“You can’t come in with your history book and bang people over the head… It’s going to be more dialogical than that.” Dr. Heath W. Carter, Historian Transcript for Memory in the Light of These Sources Part of what makes the work of historians, I think, sort of dangerous or edgy in the current moment […]
Not Something That You Force
“You learn how to trust each other, you learn to assume responsibility for each other, you develop relationships… It’s something that happens in the course of time.” Rev. Dr. Gregory Jones Edited by Rebecca Werner Transcript for Not Something That You Force A good neighbor is someone who assumes responsibility for you. The example I […]
I-65 Changed All That
“You know, it was a national trend back then for people to leave urban areas and move to the suburbs.” Transcript for I-65 Changed All That Merrillville back, I guess, in the 1800s was called Wiggins Point—its claim to fame was that part of the old Sauk Trail went through Merrillville. In fact, there’s still […]
No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress
“Why don’t you come to Gary and see what Gary really is?” Transcript for No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress You know—city services are based on tax revenue and if you don’t have enough people who are paying into that tax base, then of course, you can’t provide the level of service that you […]
Should Play Nicer
“Don’t give me this disillusioned, glossy effect of who we are. This is who we really are.” Transcript for Should Play Nicer Good neighbors. That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? I think it is. All the counties in Northwest Indiana, especially Lake and Porter Counties, live in this tribal fiefdom. Is that the right word? […]
Hold the Line
“These were good people who honestly believed that there was a real problem in terms of the difference between the races.” Edited by Rebecca Werner. Transcript for Title of Story Well, at the time of Richard Hatcher’s election as Mayor of Gary, we didn’t know how that election was going to go, but we knew […]
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
“The guy who was over the department…said that I might have some problems because they had never had anybody black in the office.” Transcript for Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained When I graduated from high school, I got a job working for a realtor in Gary on 19th and Broadway. And while I was working there, […]
The Strike at Froebel
“We were in school one day, the next day when we went back, the entire white population of students were gone.” Transcript for The Strike at Froebel I was totally shocked when I moved to Gary. For the simple reason, I had not encountered some of the prejudice in Detroit in school that I encountered […]
Competition Came In
“What happened with the steel industry is foreign steel.” Edited by Rebecca Werner. Transcript for Title of Story Bethlehem Steel supposedly came to the Midwest and moved into U.S. Steel’s territory, supposedly after U.S. Steel had moved into one of Bethlehem’s territories, I think, in the South. So the competition was there. There was a […]