Abstract
Leo Martin grew up in Glenville, living on Empire as well as East 120th Street before eventually moving to Beachwood. He met his wife through friends at Glenville High School, and they have been married for 42 years. In this interview, Martin talks about his experiences in public schools, including persistent segregation and the institution of busing to promote desegregation. He discusses white flight from Glenville, East Boulevard as a racial boundary, his memories of businesses along East 105th Street, Forest Hills Park, racial hostility toward Blacks when they passed through Collinwood on their way to and from Euclid Beach, and visits to University Circle. He discusses the pervasive messaging of white supremacy in popular culture, how he resisted his high school guidance counselor’s effort to steer him into the Army at the time of the Vietnam War. He relates how at age 11 he unknowingly saw the murderers of Herman Scatter Stephens as they left the scene of the crime. Martin also describes and reflects on the significance of the Hough uprising of 1966 and Glenville shootout of 1968. He speaks at length on how he tries to educate those who are oblivious to why conditions are as they are in the inner city. The interview offers numerous insights into Black life in Cleveland in the 1950s-60s.
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Interviewee
Martin, Leo (interviewee); Martin, Debra (participant)
Interviewer
Gabb, Julie (interviewer)
Project
Project Team
Date
3-13-2014
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
144 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Leo Martin interview, 13 March 2014" (2014). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 999117.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1043
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
