Code,990011
Subject,E. Christine Morris
Date,6/4/2013
Interviewer,J. Mark Souther
Abstract,"This interview is a followup to an earlier one with E. Christine Morris. She discusses her memories of the civil rights movement and tells stories about her husband seeing Malcolm X and her seeing tanks roll down Lincoln Boulevard in Cleveland Heights during the Glenville riots in 1968. She also discusses her church, New Community Bible Fellowship in Cleveland Heights, and her children's careers."
Tags,"Poindexter Village, Columbus, Higbees, Peck and Peck, Halle's, May Company, Seveance Center, Carl Stokes, ""Mistake on the Lake,"" Ralph Perk, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Cleveland Now, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, March on Washington, Kennedys, assassinations, hough Riots, Glenville shooting, Bruce Klunder, Lee Road Baptist, New Community Church, segregation, Coventry School, Roosevelt School, Heights High School,"
Special Notes,Phone rings in the 90th minute
minutes:,
0,Housing project from Roosevelts; Poindexter Village  in Columbus
1,Desribing Housing Project
2,Housing Project; More children in Poindexter village than the street she lived on
3,"unspoken segregation in Columbus restaraunts, especially on High street"
4,Would go through downtown to get to high school; adults never went to dinner downtown; shopped downtown and got food at Kreskey or H. L. Greene's (Five and Dime stores)
5,Lazuras was big department store like Higbees
6,Peck and Peck; Montaldo's were other stores; no malls
7,"Remembers coming to Cleveland, going shopping and being ""frosted""; Stuck to Lazarus and the Union in Columbus"
8,Smaller higher end shops where blacks had trouble
9,Larger stores would make blacks wait;
10,continues talking about how people did not want to wait on blacks
11,got out of college in 1963
12,She discusses Higbee's and Halle's and she hated to see their demise; Also went to the may company on cedar and lee-says they had poor customer service
13,Severance Center was a very nice mall; had nice variety of prices in their store selection (in the 1960s) came to it from Mt. Pleasant
14,"When she lived in East Cleveland, though, she would go downtown not severance; did not have much money so they did not do a lot of shopping; Milton, her husband liked downtown; asked about ""Mistake on the LAke"""
15,"Gives her answer- says it was when mayor Perk, who was after Carl Stokes, was in charge because his hair caught on fire and the river caught on fire so Cleveland got the name"
16,"She thought it was sad to hear that Cleveland was made fun of-did not deserve it; She was not a fan of Mayor Perk because her husband worked for Neighborhood Youth Corps and it was funded by the city, and Perk cut it"
17,Perk would push back on some of the programs that Neighborhood Youth Corps put on; the vision for the students that her husband had was that they would get real world experience in occupations that they wanted
18,"They would find them Co-ops and experiences to understand the envronment that they wanted to work for; the city wanted them to clean up parks, which her husband thought made them menial"
19,"That was the change between Stokes and Perk; Nixon was president at the time, which ment the Republican stance was similar to Perk-cut off funding for Neighborhood Youth Corps"
20,Went to Congress to testify on behalf of the students and was successful having the funds restored-tense time; Milton accepted the challange and had no animosity
21,"Asked about Cleveland Now in 1968, but she does not remember- those years she turned inward because she had 2 children (1968 and 1970) also in the 70s she lost members of her family which cloud her memory"
22,Memories of MLK in the early 1960s; She only saw him closely once; her husband was active in the community and saw MLK
23,"Her husband went to Washington for the March on Washington, which was an amazing time; She did not go, but she tuned in to the television and the news, followed it from afar"
24,"She would listen to her husband's account of things-""amazing time""; She talks about the Kennedy's and their assassinations which was startling and signalled a loss of hope because of the rise in unrest after their deaths"
25,Describes an event in OU when she would take care of a professor's children when he would go to Iowa; So they let her know that they were coming to Cleveland but they decided not to at the last minute because of the racial tension in cleveland in the 60s
26,"It wasn't mindblown, but it was a personal loss to her because of the Race Riots across the country"
27,Doesn't remember much about the Hough Riots; Bruce Klunder was run over in 1964 by a bulldozer protesting school segregation
28,Always that kind of tension because of the geographic separation between the White community and the african-american community; hard to get a handle on what is driving the discontent; too much unrest
29,"She gets tense and angry after she would see what was going on around her, but she wouldn't be effective; instead, she would focus on what she would have to do; Recalls the Glenville shootout-didn't know what exactly happened in terms of context"
30,"One day she was awakened by tanks rolling down her street, which is not a big street; She describes the route the took that day; they were pulling out of the Glenville area"
31,Yet she did not understand why they were using tanks; They produced a tremendous amount of noise; watched them go down her street in convoy
32,"Talks about the freeway fights-she remembers talks about freeways that would come near cottage grove, but she did not get involved; instead, she hoped that others would raise their voices unless she was asked"
33,This was the first event that made men on the street get involved in the Street Club; her husband did not join because of this; she was aware it was an event and that she was relieved when it did not happen but thats all she knows
34,Tells a story about Malcolm X. She was in East Cleveland and recalls some of the more suprising things that Malcolm X would say; She remembers going to a theater on Superior which became a mosque- Her neighbor and her husband went to see him and she wanted to go but women were not allowed
35,"She says she did not know that women were not allowed, but her husband still went and listened to things that Malcolm X said- they were inflammatory"
36,Did not mix well with their Christian beliefs; stirred up feelings though; They did have a paper that they sold in the area; very active; it was still in cleveland not in East Cleveland
37,The media coverage was pretty sparse as well as she remembers; Lee road baptist church-joined when they moved to Mt. Pleasant
38,Reverand Wright was the minister there and he was white; it was mixed congregation but whites started to drop out and eventually it became all black; it is not southern baptist
39,Can't remember what type of baptist but she can remember that it wasn't southern baptist-very different from the church she grew up in- describes what they did: sang anthems which appealed to her
40,"She really enjoyed voluteering with the music department; Rev Wright was very interesting and kind, but when he died and her husband died she stopped going; he was replaced by Reverend William E Sanders;"
41,Rev Sanders application process; but in their lives things were going on that they thought they should not go to church; she fell away from religion alltogether
42,She got into this space where god is everywhere why go to church; after awhile she needed to go back and she went to New Community Church;
43,"in 1965, the church on Lee Road was integrated, but she never really met the white people;"
44,"the organist and the choir were all black, no whiutes; She thikns something happened before they joined and very soon after they joined all of the whites dissappeared; she really only knew people in the choir"
45,"Going to that church was an obligation; in retrospect she realizes she did not really experience spiritual growth, but she had a good time with the choir"
46,Felt great fellowship at New Community; She has neutral feelings for Lee Road Baptist
47,"Origins of New Community: started as a bible study by paster Kevin James, moved into a classroom in tri-c and made it a ful church"
48,named it New Community bible fellowship in 1994-1996; in 1996-99 they were in tri-c and then they were able to buy a synagogue had 300-400 members
49,the sanctuary holds about 500 people then they outgrew that; They had two assistant pastors and the senior pastor
50,"they had a split and part became Abundant Grace that meets in Park Synagogue's old building; cut down the numbers, but they bounced back its a dynamic church"
51,"Outreach to bring in men and teach men how to be men, and the women are taught submission but not less than;"
52,She wishes she knew some of these things when she was married; She feels that she has grown in this congregation; Background of Pastor James-its his first church
53,Continues talking about Pastor James' background;
54,"Eventually he went to seminary in atlanta, she thinks, but he does have his masters in divinity-his wife brought him Cleveland"
55,The church started out in someone's basement-she thinks it was a family members of his wife's; She is unsure where it was; majority African-American and anyone is welcome
56,Describes a growth group and what that means; describes the various types of people who come through
57,Mark makes an observation about African-American churches and segregation
58,The people in her church come from all over Cleveland and its suburbs: from solon to willoughby and cleveland heights too
59,"Although not many people come from Cleveland proper, but this church has continued to grow and grow"
60,"She thinks that many of the people came from the Baptist Church, but she does not really know"
61,She tals about the synagogue that was there. They were orthodox
62,She talks about the creek behind the churhc and thats where the Jews would cast their sins into the water; she does not know where they went
63,She talks about other Jewish synagogues around the area
64,Kids went to Coventry School; Her son went after they went to a school without walls and he had trouble with distractions
65,She would have conversations with the teachers about how they tracked students
66,"Describes teaching her oldest daughter math and that put her in the fast track, but the adminstration wouldn't do it until she fought it"
67,the middle child had an issue with a teacher that utilized the demerit system
68,"She is very competative, but was discouraged by the demerits and Christine went to the teacher and asked the teacher to stop with the demerits, the teacher complied and her daughter did better"
69,Her son was trying to the teachers' patience; he was hard to handle- describes one event where he split his lip
70,"Eventually he had to go to Roosevelt, where he had a male teacher that really impacted him"
71,Her son was also into basketball and coached by Steve Harvey; he went to Heights
72,"He got middling grades, and one day he got 100% on a test and that changed him"
73,He eventually graduated and she was relieved that all of her kids got through the Heights system; She says that there was one teacher who demeaned her kids and she tells a story about a conference they had
74,The teacher told them they did not have to worry about a test because they were not going to pass anyway; Describes one of those tests
75,Continues to talk about the test- a test on meteorology
76,"Many things like this event with the weather patterns test, she did not like the set up - did not think it was fair; she was livid but her husband laid out the argument; the classes were predominantly black"
77,Many of the white kids were taken out and sent to private schools; The tracking was based on race as well; it was a struggle tomake sure kids got the support they needed; she was talking to people many years later and things had not changed much
78,"Her middle daughter was always disturbed after having this class, but she would not tell her mom because she knew she would go up there; she told her daughter though that she would be sucessful regardless"
79,heights was different and her oldest played basketball until she tore her acl; So her mom took her out of school and got her a tutor; when she went back her grades were subpar because she did not take the tests when she was out
80,continues telling the story; She repeats that she was happy when her kids got through the system
81,Told her kids that they are in charge of their own futures no one else; Gives an example of a counselor that discouraged her eldest daughter
82,This counselor called her up after her daughter graduated from engineering school to see how she did
83,Shares that her daughter is a software engineer for missles; shes the only girl who works there but she is doing very well;
84,Very proud of her kids and her kids families; she thought it was nice of the counselor to call; Her son is an engineer as well which would probably surprise his coventry teachers;
85,She feels that cleveland is not a place where one can reach their potential so all of her kids are in other places; She thinks her husband could have been more; She is at peace with what has happened
86,All of her expereinces have helped her grow; in spite of the road blocks those kids are exceptional- her son went to northwestern for football on scholarship
87,All of her kids played sports in high school; Describes her son's work and what he received his education in
88,"All of her kids are middle aged. She describes what her middle daughter, ann, did  and her education"
89,Continues to talk about Ann's achievements in the marketing field
90,"Phone rings, then she talks about her eldest daughter's achievements"
91,"Thanks, reflection on the interview, and End of interview"
92,