Abstract

In this 2025 interview, Bernita Polk Thomas talks about her family’s move from Central to Mt. Pleasant and her life growing up in the neighborhood. She mentions racial changes, her experiences in the public schools, and extracurricular activities she participated in. Thomas Polk ends her interview by emphasizing the importance of understanding the past through history.

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Interviewee

Polk Thomas, Bernita (interviewee)

Interviewer

Carubia, Ava (interviewer)

Project

Union-Miles

Date

3-6-2025

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

69 minutes

Transcript

Ava Carubia [00:00:00] So I have my script that I’m going to read, which is Today is March 6th, 2025. My name is Ava Carubia, and I’m here at NewPoint Community Development Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. Interviewing Ms. Bernita Polk Thomas for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:00:19] You’re welcome.

Ava Carubia [00:00:21] And then can you please state your name, the year you were born and where you were born for the record?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:00:26] My name is Bernita Polk Thomas. I was born…1956. My parents I was born down in the Central neighborhood, but my parents moved out here to Mount Pleasant, I want to say in 1959, just before about six months to a year before I attended Robert Fulton Elementary School on 140th and Kinsman.

Ava Carubia [00:00:56] Okay, great. I want to get started right there. Can you talk about moving to the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:01:01] I don’t know, because I was a kid. I was young. I was a baby, maybe 4 years old. It’s not much recollection I had. I know we moved from my grandmother’s house. She lived on 76th and Central. And I know that I remember as a child it was because I didn’t remember back that far, but I grew up with a lot of people, a lot of friends. And when I entered school, it was nice. It was pleasant growing back up in that day, in that time period.

Ava Carubia [00:01:44] And can you talk a little bit about your parents? Where were they from originally?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:01:49] My parents were born in Cleveland, Ohio. My mother. My mother well, I start with my dad. My dad’s name was Cecil Polk. He was, my grandparents were John, John Polk and Madie Evans Polk. My dad was born here. He was also a graduate of Central High School in 1952. And so my mom also went to Central in 1952. She lived on Keyes Avenue. And her name is Lois Barn Polk. My mom was born May 25, 1933, and my dad was born August 25, 1932, and they both went to Cleveland Public Schools.

Ava Carubia [00:02:40] So then can you talk about why they decided to move from Central to Mt. Pleasant?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:02:44] Well, because I think they wanted well, they lived with my grandparents. Well, my grandparents. And then I think they just wanted to branch out into the neighborhood. I think they were opening up the neighborhood to African Americans or Blacks back then, Negroes. And because our area had a lot of Italians in it before they moved, they decided to. And since they were also giving loans to people in the neighborhood, I think that’s why they decided to move there. Let’s see any. Let me see my. Well, go ahead. Keep asking questions.

Ava Carubia [00:03:33] Well, I was going to ask, did you have any siblings or was it just you and your parents?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:03:37] No, I have two siblings. Simone is the middle child. She’s up under me. She was born… 1959. So my mother just had her. Well, just maybe she was a little bit young. And I have younger sister, Cecilia Polk. She was born…1964.

Ava Carubia [00:04:03] Okay. And then I know you said you didn’t really remember moving, but can you talk about what the neighborhood was like when you were young?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:04:12] Neighborhood was like there were a lot of people here in the neighborhood. Well, as African Americans or Black people. There were. There were some whites in the neighborhood, a few, some. But like I said, most, most of them have moved out by then. So I think that’s why they were offering us. We had in, let’s see, the neighborhood. The main staples now in the neighborhood are the library and Key Bank. Well, it was Central national bank back then, but now it’s Key. So those things. And we had, we had two grocery stores, I want to say A&P and Fisher Foods. We had Naleshi’s here also. They were on the corner of 139th and Kinsman, which is like probably the same place that’s out in Solon now. But we were there. I could, go ahead and ask some other questions.

Ava Carubia [00:05:27] Well, you’re also able to just keep talking if you want. But I know that you mentioned that there were some racial changes going on in the neighborhood. Can you speak more to that?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:05:37] Well, it wasn’t more so our neighborhood. I mean, we had some racial. Well, as far as the whites leaving the neighborhood, going out, you know, further or whatever, but there wasn’t too many racial tensions that I can remember as far as when the Hough riots began in, I want to say, ’69, we were here. Hough was, I say, 15 minutes away. We saw what they, what was happening over there to them. And as a child, I only imagined that, you know, they would hopefully it wouldn’t come out this way as a child, but I still believe that we were all a part of the history back then as African Americans. Even though I lived across town and they lived, they lived close to probably to Cleveland Clinic. I, as far as, like the movement back in civil rights, we didn’t experience, we experienced it some. We talked about it in school a little bit. But basically my parents taught me, you know, as a young person that all people are created equal. I did listen to March on Washington, although I was a young girl back in ’63. And everybody should be equal. It’s not everybody or everybody is created equal. And being an older person now, I can understand that a whole lot better. A whole lot better. There’s still a lot of tension now as it was back in between ’63 and ’70. Like I said, I didn’t experience that because we were in a different place. And Watts, they had a-Hough Riots, Detroit riots, Watts. And you look at it where people were burning down houses. You had the. You had the Black Panthers in ’69. And as a child growing up in that. Not in that particular environment, I did learn a lot that, you know, meaning that we should overcome. I, you know, it’s. I guess it hurt me a little bit to see all that happening. And then when Dr. King. Well, Malcolm X, when I was able to understand that Dr. King and also President Kennedy were killed at that. Well, in that particular time period between ’66 and ’69 and Robert Kennedy, I think that hurt me a lot when Dr. King, you know, because he was trying to change the world and he was trying to change people. Change people said we all need to look at each other as just human beings and not separate, but equal. And I think when I saw that in school, being a young person, seeing it in school, it did bring a tear to my eye because, you know, because he had been a leader for us for very many years and people couldn’t. People. A lot of people didn’t see that. A lot of folks didn’t see that. And he was trying to help correct the wrong that was being done to us. And going back to that time, it was just a real hurtful time. Hurtful. Robert Kennedy got shot. That didn’t. Which didn’t make any sense, but it changed history. It really changed history. I think up until this point, it’s a real big change in history. It’s like now we’re going back to that. Not even progressing anywhere. We’re going back to all of that. And it’s sad. It’s very sad. Very angry and very sad. But go ahead.

Ava Carubia [00:10:39] Well, I forget, where did you go to elementary school again?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:10:42] Robert Fulton. It was on 140th between Byron and Bell.

Ava Carubia [00:10:50] Can you talk a little bit more about going to elementary school there?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:10:54] Sure. Going to elementary school there. I had a lot of friends. Everybody knew each other. Everybody knew every. My mom was in the PTA out there, and I didn’t get away with much. I wasn’t that type of girl anyway. But I went up there to learn. I went up there to learn all about myself. I even won a sports night, no I didn’t win. I got an honorable mention in the Sportsman show when they had them here in the city. But school was. I was in the choir school. I tried to get into the orchestra. Said my lips was too big. I wanted to play flute because I knew I could probably get into the band or the orchestra. Nah. So my mother taught us. We went to take piano lessons down at Higbee’s, which was on the. Down where the casino is sitting at now. So we went and took piano lessons for many years. Probably between the ages. I’m gonna say the ages between 10 and 18. So. But because I wanted to play some kind of instrument that would put me. I think that was a real good thing. They used to check us once a month for. Well, like lice. We had ringworm and stuff like that. So that we. We check once every month or one. No, once every three months. We sang. I. I love to sing. I actually, I’m in the choir at church, my church now, which is in the neighborhood. And I sang in the glee club and the choir when I was in elementary school. And I sang in the choir when I was out here in Hamilton. It was fun. I enjoyed it. I had a lot of friends. There was another big change in life also. My grandfather passed away. I felt. I just felt hurt, scared, you know, just hurt and stuff like that. Also, I went. When I went to school, they also. They separated the kids between the regular kids and what they call now, gifted. Then that is considered, you know, you were either major work or an enrichment. They separated the kids at school. So that kind of threw me for a loop because I went home and told my mom, I said, why my cousin was going to Rickoff. And at that time, the Rickoff was one of the schools. One of the. It wasn’t major work. Major work school was in Gracemount, which was out in Lee-Harvard, Richmond School was Rickoff. And that was on 140. Well, same place where it is now. But it was. It didn’t look like that. They. I felt like. And I think some of my friends felt like, why wasn’t we chosen to go to Rickoff? Because most of my classmates, I think they were pretty smart. We were pretty, all pretty smart kids. And we couldn’t understand one guy that goes to my church now. But I’ve known him since kindergarten. He said the teacher told him that his mouth was too big. You know, he always ran his mouth off the time and he couldn’t believe that. And I went home, told my mother how come they didn’t pick me. So what she did about. When I was in sixth grade, she had me tested. So by the time I got up to Kennedy, I was in enrichment. That was probably the biggest change for me, for the neighborhood, because they had us. It sectioned us off, which I don’t think they should have.

Ava Carubia [00:15:16] In what grade did they start doing that?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:15:18] I want to say about fourth or fifth grade, because I can remember about fourth or fifth grade. And I came home and told my mom how come? Well, how come my cousin was able to go but I wasn’t? And I think that split did a lot of things to me. I didn’t like that I didn’t like they were splitting us up because of. Because of. Not academics, because of. What’s the word I want to use? Because other kids, adult, other kids, were smarter than some of them. And I think we all were pretty well intelligent back then. The ones, the kids that I hung around, I think we all were pretty intelligent. So I think they should have left those kids in the school that I was in and not switch everybody around because I think it gave them a. It was like a sense of, why am I not as intelligent or smart when I thought everybody in my class, well, most of the people in my class was smart or either a little bit gifted, you know, so that’s a big thing that was with me when I. It happened somewhere between. Yeah. Fourth and sixth grade.

Ava Carubia [00:16:43] And then. Where’d you go to junior high?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:16:46] Hamilton. Everybody from this area, except for when they built Jamison, not in this area. Down Kinsman over to Shaker Square, down Kinsman to 130th, down Union, on the other side of Kinsman, from Kinsman to Bartlett and going all the way up into Shaker and Union. I’m going to say to Union. Union to. At Union. That’s the stop line. Because I think a lot of other kids went to Audubon and some of the other schools and. Oh, dear. I went to Hamilton and went to Hamilton, and then they had also had major work and enrichment there. So a lot of kids. I met some other people. A lot of kids that stay down a little further from 116th all the way up to the border of Kenne-. Well, border of Shaker and all the way over to Garfield Heights border. I think some of them went to Hamilton. So, I mean, my junior high school years were really good. You know, first different relationships. You know, it was. It was. It was different. I was taking. I was. I was taking. Let’s see, algebra in the eighth grade, I was taking. Oh, I want to say. No, I think that was. I knew I was taking algebra in the eighth grade and ninth grade and I. We started taking French in seventh, eighth grade. So I knew I was, you know, just. And it was great. Everybody had lunch. Everybody was in something in school. It was just a great time to be in school. It was. It was. I enjoyed going to school. I really enjoyed going to school. Different friends seeing, you know, different people. It was just great. I enjoyed it. Like I said, I was in the choir in junior high school and participated. Parents were coming up to see you at the end of the year singing or doing concerts and stuff like that. I really enjoyed it. I was still taking piano lessons at that time. No, that happened in high school. Still taking piano lessons at that time. So that, I mean, my situation was kind of like, well-rounded. Actually now, on my street, now. My cousins lived across the street from me. She’s my cousin there in the picture. They lived across the street from me. So we had a really good time and good times going back to the neighborhood. We really had good times. We would. Sometimes we would. This is things we did in the neighborhood. We would go behind people’s houses and played jungle or whatever. And you would hear the neighbors say, what are you doing back here? I’m gonna come and get you out. You know, that kind of in between people’s property lines, through the, you know, behind the garages. We did that. We played. We played kickball on the street sometimes we rode a bike basically everywhere. We also rode down by. What they call. Well, over there by Shaker Heights High School and elementary school. That’s the place they call bicycle jungle. So everybody usually rode all the way over there. But, you know, you weren’t supposed to. But, you know, your parents didn’t know. So, hey, we went there anyway. So one of my friends on the street, he got into an accident. We had one place called Suicide Hill. We would go down Suicide Hill.

Ava Carubia [00:21:17] Where was that?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:21:18] That was over in the Shaker Lakes. Somewhere over in Shaker Lakes. And he hurt himself real bad. He lost one of his kidneys. And then we got scolded for that one. I had my friends come over. I had. I ain’t gonna say boyfriends, but yeah, I had a couple of friends come over. We would sit and talk on the porch. And then what my mom would do, like the Friday night, we would have to. We would have to clean up the house from the attic to the basement. Always that Friday night. So she was like, well, you got to do whatever you wanted to do on Saturday. So I said, well okay. So there wasn’t much we could do about that. What else?

Ava Carubia [00:22:20] Do you have, what’s your most positive memory from being a kid in the neighborhood?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:22:27] A lot of friends. We connected with the people on our street. A lot of friends on the street. My cousins, you know, I think that was probably one of the best times. My mom and dad were also involved in the street club. They were always involved with the neighborhoods and stuff. And like I said, the best time for me is just being involved with a lot of my friends on the street and, you know, people in the neighborhood and people that went to my school. I think that was the best time. I think it was just the best time of being a kid in the school that, you know, that’s all I can say about that. I’ll think of some other things.

Ava Carubia [00:23:21] And then going on to high school, what was that like?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:23:25] That was different then. You met other people from everywhere else. So I knew a lot of people in high school, I think. I knew a lot. Our graduating class was really big for Kennedy. We graduated somewhere between 7 and 800 back in the day in 1974. Plus, you have people that graduated, back then, you had them graduate in January and in August because they had some score, they had enough credits to get out earlier. But, yeah, I had a boyfriend back then. I enjoyed going. Like I said, I enjoyed going to school. I wasn’t able to get in the choir like I wanted to in school, in junior high and elementary school because my schedule didn’t allow it. I didn’t like that. And in my 12th year, I was supposed to have taken physics, calculus, English, and probably a few other classes. And I told them, no, I’m gonna have my. My classes were going to be easy. And so I took a dynamic living and also took Black history. I have, the years before, I’d taken American history, world history and Black history.

Ava Carubia [00:25:02] Was Black history something offered at a lot of schools in CMSD, do you know?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:25:07] I don’t think they offer any history in school now.

Ava Carubia [00:25:11] But at that time, do you know.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:25:13] At that time, I think, yeah, it was kind of like an elective. And it was something I wanted to take for people that were in honors courses or whatever. They took black literature, but I was able to take Black history. And we got. Our textbook was called Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr. And he was the editor of Ebony Magazine back then. And it has some really good. The book was really good. I mean, I learned about everything I could about Black history. Which helps me now because I’m a travel. I do motorcoach travel, I do bus travel. So once a year when I do that, I go to different states and I learn. I learn about the history. I just came back from Philadelphia, so I learned about what happened before D.C. until they had a constitution and they moved to D.C. learned about the Founding Fathers and Thomas Jefferson, George Washington. It gives me a different perspective when I go and do that, because when I go to Maryland or Virginia, they give their stories about who did the history, who was in history back then. Biggest person to me right now that I can think of is Harriet Tubman, because she brought a lot of slaves up from the south to the north into Maine and going into Canada. So every step. And they have what they call Harriet Tubman Byway that you take from like Virginia all the way up to Maine. And it gives me a different perspective because I did take Black history back in the day. So when I come home and I can say, well, this is what I’ve seen over time and how different things were coming up and going to the different African American museums. I went to the one in D.C. which showed a whole lot of stuff. So it makes me want to just learn more. Want to learn more about my history and others, because I’m also interested in learning about Native Americans or just called indigenous, you know, because they had a lot to do with this, our history. So I’m just not only with Black history, Native American, Latinos, because they have a lot. Learned a lot about things in Texas. So. But let me get back to. I’m giving you a lot of information.

Ava Carubia [00:28:27] No, that’s great. That’s what these interviews are for. But from elementary school into high school, do you think that the neighborhood, the area, had changed at all between those years?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:28:37] You know what? It changed a little. To me, it changed. It didn’t. Hadn’t changed that much until maybe after I got out of high school. Then I think when drugs came into our neighborhoods here, that was one. And that was right after the riots. Then also when gas prices went up.

Ava Carubia [00:29:12] And when was that?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:29:14] Probably around the time I graduated, ’75, when they had the oil crisis. I think things got a little bit different. It was a little bit different financially. The most big thing to me back then was when they put drugs into our neighborhood. And that was right after The Movement. Just. Yeah, just probably right after The Movement, I saw a change in that, which made things a little bit more. A little bit different. With cocaine, heroin, people, you know, people speedballing, or either it was mostly marijuana, cocaine, heroin. I think that as far as the neighborhood, neighborhood changed. Some of the grocery stores might have moved out. We did get a Save More up there, which was a big thing for us. They were owned. They were owned by the people who own Zagara’s. On Lee Road, you know, before that changed over to Dave’s. Tops was still in the neighborhood. Fisher Fazio was still in the neighborhood. We had a lot of. We had a lot of between. Between Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Harvard there were a lot of grocery stores. We had a Pick-N-Pay, which changed to Tops and all that back, you know, back in the day. Lee-Harvard also had one, like I said, Heinen’s, which was actually up in Shaker. We didn’t go there that far, but I know my parents went up on Chagrin and Lee to go to Pick-N-Pay a lot. And like I said, they tore that down and then they opened Save More. Because I used to shop, do my shopping and Save More. I didn’t have. I didn’t have a car back then. And I was married, but I didn’t have a car. So sometimes I take my little shopping cart and walk up and do grocery shopping and come back. They had fresh meat, they had fresh produce, everything else, like I said. And they had a McDonald’s also in our neighborhood where Family Dollar used to be. And that was owned by a Black person. So I think things would. I think things were doing better, doing pretty good. I stayed in my grandfather’s house. I was married that time. My grandfather had passed away in this way, I want to say 90, ’93.

Ava Carubia [00:32:31] And how old were you when you got married or what year?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:32:35] 32. I was 32 years old and I got married. I want to. Oh, I got married February 12th of ’83. Yeah. And I was actually married to a city, City, City of Cleveland Water Department employee. And I was working. Actually, I worked for Pick-N-Pay until they had. Until 86. And in 1986, they closed the. They had two warehouses back then. They had a health and beauty aids warehouse where I was pulling health and beauty aids. Like they work at Amazon, only they have. They have a tablet and. And I’m not gonna answer this.

Ava Carubia [00:33:29] That’s okay.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:33:34] Ooh, I got. Hello (recording pauses). Which one is that? Second, I’m going to say that’s the third largest Amish population in the country other than Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Holmes county, which is in about hours away our way here in Ohio. However, let me go back. What’s that question again?

Ava Carubia [00:34:05] Well, I asked you how the neighborhood had changed between elementary and high school. And then you were saying it changed after you graduated.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:34:12] It changed. It changed. Like I said, it changed a lot. The only mainstays I know, I was getting ready to tell you, was the bank and the library. We didn’t lose the bank. The bank just, the bank is still where it is now. Right there on the corner of 140th and Kinsman. And the library was right next to that. Everything else kind of changed around it. We had a drugstore, which was Saks, which was. The owner was white. And his wife was Carl Stokes’ ex-wife back in the day. That’s the first African American mayor in the city. We had actually, we had our people. We had Jim Brown living in the neighborhood. I want to say the Stokes brothers lived near or in the neighborhood, but we definitely had Jim Brown live in the neighborhood. He was his kids, his mom. Wait a minute. His wife was in the PTA with my mom back in the day. Other changes might have been. Let me see. Schools, except for Robert Fulton schools are basically where they are. Except for Hamilton. Hamilton’s no longer there. So we always keep a page going for. What do you call it? For, in Facebook so we could get together. And Kennedy, we got our own page so we can get together for different reunions and different picnics and stuff like that. All-school picnic. But I think, yeah, the biggest change was the drugs. And drugs became more prevalent in the neighborhood. I think people started getting laid off of their jobs because they had really good jobs. Steel mill, auto industry. Because they went up on the price of gas also. And then I graduated the fir-But skipping all over the place like I’ve been doing last half an hour. The biggest other thing is we went on a family vacation. We had already been going on family vacations to Cedar Point every year since probably 19. 1968. 60. No, probably ’67. We were all going to Cedar Point. So my mother got always would get our room at then because they got a whole lot of hotels now up at the Hotel Breakers. And I guess it was wondering how did Black people, you know, she was just saying, how did we get to stay in a hotel back then? And it was mostly whites staying in a hotel. And my dad would drive up in his ’69 Lincoln. I guess they wonder how we got to stay in the Hotel Breakers. My mother would save every penny she had. So we could go stay about two, three days and come on back home. Our biggest trip, family trip was to me was after I got out of high school and that was ’75. We went to Disneyland.

Ava Carubia [00:37:48] Wow.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:37:51] We went to Disneyland. We didn’t stay in Disneyland. We stayed outside. We stayed in one of them hotel -otels. Mother hated that because she hated. She hated that because we wasn’t. It wasn’t like we was inside the hotel. It was like one of those hotel motel, Holiday Inns. So. And a lizard or something came up in there. She was. But, I mean, my sisters were a little bit younger than me. I was about 19. So we traveled. I got to see Disneyland. I wanted a set of ears, but I thought I was too old for that, so. But I enjoyed that. We went to Anaheim. We went to Knott’s Berry Farm back then. And then we stayed, I guess about a week and came home. That was a big. And I missed one thing about school. My cousin’s class was talking about going to Africa one year. And they sat around, they talked about it so much in social studies class that they decided to go to Africa. And they went to Africa. And also they had chaperones, but also went with the guy from Channel 25 from WVIC. So that was. And then that next year my other cousin and I went to Mexico. We went to. Well, they have Cancun and Cozumel and all that. We went to the western side, which had Mexico City, Taxco, Acapulco. Acapulco is where the entertainment people used to go back in the day. Like Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin and all them. We took a boat trip. Took a boat trip. We saw somebody jump off of a cliff, you know, dive off of a cliff. It was funny. We got to see Mexico City. Is so much different from the Aztecs. Had a lot to do with the. With the ruins. Looked like ruins in Egypt, only they’re more colorful. They had on a thing where you could see the calendars and all that. The seasons changed. It was totally different going back to. It was Mexico back in that day. I bought me a big sombrero, wore that home. I bought my mother a nice purse. I did buy a couple of jewelry. Taxco was the place to get silver jewelry back then. So I know I bought a piece of jewelry made, I think. But it was. I took a picture of my cousin when she was seasick. But I enjoyed myself. We learned a lot about traveling away from home and away from parents. One day it was my cousin and I, and some boys from our group was there and we were in one room. Well, they was knocking on the door, knocking on the wall. We went to knocking on the wall. And then they came over here to see who it was. And it was us. So that was. That was kind of. That was a little bit hilarious. I think one of the guys also got a c-cos when somebody handed him a c-cos. And he came back and told one of the staff moms, what is this? And they knew it was some kind of drug, so they took it away from him. But, I mean, it was fun. We had a good time. We all had a good time. It wasn’t no kids not minding the chaperones and stuff like that, but we did that. And also Channel 25 went on with this trip with us. It was fun. That had to be. Must have been ’70 or ’71. 1970 or 71, we did it. That was another. That was the first time I had ever traveled on a plane. First time from here to Houston, I think, and Houston and Mexico City. That was the first time I went. The second time we went on a family trip from. I think. And I’m thinking we might have had a direct flight from Cleveland to Los Angeles. But that was different. That was totally. It was. It was different. It was really different. You know, just. I don’t know. My parents were. They always wanted to go somewhere. As we got older, my mom and dad would go places, kind of like by themselves. They would go to Vegas. They had friends that they, you know, went with to go to Vegas. And most of the times, if we were. And my mom and dad would do that. See, my aunt lived across the street, and there was neighbors around that always watched. So we didn’t have no parties or nothing in the house. Well, we also had a dog, so we didn’t do all crazy stuff because my aunt was across the street. But I don’t know. It was just. I don’t know. I thought when we learned, we had. And I should have went back, we had chores we had to do. These kids don’t have chores, nowadays. When you come home, you put on your other clothes and you started to straighten up, clean. No, you did your homework, then you kind of straightened up and cleaned up until that big cleaning on Friday nights. We had to go from the attic to the basement and clean. And we did. We did that. We. If you had kitchen duty, that meant you had to clean up the kitchen every night after you. After you ate. So that meant you had to sweep the floor, wash dishes a certain type of way, because we have a dishwasher, had to wash dishes a certain type of way and wipe off the stove, do whatever. And then you got to do your homework. And then after that was bedtime so they didn’t have no time to mess around. My mother went to work right after my youngest sister hit about five years old, she went to work and she worked at the Cleveland Board of Education as a librarian first, and then she started being a secretary at one of the schools for the Cleveland Board of Education. Also. Between that time period, my mom also went back and got her degree in elementary education, and they wanted to put her on the west side, but she wasn’t liking that. So she became a secretary in schools for a Board of Education, and she also went back to school. She was going to Central State, but she married my dad, and then she finished, she was going back to Cleveland. She went to Cleveland State to finish her schooling, and she graduated from Cleveland State University in ’81, the same time my sister graduated from Baldwin Wallace in 1981. So I think we all were. I mean, we were all pretty good kids. I don’t. It wasn’t. I mean, I had a little stuff going on with my parents, but I don’t know. I think I was a. Me and my sisters were pretty. Pretty decent kids. We knew we had to be responsible. We knew we had things we had to do, and we just did it. And just like I said about my Girl Scout troop, that was one thing. I enjoyed meeting all the new girls who went to a. Oh, we went to a camp. It was called Camp Villika, but now it’s the Lake Farm Metro Parks. We used to go out there at least once or twice a year. First time we went, we went in the cabin. Our cabin was nice. But when we went over to. I’m gonna say when we went over to the cabin for that the white girls were in it was like, how come we didn’t get this one? Nice little living room with a nice big fireplace? And it was going. I’m like, we didn’t get that. How come we didn’t get that? Second time we went. It was nice, though. You learn how to do things. You learn how to be responsible. And then second time, we went to the same park. We slept in a tent. I told my mother I would never do that again. I didn’t take my stocking cap off. My head. My head was cold. My body was cold. So I was like, never again. No. So. But it was fun. It was doing something different, and it was doing something different where, you know, you were doing that difference. And I think that’s what Girl Scouts taught me. Taught me how to be responsible. Taught me how to, you know, think fast and think for myself. Taught me it was. It was. It was an experience. It was experience in my life that I really, really, really liked. Really. Yeah, just really liked. I think this had a lot to do with me, too. Making more friends. Some of these ladies in the picture are deceased. Some of us are still living, because we all. Some of us all went to the same. Went to the same school. Some didn’t. But it was a very. I think it was a very good experience for all of us as young women to want to do something and be somebody. It just taught us so much. Yeah. That’s all I can say right now. Anything else?

Ava Carubia [00:48:58] What did your father do? You mentioned what your mother did

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:49:01] Oh, my father. My father, he worked for Ryerson Steel. He was there probably more than about 30 years or more. And that was a steel fabricator down on 53rd and Lakeside. I even worked there once in. When I got out of school. I was kind of like an order-. I had to pull orders and put the orders in numerically. It was sheets of paper, not like it is in the computer now. Also, you know, I felt like. I mean, even with the little Girl Scout thing with, you know, with the. With the different cabins, I felt that one. I felt that because they hired another young lady down at the time, I was hired for that, and she was able to stay on and I wasn’t because she was white. And her sister was also worked as a salesman indoors. And my father was. He was involved in the union. And I mean, he was involved in the union. He was a union, my father became the president of his union, and me and my mom, one year we went to Pittsburgh, so. And that’s where the place where they started unions. I just found that out, too, when I went to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. And so, yeah, I remember when my dad went to. When they were negotiating the contracts and my dad went to Pittsburgh, and my mom and I used to go with them. And both my mom and I, we used to. We went on boats in Pittsburgh. We had a good time while he was doing that. But they were negotiating in Pittsburgh for, you know, their positions for the small steel fabricators and stuff like that. So, I mean, that was different. I learned about that. Oh, and also when I got older, I was in the union with Metro Health down at the main campus. So I learned. My parents. My parents, also my mom and dad, like I said, my mom was a union steward for the custodians and the secretary of staff at the school. After they both retired, they also got. They also got in a group of retired steel workers at. I want to say at Middle Steel, which is, I think, Cleveland Cliffs now. So they were always involved in community stuff. They were always involved with their unions. So I learned a lot about that, you know, as far as people sticking together and being equal, being equal across the board. So my parents were in a lot. I mean, they were. We all went to church. I think there was a little bit of friction there between mom and dad because my mom wanted to take us to Olivet and my dad wanted us to go to Fellowship. So we went to Fellowship. I actually got baptized when I was 20, and I was finding it, trying to find a church home when I got. When I, I was married and my husband was real sick. So I. After that, I had been visiting Affinity up here on 175th and Miles. And I’ve been at that church. I joined that church. I’ve been in that church probably 21, 22 years. So that’s. That’s how life. I guess that’s how my life worked out.

Ava Carubia [00:53:06] Well, I have just two more questions.

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:53:08] Sure.

Ava Carubia [00:53:10] One, how do you think that being from this part of Cleveland has impacted you as a person?

Bernita Polk Thomas [00:53:21] I don’t know. I’ve been in Cleveland all my life, and only reason, has it impacted me? I think I know. I know a little bit how we. Well, I put it like this. There’s a North side. Anything north of Euclid is north. Anything south of Euclid. I think I know about the south side more than the people on the north side. North side people would never come over to the south side. I go back and forth because we all are who we are, and that’s it. I think it’s probably a difference maybe between north side and south side people. I think we might have wanted more out here. I don’t know. I can only say that the guys from the north side of town would try to come over and date the girls over here on the south side of town. And sometimes it wouldn’t click because they wanted somebody, they were looking for other things. Put it like that. But I think that’s. I don’t know. I’ve always lived over here. This is. Like I said, like I told some people, I live and breathe this neighborhood over here. I see where it fell after the, you know, over time between Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Harvard, you know, Mt. Pleasant and Lee-Harvard. I think what could have happened is people that really wanted to buy houses bought the houses. Now they’re being sold to folks outside of the community, and they just put anybody in the houses now. And then older people are trying to leave their younger people to house because they don’t want to go be here. So it’s kind of like a flight, a different type of flight. And both, both areas have changed so much. When I got out to Lee Harvard, it was. We were just to say this. We were near all the suburbs. Maple, Garfield, Shaker and Warrensville. So we felt like we were possibly the cream of the crop. But living in Mt. Pleasant, I was only five minutes away from that. So I felt we were the cream of the crop over there because we also had judges and folks like that in our neighborhood too. And like I said, we had Jim Brown, we had both the Stokes brothers. We had people in our neighborhood too. And we thought we were thriving over there because the houses were different out here. They were much smaller than what we grew up in over here in Mt. Pleasant. Our house was pretty big over there. My parents did some remodeling over there in about ’80. 80. They went out 20 extra feet so the kitchen would be longer. We would have a den on the back from the dining room and a half a bath. And that was like in 1980. So our houses was bigger. Our houses were larger, except for the houses going on Lee-Harvard, from Lee Road up to Warrensville. Because they had colonials out there. We had almost. Our houses were colonial. So I felt we were just. We were. And then out this way. And I’ll say this, when I was going out this way, some of the kids thought they were better than we were. And like I tell them, I said my parents was able to give us music lessons. You know, he was able to do these things because both of my parents were working. And I think some of the people that I went to school with that lived out this way, their mother. Well, they worked. They also worked, but I think it was more the men were working more than the women. And my parents were working. And most of the people in Mt. Pleasant were working people. They worked hard. They just worked hard. There was one neighbor down the street he worked for. He worked for TWA, he worked for the airlines. So we were hardworking people down this way. My mother stayed home for a minute, but then my mother decided to work. My aunt had worked for the VA for 30 something years out in Brecksville. And we were all hard working people. And that’s the way our parents taught us. You work hard and what you do is you either go to college or get you a good job. And so that’s what they told us. And we kind of went. We went along with it. Now. My last recital, I forgot. I used to memorize all my music. And what happened? It left my body. It flew away. And I was like, I’m sitting there and I’m like, oh, shoot, I can’t play nothing. So all I could do is get up and go in the corner and do whatever. My cousin here, she went to a ballet school up in Shaker, right up on Kinsman. She was. I think she was the best ballerina that they had, and they actually wanted her to go to Harlem, but my aunt really didn’t want her to go. It was kind of, you know, so. But Marcy could really dance. I mean, she could really move. She was. She was like a ballerina. She was just. She was so good. And we would go up there and see her dance and. And then she started modeling for a while, too. She was good at. She was really good at that. But I think that’s, you know, that’s really the best things I remember about my childhood, but putting other people into it, like my cousins, you know, like that. But my sister. My sister, the one next to me was an all city orchestra back in the day, and. And she played cello. And my younger sister, she wasn’t caught up in busing. She was the one caught in the real busing, where they were trying to level out what, you know, African Americans were being taught and, you know, everybody on the other side, everybody. She went to Marshall, which is closer, near maybe Strongsville, Rocky River North, North, Northeast, Northwest, I think, because I think they were trying to do something socio-economically, economically with the neighborhoods. So she got to go to Marshall. She said it was pretty nice over there, too. They got to learn more things and different things. I think that’s what, I think that kind of messed up the neighborhood, too, when they started busing, because also people, when we went to school, there was an East Senate and a West Senate. East Senate, you know, football, basketball, all that. West Senate, we used to play them, they used to play us. And it was like a little rivalry or even between in the neighborhood. There was always a rivalry between us and Adams, because before Kennedy, people was. Everybody out this way was going to Adams. So Adams was overcrowded, so they had to build Kennedy in ’63, and the first class came out in ’67 or ’68. So that was a nice little rivalry. Now they don’t have that kind of rivalry anymore because the dynamics of the whole thing is different. And people going to charter schools, I think what they like. It’s not like I’m living in Warrensville, living in Shaker they have a middle school, high school, that’s it. Which makes the dynamics of that stuff going on out there different from here. So what we try to do in my class, you know, when we had our 50th reunion, that was the biggest thing that was going. I really enjoyed that. I had a great time seeing all my friends again. Everybody talking about I can’t remember. I know your face where I can’t remember everything. So I guess, you know, with us being, wow, because I’ll be 68 this year, that is one thing that came up with us. But we had a wonderful time. It was a wonderful time. I’ll never forget that. It was wonderful. But growing up wasn’t, I guess it wasn’t so bad. It was just the things that happened at that particular time in other places had time to sit down and kind of revive and kind of kind of re evaluated. I went to college, I went to Tri-C. I was a party animal. Didn’t want to study, didn’t want. I did study enough to get out of there. And I probably should have went to a four year institution at that. No, because what did I do? I got that job at Pick-N-Pay. So I was making a little bit of money, but I should have went back and got to school. But that’s okay. I didn’t do that. Now since I’m 60, and I like travel and tourism, I want to see what they telling them in that. But I think I lived, I think, I think I’ve lived a pretty good life from zero to almost 68. That’s it.

Ava Carubia [01:04:22] Well, I have one last question. I ask everyone this at the end of the interviews, which is what message would you like to leave for future generations?

Bernita Polk Thomas [01:04:34] I think as African Americans, for us, I think we need to get along better between ourselves. I want our younger generation to learn as much as they can go back to learning history because you don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re coming from. You need to learn the history. You need to learn American history, world history and African American history. That’s why we’re in the predicament that we’re in right now. Because no one knows their history and they’re not even teaching. I don’t even think now maybe in the private schools, not private, suburban schools or private, they might be teaching history. They ain’t teaching history anymore. And I think a lot of our young people say, okay, we’re going back to 1990. Well, I mean everything didn’t start in 1990. Everything went back to probably pre Emancipation Proclamation, Revolutionary War, Civil War, all those things that have come up to what we’re going through now. You need to know your history, you need to stick together, and you need to stop preying on older people like us because we’re giving you wisdom so that you can look toward the future. And I hope there is one, because the things that are happening now is kind of going. And also go to church. No, don’t even go to church. Just believe and trust in God, because we don’t need that. Probably sooner than we think. Probably sooner than we think. Believe and trust in God. Know your history so you can know your future, so you can embark on your future. And then just try to get along with everyone as best as you possibly can. Because if I can help you, you can help somebody back. It’s called paying it forward. We all got along and did things together when we were in school. Played all the street, but we didn’t have the technology like they do now. So get out there among your friends and maybe you all learn something from each other instead of trying to get in the gangs and do all that other crazy stuff. And like I said, know your history so you can know your future and believe and trust in God and that’s it.

Ava Carubia [01:07:42] Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else I didn’t ask you about that you want to add?

Bernita Polk Thomas [01:07:47] No. I did get spanked a lot. I mean, I wasn’t. I wasn’t all. My mother said some of me when I was washing dishes and I told her something, she kind of backhanded me. But back then, you could do that. You can’t do that now because of 696-KIDS. So, yeah, I’ll just say I got disciplined when I was supposed to and that’s it. So I enjoyed that. I mean, I enjoyed it, but I learned a lot from that. Do what your parents tell you because they also said, I brought you in this world, I’ll take you out. So that’s it. So you did what your parents told you. I think these kids don’t do that now. They don’t have much respect. So that’s what’s going to keep us. We’re in this thing for four years and it’s been four months in this four years. And it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Real crazy. Probably set us back 250 years.

Ava Carubia [01:09:10] Is there anything else you’d like to add before I end the recording?

Bernita Polk Thomas [01:09:13] No, that’s it.

Ava Carubia [01:09:14] I’m gonna end it now.

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