“My mother said, ‘Always leave a job to where maybe you could go back to it.’” Transcript for How I Tried to Leave My mother said, “Always leave a job to where maybe you could go back to it.” And that was how I tried to leave. Any job I left I tried to leave […]
Flight Paths Project
Bigger Forces Swirling
“I realized that my little Wonder Bread existence in Miller was not quite what I thought it was.” Transcript for Bigger Forces Swirling I grew up in the Miller section of Gary in the late 1960s through the ‘70s, and it was a typical white, suburbia, middle-class upbringing, but it was changing. Everything was in […]
Hitting Home
“I was starting to grow up and see things the way my parents were seeing them.” Transcript for Hitting Home The school I went to in Detroit was what they say now was integrated. When I came here to Gary, there was an East Pulaski and a West Pulaski. East Pulaski was for my people, […]
It’s the American Dream
“We were good workers, and we did our job well, but we didn’t have a passion. You have to have a passion in life.” Transcript for It’s the American Dream You come here for work, and you work in the steel mills, and it’s simple as that. I mean, my grandpa worked in the steel […]
Lives That Are Totally Alien
“The use of the car, I think, has dramatically changed the way people live.” Transcript for Lives That Are Totally Alien It used to be that people could either walk to downtown Gary or take a bus and the car was not as prevalent as it became later on, but now it’s a car to […]
Learn from the Past to Build a Future
“There should be an allegiance to Gary to build it up and make it prosper once again.” Transcript for Learn from the Past to Build a Future As a history major, I know that we learn from the past to build a future. And to not acknowledge our history, whether it be family, just strictly […]
Just Got the Impression
“All they saw was the violence. They did not see the peace. They did not see the change.” Transcript for Just Got the Impression I grew up in the Tolleston area of Gary which was, at the time, very Germanic and some Polish. I went to St. John’s Lutheran Church which was the first church […]
Double Whammy
“Now, we talked about the white flight; we didn’t talk about what really made it worse in Gary.” Double Whammy is part of our Flight Paths initiative. Double Whammy So the white flight in Gary—there are differing viewpoints as to what caused that and what fueled it. And I think the popular one, primarily by […]
Felt a Lot of Pride
“I was thinking black power was a good thing.” Produced by Rebecca Werner with interviews recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. www.storycorps.org Felt a Lot of Pride I was born in Terre […]