Code,990053
Subject,Lana Cowell
Date,8/5/2013
Interviewer,Mark Souther
Abstract,"Lana Cowell, a transplant from Youngstown, Ohio, discusses fighting for integration in Cleveland Heights. She begins by talking about her father and how he owned Idora Park in Youngstown. She then explains the push for integration in Cleveland Heights. She describes how the Housing Center at Cleveland Heights began at St. Ann's Church and gives an extensive background. She also discusses, in great detail, the Heights Community Congress. She briefly mentions the business districts of Cleveland Heights. Finally, she describes the differences in methodologies that Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights employeed in order to integrate."
Tags,"Youngstown, Idora Park, Wild Cat, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Heights, Ludlow Community, Action for a Change, St Ann's Church, Heights Community Congress, racial steering, desegregation, Housing Center, Financial Institutions Advisory Committee, FHA,Coventry, business districts, reverse steering, Heights Community Congress, fair housing"
Special Notes,"Phone call interrupts at minute 20-21:15, 52, 55"
minutes:,
0,"Introductions: born in youngstown march 7, 1942; Father part owner of idora park in youngstown in the late 1940s til the fire in the 1980s"
1,"Describes how her father became part of the park, as much as she knows; prior to owning the park her father was the manager of the Elms Ballroom"
2,There was also a ballroom at Idora park and that may have been her connection; she describes how they lived on the opposite side of town from the park; they lived where Youngstown State is
3,"Then they moved to Trumbull county; Went to the park at least once a week; She never worked there, but her brother did-describes what he does now"
4,Favorite thing to do at Idora was ride the coasters; Her favorite ride was the Wild Cat; Describes a fire that burnt down much of the park
5,"The fire came at the time when the park was in dire straits financially; The carousal moved to Brooklin, NY-in a park underneath the bridge"
6,Describes how the carousel was purchased; lived in youngstown until she went to college in Detroit; graduate school at Case Western Reserve-developmental biology
7,"Got her Ph.D, but she got married and stayed home; eventually went into the non-profit world; came to case when she went to school; describes where she lived around shaker square and eventually cleveland heights"
8,She lived near cedar lee in her first house with her husband. Talks about how she wasn't aware of the racial climate in Ludlow during the 60s when she lived there
9,"She was focused on her studies, and all of her friends did not live in the Ludlow community; She began paying attention in the mid to late 1960s"
10,"Describes a death near Case due to a riot; She was not totally aware until she got involved with ""Action for a Change"""
11,"She got involved around 1969-70; She describes being in St. Ann's parish, but going to the Hallonan Center on Case's campus"
12,"Can't recall how she got hooked up into ""Action for a change"" but glad she did; It was through her diocese at St. Anns; Describes what they did- would have weekly discussions on social issues"
13,Then during the week they would go visit organizations dealing with the social issues that they were discussing- different time because those involved did not have to work; The people in St. Ann's came together and made their own variation
14,Describes how this subgroup would pick an issue to pursue; it was very enlightening; Got a consultant from akron that did an audit of fair housing policy-they emulated it in Cleveland heights
15,"Says they were all stay at home mothers, but they wanted to bring social change and unfair housing policies to the front"
16,Carmelite Monastery was an issue here. background: in their audits they noticed the overt racial steering that was going on
17,"They wrote their report, but did not know what to do because it was done in the church. the pastor did not know about it."
18,"Describes who they went to and what they did to spread the knowledge (went to the pd and the pastor at the same time); all of this was pre-carmelite, but they knew that their work would have to leave St. Anns"
19,Joined up with Heights Community Congress; Also met with other Catholic organizations; Wanted to prevent another east cleveland and alleivate racial steering
20,"Needed to have the whole community involved, thats why they went to the carmelite monestary; (phone rings)"
21,
22,"The north side of the heights was the area where African-Americans were being steered, Fairfax, Roxboro, Coventry are where they were not being shown homes; Describes other boundaries employed by the real estate agencies"
23,"She was not an auditor, instead she trained the people who went out"
24,the information she learned from the realtors was all second hand-except for when she and her husband went to buy their houses- went to Chesterland
25,"Chesterland was too far for her, all of her friends lived in Cleveland Heights; She never experienced any racism when she went to buy a house"
26,The pastor of St. Ann's was upset that they did what they did but not what they did; States that a major real estate agent was onthe council so the pastor was in trouble; No real political fallout though
27,Fair housing inc. Seward Wallace was in charged; her and her organization would work with anyone interested in fairhousing
28,"Wallace was actively trying to fight real estate steering; Mentions Forest Hill, but she did not personally work on it"
29,"Describes the motivation of her organization: justice, not as much concern with becoming another east cleveland-except that they wanted to live an integrated community(not all black nor all white)"
30,"Heights Community Congress: when she became the executive director, describes the previous executive directors;"
31,"St. Ann's audit commitee became the Open housing task force; continued to do auditing, filed lawsuits, took realtors to task; Task force was instramental in creating a model for cleveland heights: 9 point program"
32,One of the points was to create a Housing Center that would run parallel to the real estate business in order to provide a fair alternative; describes what they did
33,She became an organizer at the congress instead of working at the Housing Center; community organizer from 1972-1977 when she became the director; She describes the two other organizers and they did not want it or the board did not want them; So she became the director from 1977-1989
34,describes what she was paid to be an organizer and then the director but it was between $3000 and $20000;
35,Mark describes what we are doing with this project-less about factchecking and more about life on the ground; Describes the Heights Heritage tour which became the Heights Heritage Home and Garden tour
36,"Describes the process to get the tour off the ground; rationale for the tour: fundraiser, highlight cleveland heights,"
37,Describes what people now think about cleveland heights; success of the tours-shes not sure
38,They never did an analysis of people who came and if they ended up living in Cleveland Heights- maybe they did at the time but she doesn't know it now
39,First computer in the congress when she was the director around 1980-so keeping track of stuff was not easy
40,"She was a member of the league of women voters-who were involved in fair housing, did a major project to overhaul redlining"
41,She brings this up because she wanted to describe the research process for this project-took 3 years of paging through books-no computers: instramental in creating one of the points in the 9 point program
42,"This point was called Financial Institutions Advisory Comittee (FIAC), which came out of the info they found when loooking at redlining; prevented further redlining but also influenced national legislation"
43,"Defines Redlining and how they were racial with the FHA loans; Whites would go to banks and traditional ways to get mortgages, blacks would go to the FHA"
44,Area south of mayfield was an area that opened up to african-americans earlier than other places-also where many afircan-americans who were involved with the congress lived
45,Heights Community Congress was organized by classes- a class for every posible constituency that lived in the Heights; gives a list of many of the classes
46,
47,"Transition of the city government from being Republican to Democrat in the late 1970s; can't remember when exactly, but it was around the Hilltop lawsuit"
48,Discussion of dates around when they filed the hilltop lawsuit;
49,Back to the transition of the city government; filed the case jointly with the city so it took major negotiation; back to debating dates of filing
50,Needed the city because it was a major suit; describes the people involved in the suit from the city
51,Don Barkley was the law director; the city knew that bad things were going on and that the congress would make a big stink about it
52,Switch Topics: Efforts to stabilize business districts (Phone rings til 52:35); first formed the cedar lee (she doesn't rememebr what it was called but it came about in the 1970s
53,Classes on the heights congress board for business districts; a lot of effort to stabilize the business district an to improve them;  coventry was first then Cedar Lee
54,Coventry neighborhood organization preceeded the congress; but the congress tried to incorporate all of them
55,All american city award (phone rings again);
56,Got it twice; intstramental in promoting the community; close relationship with shaker heights-but opposed to the manner that shaker took towards integration policies
57,Shaker  was promoting integrated neighborhoods based on race-reverse steering; Cleveland Heights tried not to do that-everyone was equal
58,"Cleveland heights may have eventually gone to that ""reverse steering"" but not when the Housing center was under the Heights Congress"
59,Mark talks about his experience when he was moving into cleveland heights; shaker does not do that anymore; Thanks and end of interview
60,