and the makeup of that school was Jewish, Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, and so if you ride through the streets on Hudson, you'll see names that don't identify with the population that's living on those streets. That's because that was the diversity on those streets. It was very important because you had friends. You didn't ask them nationalities or anything like that. You just had friends. And you got a little chance to, if they brought something to eat, they offered you some, so you got a chance to taste the food.
Almeta
I thank you, Tree, because what I remember you saying was something like, how proud you were to see the diversity of these young people that are the archivists. They are anthropology majors and part of what they do as a LEAF is to accurately archive what they see, what they hear, what they feel and experience. And now, to be able to connect with the three of you, and y'all been friends forever, it's so rich and I'm happy that you acknowledge it straight out the gate.
Michael
We communicate on Facebook and it's not a morning that goes by that we don't tell each other how much we love each other and everything.
So people on the outside are asking us, are we going together? Because it's love and it's true. True love. I can remember situations that I was in, fighting or whatever like that, and I'll look up, and she's standing over top of me with band-aids, asking me if I'm alright. And taking care of me. So, when we talk about that community within a community, part of what we did was make sure we were alright. If we said no kid is going to be hungry, if I had to break my sandwich, you was going to get some. Luis' mother fed, a huge population in the projects,
Jackie
Vilma Burgos
Michael
So as you approach this history, it is so rich with—it's a tapestry of his own. So don't be scared to ask no questions.
Almeta
His [Luis’] older sister, was best friends with my younger sister, Gwen.
They met in the 5th grade when we moved here in 1959, and they stayed friends throughout high school. They were in the Monroe High School marching band, clarinets.
Jackie
I have an easy story. My name is Jackie Williams. I am a resident of Rochester, New York for the whole 74 years of my life. I am one of the first LGBTQ people. In the Hanover Houses.
Almeta
You and Milgo, Milgo Brown.
Jackie
Yes, we were. My whole total life has been grand. Living that life in Hanover. I was not judged, I was not reprimanded. I was loved, I was taken care of.
I guess I was one of the best female sports people in Rochester, New York, actually. At the time, there wasn't WBA, there wasn't pro softball. There weren't any of that. Just for the record, I am going to be inducted into the New York State Hall of Fame for softball in October.
Almeta
Oh, congratulations.
Jackie
And it's recognized from my community. No. 6 playground, not going to college, not playing in high school. This was from the community. That's how intense our sports was.
I guess my life journey came from the acceptance of who I was, not what I was doing. Everybody in my community just loved me. I was allowed to work with children. I worked at Baden Street Settlement. Families just loved me, I loved them, for what my lifestyle was. I was part of the family.
That's very important to me because now, what's going on with the LGBTQ, the challenges. I didn't encounter those challenges. I encountered total love. Totally acceptance. On the religious part, I attended Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.
Almeta
And they accepted you.
Jackie
I'm known. There was no secret, I was in no hiding place. I'm talking about probably as early as the age of 13, 14 years old. I have been accepted.
So that's very important to me as a village. And we lost that somewhere along the line.
Hanover was just my maker. Hanover to me was my journey, was my lifeline. Still is my lifeline. I consider myself Hanover.
I am retired presently, and I also presently came back to do volunteer work as an Americorps worker. It has been fantastic. Where I retired from, I'm back there volunteering as an Americorps worker. I coach softball, I coach basketball still. I'm in the community, guys. I love my kids, I love my people. I love my parents, I love my mothers. I just love families, and that's what I was a part of. I was a part of a family, and I don't mean my immediate family.
I was a part of seven buildings, was seven floors in each building, seven apartments on each floor. Every one in the building was my parents, my sisters, they were my brothers. I ate with them, I slept with them, slept over.
My mom was, oh wow, an icon here in Rochester. She was an exceptional woman. She was a woman that came from the South, Alabama and she raised her children with dignity and pride.
Michael
Eloquence.
Almeta
So for posterity, you need to say her name, say it loud. She's black and proud
Jackie
Her name is Ida Williams.
Almeta
All right.
Jackie
This woman was here—she was Ms. Ida Williams in the Hanover Houses. She did the cooking and the cakes and she did the feeding.
She took care of women. The younger women, the younger population. A woman that had husbands that maybe were abusive or not a part of the family, my mother took care of these women. Nourished them, made them strong characters. Mama was a great person. So for me to tell my story, how I made it over—being a part of a village.
Not a community, it was a village.
Almeta
It was a village. You're right.
Jackie
I was part of the riots. My mom’s apartment was part of the riots. We stored things that—we was part of this riot guys. So we were so involved in the riots. We threw bombs from the top of the projects.
Almeta
Yeah. I thought my baby daddy wasn't gonna live because he was doing Molotov cocktail, Sonny Brown
Jackie
My journey has been a journey that, oh, it was a heartfelt journey that I just can't get over. I love my people and I don't only mean my biological people, I love my village people. I love them still today. I love my people.
Almeta
I can feel it.
Jackie
The strangest thing for me, I can remember the Spanish family and we were on the same floor. We were on the same floor. And it was like, we didn't see color. We didn't see difference. We were just family.
So, experience living in the village guys. If I had to do it over, I want to go that route. I love that route again. And I feel today, and I preached it, and I practiced it where I'm at today to these kids. It worked. It worked. That village worked. f we only could just gather some villages here in Rochester, within our communities, our community would be a better place. Our children would be in a better place than where they are if we were able to subject them to the village, living the lifestyle.
The reward that came out of that, I’d lay down today with a smile on my face, I regret nothing that I would do and all I went through the whole total—My 74 years was love for my village. so much.
Almeta
That is so well meant and well received. This warmth and it's almost an embracing energy, where you are embracing not just the past, you're embracing the present and the future as well. I appreciate that about you.
Yeah. All right, Lulu.
Luis
So my name is Luis Burgos and, my oldest sister, when I was born, she thought that the name Luis sounded like an old man's name, so she decided to name me Lulu. When I was born. Maybe by the time I was 11 or 12 I asked people to stop calling me Lulu. So, if I'm in a grocery store, if I'm downtown at the public market and I hear somebody screaming Lulu, I'm like, oh, that's somebody from Hanover Houses.
But, it's something that is very special to me. When we have our reunions and people are calling me Lulu, all I hear is love. It's a special bond.
So I was born there and raised up until 10 years old and we moved out. Just echoing some of the things that my brother and sister here have said, when it came to race, it's really interesting, especially in today's climate, the fact that—I was obviously conscious that I was light skinned, but to me it was like, well, somebody has, blue eyes or red hair. It wasn't—race as a divisive concept, it just didn't register in our brains. It's just like I'm looking at you and you're 6 foot tall, or 7 foot tall, and I'm 5 ft 8. It was the same thing. It was like, you're tall and I'm short. So what?
Almeta
We're still friends.
Luis
Yes, we're still human. We're still neighbors. We're still family. Also, just echoing the sense of cohesiveness. One of my early childhood memories, I'm guessing that I was about maybe 5 or 6, which would have been, Jackie maybe 14 or 15, but I remember a couple of times where my sister, Vilma, I don't know if she was, it's so long ago, I can't remember why, but she ended up taking me to Jackie's house and leaving me there.
I suspect that she was running off with some boyfriends. But, I remember distinctly, being in Jackie's living room and it was a beautiful. Their mom kept that house immaculate. It was beautiful. And, I remember clearly, I think I mentioned this to you before, they had a radio and they were playing music and Jackie and her sister and some other friends were dancing to the music, and I remember sitting there just fascinated with their dance moves.
Jackie
Yeah, right.
Luis
And so to some friends, I always referred to Jackie as my babysitter. She watched me, made sure I was okay.
Almeta
Well, everybody loved you. In the building, you were the baby—you were the baby of the building.
Luis
It was a very, very safe environment. I never felt threatened, in danger whatever. People looked out for one another.
My dad, in the Puerto Rican culture, in the Spanish culture, you refer to your dad as Papi. I remember again when I was maybe five or six years old, I was walking out the building with my dad and, so to me, I understood Papi is dad, daddy in Spanish, and we're walking out and everybody's like, “Hey Papi. Hey Papi.” And I'm like, “Hey this is my dad!”
I look back at it. It's a beautiful thing, that everybody knew him as Papi.
Almeta
He was a good man. He was a good man. Worked hard. And you mother, wow.
Jackie
Oh my Lord.
Almeta
I mean, their love was so strong.
Luis
Yes. Yes. My dad, he had his challenges, the thing about—my dad was an alcoholic. But, we can't deny the fact that he took good care of us.
Almeta
That's what I remember.
Luis
He was very loving to the other families and the kids.
Almeta
That's what I remember your father as. He was friendly.
Luis
Yes. Very, and the other parents were as well. You know, Ms. Tripp. Oh my God. Ms. Tripp was like my other mother. Just a wonderful lady. They all watched out for us. I was raised with the understanding, which I really took to heart—my mother said, whenever you're at your friend's house or whatever, your friend's mother is your mother, and you respect her like your mother and your father. And I took that to heart.
If I was out there and Jackie's mom—I was a good kid, so I didn't get yelled at—but if for whatever reason, any parent ever had to scold me, or direct me, or whatever, it was like—
Almeta
You mine. You mine.
Luis
Absolutely. And I think that was kind of a ubiquitous practice or culture there.
So, I think that was instrumental at that time. The way people, the way we lived together and, respected each other, respected the parents—the parents watching out for the children. I think that was integral in maintaining that fabric, that unity, in spite of all the poverty and even some of the chaotic situations that happened, which people tend to, I think it's one of you mentioned, always talk about the riots, it maintained a sense of order in the community, you know? I think that that was very critical, and I think it's worth noting that we were all very poor. But we had our values, and our sense of respect, and our sense of unity was absolutely amazing. I'm telling you right now, this world could use that right now.
Almeta
If all of Rochester could be like our neighborhood was back then, this would be a wonderful place. This would be a wonderful place.
Luis
One last thing that I'd like to share with all of you was the first time I experienced any racism was one day this older—you know, I have to be careful, I'm sixty five now. As you age, your definition of—it shifts so Jackie might refer to me as a young man.
But this gentleman, I'm guessing he was like in his forties or fifties, he came to deliver something to an apartment or whatnot, but I remember, me and my best friend, Quentin Tripp, were playing in the hallway or just talking cause we lived on the same floor and this man popped out of the elevator, and he looked around and there were little napkins or something. They were on the floor. And he looked around and he said, “This place is disgusting.” He said, “Clean this up.” So, you know, respecting adults, both me and Quentin went to pick up the tissues and he said, “No, stop! Not you.” He talked to me and I'm like, “Huh?” He says, “You”—which Quentin was black—and he said, “You pick that up.” Then Quentin obeyed his orders and picked it up and put it in the incinerator. Then he says, “That's better.” And then he pulled out a dollar and he gave it to me. Then he went, did what—and me and Quentin literally were looking at each other like—
Almeta
That was a lot of money back then.
Luis
It was, but what had just happened. We're like, what the hell was that all about? That was the first time in my life I ever experienced racism. And of course, I immediately gave Quentin the dollar because he was the one to pick up the tissue. He immediately said, “Let's go get some candy.” So I recognized that he earned the dollar, he recognized me as his brother, and we went to the store and got some candy.
But that racism—
Almeta
You still remember how you, said you were five or six?
Luis
When that happened, I probably was about maybe more like seven or eight.
Almeta
So 50 some years later, that's what you remember.
Luis
It is, yes.
Almeta
That was your intro.
Luis
Yeah. That was my first experience of racism, was that incident. It's seared in my memory.
Michael
We also had white families that lived in the projects, but once again, you never heard them being called out of their names, anything like that. They had their crew. When the crew was ready to move somewhere, they'd holler and they'd come on out too. So there wasn't no divide. And even going into where there were white folks that were living in that area, you didn't see the color. You were together.
Luis
I wanted to add when it comes to achievements, I was born and raised there in Hanover Houses, I went to Franklin High School, Hobart College. I worked for the city for 32 years. When I retired, I was Commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation Service. This Saturday, I will be inducted into the—see these are athletic icons. I am too, I'll be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame now, on Saturday.
Almeta
I love tennis.
Luis
So, we have basketball, we have baseball, we have tennis. Whatever we did in the projects—
Almeta
You did well.
Michael
We were the best, high quality of athletic. You trained each other to be better.
Almeta
Exactly. I mean, what was it, the section five?
Katie
I actually have a question. Jackie, one thing you said was that this wasn't community, it was village. And I've actually never really heard—I feel like a lot of times village and community are used like synonymously, and so I'd be really interested to hear what you think distinguishes village from community.
Jackie
Well, I think a village to me, it was more of a unit. A community to me is space.
It's a space. The village provided, nurtured. And a community, a space, just a group of whatever. There was always a purpose for a community, but has it ever been completed here in Rochester? I think the community of Rochester has never been developed. And never— Rochester communities have never been developed. We've had plenty of villages around Rochester.
When we talk about Rochester, we talk community, and I don't really feel Rochester is a community. Rochester, in my sight, in my whole lifetime, has always been a village. 'Cause whatever we did, we did it as a unit, we did it as a group, we did it within a purpose of love, and community is so widespread because of the space. So I believe that's the difference of a village versus community.
Almeta
Would you consider that the village concept in the urban area is the neighborhood? Because we have the east side, we got the west side, we got Beachwood, Swillburg. Those are like neighborhoods, small villages within the community proper.
Jackie
Is that a question for me?
Almeta
That's something to consider.
Jackie
Okay. In consideration of that, I hear you said east side, west side and all the other things you mentioned. And not to be biased. The village was not all over Rochester. And you're saying that it was a neighborhood, and we didn't consider it a neighborhood because my village was not only in that project. My village was wherever my village was a part of—the churches, the recreation centers.
Almeta
Exactly. Exactly.
Jackie
Yeah. So it didn't make me a neighborhood. It made me a community. It left me with just being a part of a village, being a part of—I’ll give you a good—you know, the Indians have their—
Almeta
Mm Hmm.
Jackie
That's just what it felt to me. It was just, I didn't think the village was a neighborhood.
Almeta
Okay.
Jackie
Because I went outside my neighborhood. If you're gonna use the neighborhood, I went outside of that and received what I received in my village, and it wasn't there. But it was the stores that you talked about, it was the churches that you talked about, it was our rec—it was our settlement houses. We didn't have recreation centers. We had—
Almeta
Settlement houses
Jackie
And so I never considered a neighborhood. And thank you as I think now.
Almeta
Well, I thank you.
Jackie
I've never felt that I lived in a neighborhood. I've always felt that I lived in the village
Almeta
Because I was in Mr. Rogers.
Jackie
There you go.
Almeta
You know, 🎶Who are the people in your neighborhood? Your neighborhood🎶 and he's talking about the village.
Jackie
Right, right.
Almeta
Rather than the community.
Jackie
Yeah. So I don't know, village is just my main—
Almeta
I love the concept, I love the concept.
Max-Yamil
I got a question, and this for any y'all. You had mentioned that communities of Rochester have never like been developed. And we talk about ideas of urban renewal, and we talk about ideas of—I say rebellions. But what prevails in your village/community throughout that lack of development do you think?
Michael
Politics is his field…
Almeta
Come on, Luis.
Luis
But I would say government. I never did politics, I had to deal with politicians.
Michael
But you did government.
Luis
Yeah, which is why I lost all my hair. I was in government, not in politics.
Michael
Thank you for correcting me.
Almeta
It's the distinction between village and community.
Jackie
Can you repeat your question?
Max-Yamil
What prevailed for you guys? Through all that triumph and all that hardship, what survived that was positive throughout that whole period?
Jackie
My life.
Michael
The village.
Jackie
The village.
Michael
Yeah. The village. The structures were all burnt down, torn down. The stores were, burned. Everything was taken.
Jackie
We didn't struggle. We didn't have hardship—
Michael
Yeah.
Jackie
Because of the village. We had so many in the village. We didn't have to experience the hardship. We didn't have to be hungry. We didn't have to be with holes in our shoes because we were in a village. My mom didn't have to see someone with a hole in this shoe to offer some shoes, offer a bed. So that word hardship—I even get offended when people tell me that I was poor. My god, no I was not.
Almeta
We were rich with love.
Jackie
Rich. That was more than materialistic or monies. That love was so powerful, so meaningful that money was not in our way.
Almeta
And the adults were always pushing us to excel academically, and in sports, and in giving back to the community in whatever ways we could at our age.
Michael
I’d say the short answer to that is the structures in that community. When you used to go into a store to do certain things where you respect it to come in and spend your money. Now all of a sudden it's gone. And I think we didn't understand that even though we were burning down on things, in a sense, we weren't totally mad at that person that owned that store. We were mad because we were tired of being tired. Is that clear?
Almeta
And there were certain shop owners, nobody touched their stuff.
Michael
That's right.
Almeta
Because they were family.
Michael
They were family. There's a couple stores, drugstores and stuff in there that actually didn't get touched. Got bypassed.
There's a fish market that's about what, 60 years old? Jack’s. And you want to know the reason he survived? It's because you couldn't come into his fish market and be hungry and he not feed you.
Almeta
No matter who you were.
Michael
No matter who you were. So that was him.
George Freedman's was where my mother used to give me the little small notebook, the binders, the little small ones, that was our credit card. You would go there, “Mom said, give me a pair of shoes.” And you go tie your shoes on, get yourself set, and you're marking up the bullet, what you spent. And every time she got money or you got money, you would take it back in there and pay your bill.
Almeta
And pay on the account.
Michael
And there was very few people that—I never heard anybody cry about them cheating in there. But that was your credit card.
Almeta
And it was no interest.
Jackie
No interest. It was trust, it was honesty. They felt—they loved us enough to trust people. It was so much a trust from the business part of that village where I can remember coming home every day at lunchtime from No. 9 school and my mom had set up at a store that I was able to go there and get lunch or lunch meat or whatever I ever wanted until I abused it and kept saying, “Mom said I can get it.” And she didn't say it. But those kind—they just trusted us. But my mom didn't have to be there for me to walk in to tell the shoe man “Fit me, my mom said for me to come and get some shoes.” That was it.
Michael
That was it. Put that in your little credit card book?
Luis
I had an experience once at Arthur's drugstore, so I went there. I don't remember how much money, I probably had like 35 cents in my hand. It was my mother's birthday, so I was going and I was like, I'm looking around and what am I gonna get her? I couldn't find anything that I could buy for 35 cents. So then the clerk, he comes over to me 'cause I would wander around in circles for 20 minutes and he says, “What, what are you looking for?” I said, “Well, it's my mom's birthday, I want to get her something.” So he said, “Well, come on, let's see.” And we went around and I still remember one of the things was like a little feather duster and it was like two or three things.
As he was doing it, I remember I was terrified cause I was like embarrassed. I'm like, “Oh my God, he's picking out all these things.” “I think she should get this,” and he's picking out these things. And I'm like, “Oh my God, what am I going to do? I only got 35 cents.”
And then we went to the counter, he put everything on the counter and he says, “Okay, let me see what you got.” And then my hand was like this, I opened my hand and he said, “Perfect amount.” And he took the 35 cents. He said, “Tell your mom I said happy birthday.”
Almeta
I feel you, I'm over here crying. And that's what I remember and that's what I want everyone who’ll put their cell phone on the QR code or go to the public library—I want them to see, and hear, and know that was the community, that was the village, that was the family, not all that other stuff. That was peripheral, and it was a reaction to the kind of disrespect that man did when he had Quentin. That was the reaction, that wasn't our true selves.
Someone else had a question.
Please, Mandela, and say loud enough so we can hear.
Mandela
Who was a role model for you in your village and why?
Michael
We had so many.
Mandela
Who was number one? For you, personally.
Michael
For me? Um, it was a man named Thurman Boddie. Dr. Boddie, my size and everything. And he had graduated from college and did some things. Great athlete. Ran a playground and just respected by everybody in that community. He called me over a few times and said, “Look, I know that's your crew, but they're not where you want to go.” That stuck with me, that he understood that there were some of us that demonstrated a different quality or look about ourselves.
So what he said to me was, “I don't want you to fail. I know you're coming through the poverty and everything, but that ain't you. So live up to your full potential.” And that always have stuck with me that he cared enough about me. He taught me some things about life, checked me, because when he said—I didn't have a nickname at the time, so I was Swinton—He said, “Swinton, come here, I have something to tell you. Look, I heard some things, are you doing that?” Couldn't lie to him. I said, “No sir.” He said, “Come on, you know what we talked about.” So that became my hero.
We had other heroes. We had individuals who had gone to the Olympics, barely lost from being champions in the Olympics. We had all kind of boxers. We had heroes in that community. We had real people that you recognize as greatness in that neighborhood. And if they took time with you, you learned a lot. We had politicians, government, his name was David Gantt.
Almeta
Yes, did a lot for this community.
Michael
Came up the hard way, dirt poor and everything like that. The community pushed him forward to take up the role, or the championship, of that community. His mother, his father. Ms. Williams—
Almeta
Lena Gantt
Michael
Lena Gantt, his mother, Ms. Walker, Ms. Pauline—
Almeta
Don't forget Mildred Johnson.
Michael
Mildred Johnson and everything, and some of them were individuals who could not read and write, but they knew it was time for a champion to come out here to represent that community, that neighborhood, and they chose him. “You're going to do this because we need for you to do that.” And out of some of his efforts, we had our own clinic, we had our own dental office. They raised money to build a store in the base of one of the buildings.
Almeta
Daycare center.
Michael
And so it was through those types of individuals who push agendas to make things change in our lives.
And they were heroes.
Almeta
Those adults, men and women, not only encourage you to be all you could be, they instilled in you that same energy that you could pass it on to all. Come on Tree, how many basketball and sports people have you connected with all these years? I mean, for little kids, both of y'all.
Jackie
I gotta cut him off. I'm hearing them give these—I'm older than both of them guys—and I hear them giving these credits to some heroes, and I got to speak this here. These are heroes. {Jackie gestures towards Michael and Luis}
Almeta
Ashe.
Jackie
You had people encouraging them and stuff, and everybody name that they mentioned, they were apart because we allowed them to come into our village to be apart. But the strength of that village did not come from those people that he mentioned. It came from the normal people of life.
Who was my hero? I was my hero. My mom was my hero. My neighbor was my hero. My neighbor's mother was my hero. So it didn't take you to—I've felt that, no one inspired me but my village. I didn't get a politician, I didn't get a teacher that made me feel that they were my hero, they helped me. My village got me where I am today. My people that was among myself.
Today, we are heroes, guys. I'm not gonna let that take you guys, let that take you from that. I want you to know what you guys brought to that village. I was there. I was there, guys. So, I understand Thurman went there. All right, don't play with me. I mean, he came by. Jordan was there, but they came by.
Michael
Yeah, when you needed a father or that father figure. It had to be somebody in the village that you could trust—
Almeta
Nearby.
Michael
—Or saw things in you, that maybe you didn't even see in yourself.
Jackie
So we heard Thurman, you already had somebody that came to you, you just heard it more cause someone already came to you to give you a Thurman I, II, and C. So, we just received it more.
Almeta
So, it takes all kinds, working together for the good of all.
Jackie
Yes it did.
I hear you guys saying, I hear that a lot. “Who's your hero?” I hear that a lot.
Almeta
I'm my hero. Do you know what I've been? No, you don't know. I have been pronounced dead five times and I'm still here. I'm doing what spirit made me to be the artist, the teacher, and the priestess. Those are my life paths this time around. And I'm not ashamed and people like, “Oh, Almeta crazy.” Yeah, I do live on a different plane, and I love it.
Jackie
I will sit out and listen to the politicians. I just listened to ‘em. I watched it. The people that are not the politicians, people that’s not in the government, those are Rochester heroes.
Almeta
Luis, 30 years.
Jackie
30 years. This place is not—it's a who, you know, it's not what you know. Rochester is not a what you know. Rochester is who you know, because I promise you before we got the doctor degrees, the master’s degrees, girl, we had some degrees.
It was already implemented by us, was to receive the higher was as a society wants us to receive it. I was hardheaded. I was always a person that felt that the degree wasn't going to make me. I understood the importance of it today, but I was defiant. I just didn't feel the educational part was going to hold me back, and I'm sitting here today to let you know, I did not receive no bachelor's degree. I haven't gotten a master's degree. I got a life degree that you can match with anybody with a degree.
Almeta
All right. Represent yourself.
Go ahead, love.
Luis
So, in those formative years, it was my older brother, Roberto, who really mentored me. My sister, Vilma, she was a role model for me and I was just so impressed with her. I still remember she was just so eloquent. And to me, I remember thinking, boy, I watched her, and she would handle situations. Like my parents, because of their limited English, if they had some challenges, with the school or with the Hanover management, or whatever, my sister, Vilma was the one that was designated as the liaison representative, and she always handled herself very elegantly, calmly, professionally. I'd be watching her as she's having her discussions or advocating for my parents and my family, and I said, “Someday I want to be able to talk like that.” She definitely was like the hero or role model for me.
Also, I have to say, separate from gender, again, folks like Mrs. Tripp, I had a number of my friends, their mothers and fathers were heroes for us. The dignity that they had, the authority that they had, the respect that they had was something that I saw and I admired. So I look at them as mentors.
Almeta
It shaped you to be the man you are today,
Mama Mel
And you emulated.
Luis
And believe it or not, I got to—Do you remember Mr. Tripp? Mr. Tripp had a hard life. He was my best friend's dad. But you know what, even though he was an alcoholic and he had a rough life, he was always very kind to me, very kind. That meant a lot to me. It really did. Glenn Gamble, his dad, and Ms. Gamble.
Michael
Angel.
Luis
Yeah, I had difficulty understanding what she said because I don't know where she was from.
Jackie
South Carolina.
Luis
But you know what? She, we talked about—she would feed me, I would go over there, and they had some food, and they made sure I ate. That love and that dignity that they had was something that I really admired.
Michael
Are you familiar with the Gullah language?
Almeta
They're not, but I am. Go ahead. How many of you heard of Gullah? One? Faith’s the only one.
Michael
The Gullah language is a language that came in and around the Carolinas and different areas like that. That's where some of the slaves—
Almeta
The sea islands.
Michael
Sea islands. When they got free, they went to those islands. They developed a language that was part English, got some Native American tongue in it, but it had African dialect to bring it all together. So they talk with this really, really deep, what do you call it?—The voice or the language they use, and it's very hard to—
Almeta
Yes, the Gullah and the Geechee, there's two different ones.
Michael
Geechee is a respectable term now.
Almeta
But back in the day, that was like you ready for a fight if you call somebody a Geechee.
Michael
Yeah. So it was a language that they—and they still there on that island. They still got the same cultural things that can place them right back in different parts of Africa.
Almeta
Mm hmm. And there are Africans who come and hear the language and they're like, "Oh, they know those words. They know those words because the people didn't forget. We may have come over here enslaved, but the mind, the mind.
Max-Yamil
I got one more question. I just wanted to say I really appreciate y'all definition of village.
I'm an ‘04 baby, so the definition has just been twisted. The news and the trauma and COVID, everything's just been twisted. So, just y'all laying that out, I really appreciate that. But one more thing I wanted to get out of y'all was, what's the best lesson you could give the youth today? And it don’t gotta be too long, it can be brief, but something because the kids need y'all.
Michael
I would say know thy self because if you know who you are, there's less somebody can trick you or be in something that you're not. Your generation rejects, in certain cultures, that piece of who they are. At one time, if you was considered to be country, you rejected that. But coming up in the country was such a very important piece of growing and understanding something different. Our patterns of loving rap music and everything like that does not say who we are. We are so—
Almeta
We are so rich.
Jackie
We so rich.
Michael
We are still eating food that was actually brought over into the Americas from our ancestors' hair. So when they came over, they put certain foods and herbs and everything and their hair. They braided their hair, um, in certain patterns they hid it in clothes and everything. It kept them attached to the motherland. We're looking at rappers and everything to try to tell us how rich we are, but then—
Almeta
What's the message?
Mama Mel
We don't hear it.
Michael
Our kids don't hear it.
Mama Mel
The rappers of today are your generation's griots. It's your storytelling.
Almeta
Some of them.
Max-Yamil
You don't think they're put up there though?
Mama Mel
No, I didn't say all. Just like in all things, there's good and bad. And I think what we have to do is something—I know you didn't ask me but— something that happened to us, my grandma used to say, “The more we take on the master's amenities, we take on his attributes.”
Almeta
There you go.
Mama Mel
The more we get his stuff, the more we act like him. And what has happened to us is that we've lived so long with believing that all things that are equated to our origin story are negative.
Michael
Yes.
Mama Mel
Enslavement interrupted our history. It did not begin our history. But because of all the things that are happening in our schools and all around, our kids do not understand that we had a whole society before enslavement, before the white man ever touched the soil, before colonization hit us.
We had created mathematics and medicine and we were performing surgeries. But when you're told time, and time, and time, and time, and time—all white supremacy is, is a lie. A lie got told. The lie of white superiority and black inferiority, this lie got told like 5-6 hundred years ago, and entire systems were built on lies. Cause you know when you tell a lie, like my mother said, You shouldn't lie, because when you tell a lie, you gotta tell a second lie to cover the first lie, and a third lie to cover the second lie”, and what happened with that lie, more lies kept getting told, and a whole system of governments were built on these lies.
So, that's why you have to be true to yourself and get to know who you are for real. Understand when you’re 40 and you're pouring it out for the dead homies, you're pouring libation. Understand that when you dapping up your brother, our greetings to one another go back to a time immemorial. That didn't emerge on St. Paul in 1972, that goes back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. If you understand who you are on that level, Can't no one, can't no one move you off your square. You can't move me off my square cause I know who I am. And I know whose I am.
Jackie
That's right, it's whose.
Mama Mel
Right, some of you know your Christianity, your Jesus, but I know that I am the daughter of Yvonne, the granddaughter of Lena, the great granddaughter—I am, I am, I am.
My ancestors were on the streets. I know the stories of my mom not being able to try on shoes in a store. Of my mama doing day work. Do y'all know what day work is?
Almeta
I did it when I was 12 years old. Cleaned Dr. Walensky's office on St. Paul Street. We made $11 a week. That was good money.
Mama Mel
That is—if you know what you come from, can't no one move you off, because that, no one can take that from me. They can take my house, they can take my car, they can even take my freedom and lock me up. But they can't take me understanding on whose back I stand, and that’s why I gotta stand tall because you gotta get on my back so you can get over.
Almeta
And I wanna add to that because it started out with the rappers nowadays, and I look at the fact that in the early 1900’s, the UNIA, Marcus Garvey. And then we look at what happened in the 30’s with all of the black people coming together for good. And then we move into the 40’s when we have black and brown men who signed up in World War II, and then they come home and things are looking—there's also, sorry I forgot about, the Harlem Renaissance. Then we got World War II, and then there's this wonderful, I mean, the rock and roll—that started with black musicians--aAnd followed by the Black Arts Movement. There are huge cultural, beautiful eras in our history that the young people have no idea. No idea.
Mama Mel
But Ms. Almeta, and I've got to say this. That's our fault.
Jackie
Yes it is. Yes it is.
Mama Mel
That's our fault. I know these things because my parents, before I ever came up, before I was ever with my mom, with Yvonne, when I got here, I knew these things.
I stayed in trouble because, in my TED talk, I talked about when I was in fourth grade and the teacher called me a nigga to my face because I was better at math than she was. But the reason I didn't get moved off my square was because the adults in my life poured into me. And by any means necessary.
In the 70’s, do y'all remember when Budweiser had the Kings and Queens of Africa?
Almeta
Oh yeah, I still got one.
Mama Mel
We got all kinds of knowledge, so it's up to us. It's not their fault if they don't know. It's our fault that they don't know.
Like my kids know because we make sure they know. It's like you get out here and you can be called into anything. If you think you're all alone—we tells kids, you know, you could be anything, and because all you get to see is your mom, your auntie, your dad, your uncle, and their lives may be one thing, but understand, it's not just about them. It's about them and 12 generations going back.
And when you look at what they've accomplished, look at where the start line was. If the start line was in the belly of a ship, versus the start line being on Park Avenue, that road is a lot longer. I'm just saying.
Almeta
And that was my point. That was the point I was making.
Jackie
We need him to ask this question again. Ask the question again.
Max-Yamil
What is the best lesson you could give to youth—in any capacity?
Luis
I would say, continuing what we've said, talking about the village and the love and support for it, I'd say that I would suggest that you need to spend less time on social media, on computers, you need to get to know your parents, your grandparents, your neighbors, you need to get out of the house.
There's a lack of social cohesion. People don't know each other. There are communities—how can you have a village if you don't even know your next door neighbor? Everybody on every floor, we all knew. The fabric, the interconnectedness that existed in Hanover Houses and in that village was very tight.
And I think that whereas—don't get me wrong, the advances in technology are amazing.
Almeta
But they're taking away our humanity.
Luis
I knew I was running late. I put on my GPS and I sent a message to Jackie. I said, “I'm running late, my ETA is 5:40.” Because the technology, there are wonderful advantages and improvements to our lives from technology. But technology has destroyed communities. It has destroyed villages.
Almeta
It has destroyed our ability to just converse.
Luis
Yeah, it's destroyed that social fabric. People are talking over social media instead of—if I were to sit down with you, and I've never met either one of you young men {Luis in reference to Max-Yamil and his friend Xalen} and we had a cup of coffee or something, I'd say, in an hour, we would know each other so much. We would be leaving, giving each other hugs, and we'll have a sense of connection, a sense of obligation to protect one another. You don't get that through social media. So that would be my personal advice, is get to know people. Get to know your neighbors. Get to know your family.
People don't even really have a relationship with their brothers and sisters, their uncles, aunts, and grandparents. You don't know your history. You don't feel that connection, that love, and that support, that guidance. It's all falling apart. But that was, to me, the foundation of of our environment, our village.
Almeta
The village. The village is built on love.
Mama Mel
But you perpetuated that. You know I'm gonna talk about you. Mr. Burgos, he is a mentor to my son—to my oldest son—from the time my oldest son was like 13, 12? Something like that. I mean, young kid. And he's been a mentor, an excellent mentor, to my son. And all the things I know that he's talked about, he does. What was done for him, he's turned it over and he does it to another generation, and there's young men in this community who are now grown men who are successful grown men because of this man.
He's not Warren Buffett rich. He's not—he makes great coquito, I'm puttin’ it in early, puttin’ in early.
Luis
She’s putting in her order.
Mama Mel
But he—it is not anything really special is because he shows up, and he shows up open, and he holds on, he holds the line saying, “You're not gonna be a knucklehead.” That's what it is. And I'm so happy I get to talk about you like you're not here.
Almeta
You were saying?
Jackie
I'm agreeing with him with the answer.
Your question for me about our youth? Our youth are not listening, close the social media. So whatever they get from there and they'll come to a live voice or live person, they already had something put in their head from the social media.Sso our youth aren't listening. And our government, our city, is not allowing the voices to be heard.
Every time I hear of a summit, a youth summit, or a meeting, or the City of Rochester getting together about the violence with the youth, they don't have this here on their panels {Jackie referring to herself, Michael and Luis}. They don't have this at the tables, so they're not being successful at these summits. They're not being successful at stopping the gun violence and everything. They're not hearing this. Even the people who are sponsoring it, the gun violence, anything with our youth, they're not bringing the right people to the table.
Almeta
Well, they've got their programs in place. Everything has to meet the criteria and the goals of the program, and the program is sterile. It's sterile, it's not life giving. And that's what you're talking about. The village gives the life. The village gives life.
Mama Mel
At the same time, Ms. Almeta, and I've seen this from both, because I sit in a sandwich place. I deal with just as many of my elders as I do with my young people because of where I'm sitting in this season of my life, right? And I watch them talk across each other because we don't—and I'm going to say it again—we as the adults, we say that young people are not listening because we have not changed our tune.
For example, in front of my house, my neighbors that I used to have, young boys would smoke blunts, their friends would go to light up. They said, “You can't light that up right there.” And they're like, "Why?” “Cause it's going to blow in Ms. Melanie’s window. You can't do that.” I never ever told him they couldn't do that, ever. None of my business, right?
But I heard them through the window saying, “No, no, we not gonna have that blowing up in her window like that. No, that's disrespectful.” They walk past my house and pull up their pants. I've never-- I don't care. I just want ya draws clean. I don't care that your pants are low. I just don't, I have other things to worry about. And I asked, one day I asked EJ, and I asked Folk and the other young men, I said, “Why do you do that?” They said, “Respect, Ma Dukes. You Ma Dukes, we respect you.” And I said, “Why? I haven't done anything.” They said, “Nah, you do all the things. You talk to us every time, like we got sense. If something's going down, you out here trying to make sure that we're okay.” And they listed out the things.
I think what has happened is that we have listened to the programs, we have allowed programs to settle in that village. We have listened to the programs, listened to the media and made us afraid of our children. I'm not going to be afraid of anything that I can birth. And I think that we need to come around to each other and say, how do we learn to speak to them in their language, right? We always asking the young people—when I look at my time, I would do everything to meet the other elders where they were. They didn't have to meet where I was, but the best ones did. The best of them did. And I don't think that we do that on the same level because now we have all these things in the way like social media because we don't understand how to use the phones and we don't know how to use the technology in the same way.
We don't stretch it out far enough to make the young person say, “Well, listen, we're not going to do it that way. We gonna go have some tea.” Because they're afraid, because they get hurt by us. You know—
Jackie
They hurt us cause they're not listening to us, because if it worked for us—
Mama Mel
That doesn't mean it's gonna work for them.
Jackie
But you're saying to us that we need to be on that level. And I'm not there, I'm just not there with these young people to go to their level, but I am—
Mama Mel
But meet them. Meet them somewhere, Ms. Jackie.
Jackie
What I'm willing to do is meet them—
Mama Mel
Meet them halfway.
Jackie
Ain't no halfway. There's only one way for me. I'm sorry. That's just my standards, my values, my morals, and our children don't have the standards, and the values, and the morals.
Mama Mel
I beg to differ.
Jackie
And I hear that from the government and the city that we have to meet our youth where they are. Why are they there?
Mama Mel
Because we drop the ball.
Jackie
When you say we, who—
Mama Mel
We meaning the collective village. Okay, for example, I'm gonna speak from my own life, I'm gonna speak for myself. Before I ever came up here, when I was in the Bronx, when my mother had her psychotic break. No one called CPS. However, no one needed to because Ms. Brenda, Ms. Star, Cookie and Dee Dee’s Mama, all these folks stepped in, made sure my clothes were clean, they were ironed, my hair was combed, everything. And they looked out for me because they trusted what they could do over what the other man could do, right?
Now, they did this without—they didn't talk bad about my mom, they didn't make her feel ashamed, they didn't make her feel like she was crazy. You know, they did this and there's places, there's times now when this happens—Burgos does this. Yes, I'm talking about you like you not here again.
But what we've got to do, what we do is, we have got to decide again that every child is our own. Every one. That's how I became Mama Mel because every kid is mine, whether I birthed it or not. And the thing is, real recognize real.
Jackie
They recognize real in front of you. I hear you. I'm hearing everything you're saying. I'm a debater. And by you saying they recognize you, when they leave your space, who do they become?
Mama Mel
Depends on what I poured into them and I'm saying—
Jackie
I pour, I pour, but I guarantee you I can be inside my recreation center when I pour into them—I get everything you're saying—when they leave out of there and go to the program, outside to the playground, they're not taking me out there with them.
Mama Mel
And the thing is that, it can't be just you. If there's enough of us doing—I'm watching this. I'm seeing this in our young people.
Jackie
How can we continue to get them to continue what they share with you after they leave? I get what I get because I give it to them.
Mama Mel
Right. So I make sure that they not only know me, that they know Burgos, that they know Tony Jordan, that they know all the other folks. But again, if we are at the places—like what I said was when my mama, when she was no longer able to do her thing, it didn't take one other person. It took 8, 9, 10 other people to step in to do pieces of the job that that one woman was doing until she was not able to do it anymore. But what's happened, you may do it here, but if you're the only one, they go home and their parents are calling them all kinds of ho’s and everything else. And then they go over here on the street and the guy, the men are trying to talk to them, trying to put him in the bed—
Jackie
You see, you're dealing with a child. Let's go with the family. Let's go with the family. That's where that's coming from. That ain't with the village, that's not the community. So, with us just dealing with the child, we have to deal with the family.
Mama Mel
Yes, and I agree with you.
Jackie
A village wasn't a child.
Mama Mel
No, a village was a whole family.
Jackie
But I keep on hearing, politicians or the summits and stuff, they're dealing with children. They're using the word children, they're not using the word family. When they bring a summit, they don't bring the whole family to a summit. They bring a youth summit. They don't bring the family.
Mama Mel
But there are family summits that happen. But then, what do we do about that?
Jackie
Bring the family.
Mama Mel
What do we do about that? That's why when I said in the beginning, part of my part of this project, is how do we define village? What do we need, what do we have, and what do we need to get?
Go ahead baby, I'm sorry. You done started a whole thing.
Max-Yamil
Yeah, yeah. I wanna say, just from a youth perspective, y'all got to guide us towards the true enemy, y’all gotta guide us to where the real problem is, and I can speak from this, from someone who's been to the continent, who's been to Senegal. As much as they say about Africa, as much as they say about the motherland, we're treated more human over there. We're more respected over there than we are here. So why is that? And that's what we're supposed to—they sell us a glory lands. Who is the enemy breaking that family and village up? And once you show the youth that, they're going to follow whoever's talking that real truth.
Mama Mel
That's right.
Almeta
And that's a point that I want to put in here. All my years as a teacher and an artist in the schools, I have a number of those little end-of-the-year photos of kids and on the back of them, they all write, “Ms. Whitis, you stand for respect, and I respect you, and I'm respecting myself because you put that in me. And one girl said, “You don't take no stuff.”
Jackie
I'm not letting it go.
Almeta
And it's done with love and respect.
Jackie
Yeah, I'm not coming down. I'm not bowing down. That love has brought me so far and I get the respect, I'm not gonna meet—
Almeta
We all do. You, Tree, Burgos, Mama Mel, Mama Jackie.
Michael
See, I have to say this to you {Michael referencing Max-Yamil}. You probably made a statement that was more valuable for all of us to hear, for you guys to hear. It was one of the most valuable things that has been said, and you've been asking some, some questions and making some statements that was direct.
I totally agree with what Jackie says about our kids not respecting themselves. And it's easy for them because they have to come through a crisis that came their way. That cocaine and crack came through a community and demolished every last respect.
Almeta
Like a tsunami. Got both my hands up on that.
Michael
We had kids that loved their mama but things got so bad their mother became a crackhead. Now, who in here would call your mother a crackhead, a B, and put your hands on her and do all of those kind of things. You wouldn't, would you? Show of hands, would you disrespect your mother anything? So when you're introduced to something that takes the whole character of who you are away from you, you fall into that pattern and think that every time somebody rap about something, they're being gangsta about that, and you think that's the way to be, but you're tearing down you also.
When you come from the motherland and you've been there, you see all colors, me and you in particular, brother, we might not fit what we think Africa looks like and the people who are there because we got this complexion, but there are tribes on tribes in Africa that look like all three of us.
Almeta
Exactly.
Michael
You understand? But they know who they are. You understand? Mr Burgos, when the ships came, they just didn't come to America, they went to South America, they went to Puerto Rico. They went wherever they could find a value to you and assign the dollar on you. So we got caught in that transatlantic transport not because of our color. It was green—
Almeta
The money, the gold, it was gold and green.
Mama Mel
Remember when we were enslaved, they didn't get slaves, they got artisans, farmers, doctors, lawyers—I mean legal people—intellectuals.
Almeta
Philosophers
Mama Mel
Griots, scholars, that's who they enslaved.
Michael
And if somebody told you this, you wouldn't believe it. The original Egyptian was black.
Almeta
It was called Kemet, Nubia
Michael
That color that you see on the Egyptian at this point is from emissions of other cultures who came.
Almeta
The Greeks, and the Arabs.
Michael
Remember they said Rome conquered what?
Almeta
The world.
Michael
So if I come conquer you, what do I bring? Your culture or my culture? They went through India. What did they bring, their culture or your culture? And so it's always been a disdain for cultures that they consider to be inferior. Our problem is that sometimes we continue to hold this inferior complex about ourselves. So we have created a way of life that we're comfortable with. If you came in my mother's house with your pants down like that, get your stuff. Go upstairs, get your stuff. Don't take none of my luggage. Nothing. Get some of them paper bags and get the fuck out of my house. That was the impact of you disrespecting that household. You know what I'm saying? But as a parent, you buying dope were, taking dope from your kid. We've all experienced this. You no longer a pillar to that household anymore.
Mama Mel
You ruined the, the hierarchy.
Michael
You messed up the fabric.
Almeta
Mm-Hmm. You weakened the foundation.
Michael
So you are all over the place. People ask us what we can do for ourselves is to stop letting somebody else define us. Period. You know what I'm saying?
Almeta
I know who I am, Priestess.
Jackie
I know who I am.
Michael
Like, you say have black and you have white we all do it. This country under slavery created another race of people that probably have never been seen on the face of the earth before. You understand that? Because every time the master came to the quarters and left babies there, they had never—you understand what I'm saying? This is a new race of people. You don't even care about your sons and daughters that you created. Some did and some didn't. Even when you went into the big house, you went in there as a second class citizen. So we need to—
Almeta
You were there as chattel. You weren't even people.
Michael
Right. We need to stop letting people define who we are. You are so rich in here, not only rich, got academics down because you go to one of the most premier colleges in this area.
Almeta
In the country.
Michael
In the country. So how does that make you feel when someone is devaluing you, when you're going to graduate from the U of R and maybe get a master's, maybe get a doctor's over there, but sometimes they won't look at that versus look at your color or what they think you are. They have no knowledge of that. So when we define ourselves, stop allowing someone else define us. We're rich. We're beyond rich.
Almeta
Wealthy.
Michael
Down at the Smithsonian Museum, we had kids for the summer. We always do summer camp. So as an experiment, I wanted my kids to dissect slavery as much as they can from an elementary school level. So 50% went as slave masters, and 50% went as slaves, just to see how they felt about it. One kid, out of his logic said, “Why am I making them pick my cotton? My cotton needs to be picked because I need to get it paid.” That was him acknowledging that he understood the economics of cotton.
Max-Yamil
I understand too of my mentors that sat me down and we really kind of dissected like, well, lynching, like we really dissected like a picture of a visual lynching and it was just like a body hanging, families, women, children, all surrounded this thing.
Mama Mel & Jackie
Picnic.
Max-Yamil
It's normalized violence. We look into schools and we look at the suspension rates and we look at the communities that they're building for us. It's the same continuous culture that came from that.
Michael
Our kids are not dumb. I've worked in the school for 30 years. Our kids are not dumb. They are survivors of the oppression that they have been placed in. Now you take them out there and you give them some logic to who they are and what they can say and contribute. You know what I'm saying? They got enough knowledge in them to write books. When we came up, you read books. And when you read it, you finished with that book, you finished with that. There was a hunger to hear things.
Almeta
Hunger for knowledge.
Michael
Baldwin, and all of them. You couldn't— “Man, leave me alone. I ain't finished reading this.” “Oh man, you taking too long.” That's a hunger.
Mama Mel
Because we didn't have all the access, and so you had to share. You had to share. I mean, that was a whole—
Luis
You also didn't have distractions. I tell people often, I consider myself to be very well read when I was young, and I attribute it to the fact that back in the day, the TVs had these tubes and we were so poor when the tube blew out, sometimes there would be two months before you could fix the TV. So what did we do during that time? We read books. We played with our friends. We weren't hypnotized by the TV. We entertained ourselves with the books. So I tell people all the time my vocabulary, my penchant for reading was born out of poverty. You had no TV. You read books.
Mama Mel
And the thing is, television used to go off. TV was not a 24 hour phenomenon.
Almeta
11 clock.
Mama Mel
The TV would play the Late Late Show, and then they would play the Star Spangled Banner, you see the flag wave. And BOOOOOP, and that will be it. No more TV. Y’all am I lying?
Jackie & Michael
Truth, truth.
Mama Mel
Or there wasn't programming. If you were home sick, when I was a kid in the 70’s and I was home sick, there was no Nickelodeon. You was watching Bob Barker so you got well quick. Because there was nothing. It was no big deal. When I was a kid, if you didn’t go to school, you could not go out to play, because if you were not able to be in school, they should never see you outside.
Michael
So from my point of view, I'm loving what we're doing, and I'm loving being part of this, and I think we all share that, but the three of us are so rich with poverty, so rich with people, experience, you championed some causes, you fought for people, you did something. So that riot was that frustration that we have had enough. Anybody ever been bullied in here?
Almeta
Every day. Every day until high school.
Michael
When did you stop being bullied? When you slap back or fought back. Right? When I first came in from Brooklyn, I had 13 fights at leastin a month's time. You want to know why? I had a Brooklyn accent.
Mama Mel
And you had to prove your spot.
Michael
They would tell me I was from London.