Sherri Green interview, 02 August 2023

Abstract

Sherri Green is a local Clevelander who grew up in the Garden Valley Housing Projects. In this oral history, Green recalls her childhood in Garden Valley, visits to East 105th Street and her ancestry, including pullman porter heritage and her Baptist upbringing. Her Uncle, Edgar Nixion, was a figure integral to the Montgomery Bus Boycotts during the 1960s Civil Rights movement. She also discusses the Glenville area, the Karamu House, Cleveland race relations, music, dancing and her doctors at the Robert Madison Building on East 105 Street.

Interviewee

Green, Sherri (interviewee)

Interviewer

Taffe, Jamila (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)

Project

Green Book Cleveland

Date

8-2-2023

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

74 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Sherri Green interview, 02 August 2023" (2023). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 723005.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1450

Related Resources

Green Book @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Jamila Taffe [00:00:00] Thank you, Sherri, for being here today with me, Mila, and Erich here at Third Space. So before we start, I just want to say that oral histories may explore topics that could elicit strong emotions. While we do not want to avoid hard subjects like racial discrimination, we want you to feel comfortable letting us know if you want to decline a question, change topics, or end the interview with no questions or judgment on our part. So let’s get started with some background information. What’s your full name?

Sherri Green [00:00:34] My name is- Sherri Lynn Cobb is my maiden name. Green is my married name. So, Sherri Lynn Cobb Green.

Jamila Taffe [00:00:46] How do you spell Cobb?

Sherri Green [00:00:48] Cobb. C, O, B, B. Mm-hmm.

Jamila Taffe [00:00:51] All right. And what year were you born?

Sherri Green [00:00:53] I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, at Rainbow’s Babies and Children in 1953. […] So if you can add that up real quick, I just celebrated my 70th birthday.

Jamila Taffe [00:01:13] Congrats. Happy belated.

Sherri Green [00:01:15] Thank you.

Jamila Taffe [00:01:17] So tell us about your family growing up.

Sherri Green [00:01:20] Coincidentally, my mother and father, who subsequently divorced, we grew up on 123rd and Superior. It was a little short street right down the street here, and it was a duplex. And we lived right next door to the Goodmans. The father was a pastor, Reverend Goodman, and we lived right next door. And this was- I guess I was born there and grew up there until I was about 4 or 5 years old. And I remember that we used to try to have pets, chickens and stuff like that, but the chicken didn’t survive the area, I guess. So we gave up on the idea of pets. But unfortunately, my mother and father divorced early. I was about 5, and my oldest sister, Bernadette, was 7. So my mother, being a single mother, her name was Alice Cobb Nash, bless her heart, her being a single mother. We moved to Garden Valley, which they had new projects down there. Now, it wasn’t the projects where everybody migrated to from the South. When the Second Great Migration happened, most of the Black people were at the 30th, 33rd and Central-Quincy area, and there was a pocket of projects there. So they built some new projects. And 30th and Central and Quincy is not that far from 71st and Kinsman. You probably don’t know the area, but not that far from 71st and Kinsman. But we moved up from the projects on 30th Street, and these were new projects. And at the time, you know, it was the place to be if you needed CMHA. And my mother, being a single mother with three children, three daughters needed to move there. And so that’s where I grew up. So this would have been like ’60s, 1960s, early ’60s, so I was still a little girl and I remember the projects well because we stayed there until I was in junior high school. But, you know, it was the projects, and we had a playground, and, you know, people would gather in the playground and we, you know, would do our thing over in the playground. And I went to Charles W. Chesnutt Elementary School, which is no longer on 71st off of Kinsman. And I was an adult before I knew who he was. He was a black author, but at the time, I didn’t know anything about his history. So that’s the background in Garden Valley, basically, as youngster, being so young. Let’s see, my mother - I think I told Erich this story - my mother, she was a single mother, and she caught the bus everywhere we went. And so she would- One of her favorite things to treat us with was on some Fridays she would catch the bus out here to the Gold Coast. It was this corned beef sandwich, corned beef place on 105. And it was very, very popular. We probably could find out the name if we looked hard enough, because it was weird. I don’t know if Jewish people still bought their corned beef there or not, but Black people were allowed to buy it there. And so as a treat, sometimes she would bring us home a pound of corned beef, pickles, bread, and mustard. And it would always be a cherry strawberry pop. And, oh, we just thought that was just the bomb because we had corned beef, which was a delicacy for us, you know, because we lived in the projects. I didn’t know we were poor, actually, until I became an adult, because my mother, that’s just the kind of mother that she was. And we had the nicest clothes. We were always well groomed and everything. And so I didn’t know growing up in the projects meant that we were poor. But anyway, that was one of my fondest memories. Now, of course, being like seven, eight years old, I thought she was catching the bus to Parma or Westlake or Bay Village or something, because it seemed like it was that far for her to make the sacrifice. She had to take three separate buses to get from Garden Valley to get out at 105. And so she had to spend extra car fare and extra time and she had to carry the bags herself and all that. But she made that sacrifice for us from time to time. And, boy, we just thought it was just a bomb. So that’s my fondest memory about 105th Street. Now, my sister Bernadette said that My daddy used to bring us to the Alhambra Theater, which was on 105 and Euclid. And I don’t remember that because, again, I was preteen. She was a little older, so I don’t remember that. But my sister said that he used to bring us out here. And when I thought about it, he actually lived right on 100. His mother, he- When they divorced, his mother lived on 105th off of Ashbury, right there at the corner of Lee and Ashbury. Lee and 105. There were some apartments there. They’re not there anymore. So he lived in this area. But again, I was so young, I don’t remember what the area looked like when I would come out here. And I’m really kind of disappointed that I didn’t know what I was missing, right, because I was so young. Because I would have ventured up the street or down the street, but I didn’t know what this area was. I had heard later, as I got to be an adult, that this was called the Gold Coast. Did you know that? Okay. And it was the Gold Coast to some, but Skid Row to others. Because it was during the time when the whites and the Jewish people were leaving and Blacks were able to come to this area, as opposed to having been segregated to that 33rd, 55th area when we migrated up from the South. So we were just now being able to move about the city more. And they called 105 the Gold coast and the second downtown. Because I don’t imagine- And I don’t remember going downtown to the public downtown. Like downtown. But at that time, it would have been segregated. So I don’t remember going down there. Maybe once or twice we went to see Mr. Halle. Mr. Halle [Mr. Jingeling], keeper of the keys or something at Halle’s department store. Maybe once or twice. But again, we didn’t have a lot of money, and Mommy was working hard. She had three children. So that would have been a big sacrifice for her to have taken us down to public downtown. But again, this was called the second downtown. And so because of all the businesses and enterprises that were here that I missed.

Erich Schnack [00:10:16] Let me rewind just a bit to your mom. What did she do for a living?

Sherri Green [00:10:21] She was a seamstress. She worked at Joseph and Feiss, which was on 55th Street between Superior and St. Clair. It was a big garment factory. And she knew how to sew because one of her older aunts was a millinery. Made hats. She made hats for first ladies. Her name was Hilda Conley. She made hats for first ladies at churches and stuff. She was very good at her craft. And I’m not sure if she brought that skill up from Montgomery, Alabama, which is where we were all from - they were all from - or not. But. So my mother had spent time with her Aunt Hilda, and I think she learned how to sew from her. So she was an excellent seamstress, my mother was. And she worked at, like I said, Joseph and Feiss, and she had the needle pricks in her hands, she would say, to prove that, you know, she sewed from sun up to sundown. But it was piecework, so she had to make as much clothing as she could to get a decent paycheck.

Jamila Taffe [00:11:38] What type of work did your father do?

Sherri Green [00:12:41] My father was a butcher. Growing up, when I was a youngster, he was a butcher. He worked for Webb Beef. But he being the kind of man that he was, he worked his way up from being a butcher in the early ’60s and ’70s to becoming the meat inspector for the whole region of Cuyahoga County. And he worked out of Columbus, so he would commute back and forth to Columbus. But that was because of his knowledge, first as a butcher and then working his way up through the ranks to become- I forget his title, but he was very prominent, very trustworthy man of integrity, and everybody knew that he was going to do a great job, and he always did. I think I got a little bit of that, too. [laughs]

Erich Schnack [00:12:56] He really did work his way up.

Sherri Green [00:12:58] He worked his way up. He was the regional manager, maybe for the whole state, where he would go to different stores and inspect their meat department and stuff. He was on a first-name basis with the original owner of Dave’s down on 36 and Payne because he was always in their stores. And they all knew him, but they all loved him and trusted him. He did a fine job. And he had worked his way up from being a butcher.

Erich Schnack [00:13:24] It sounds like he was really into the fabric of just the whole state and Cleveland through that business.

Sherri Green [00:13:30] Mm-hmm. He was very civic-minded, etc. So, yeah, I just learned a recent story about him, and this is really flabbergasting for me, if I can tell it.

Erich Schnack [00:13:43] Please do.

Sherri Green [00:13:46] Now, his last name was Cobb, but the man that we knew as Cobb was not his father. And he had told us when we were growing up that his father was, get this, Ed Nixon, Edgar Daniel Nixon. And he was the one that started the Montgomery boycott in Montgomery. And it was his father. And I just put two and two together, like this past weekend, guys, and I’m not, and I’m not kidding you. I was floored because I knew who he was as a youngster. My father told us that his real dad was this man. Right. I believe he even took us out to his funeral. But note, back in those days, nobody talked about, you know, the fact that he was a cop and his daddy, you know, nobody talked about that kind of stuff. So I couldn’t even get any information this weekend from my aunt about it because that’s just how hush-hush we kept those kinds of things. But Ed Nixon, if you look him up right now, he was the one that called. He said, I looked at one of his videos. He called the civil rights leaders in Montgomery when Rosa Parks got arrested and he said Martin Luther King was the third person on his list that he called. And so he dialed some other people. And Martin Luther King said- Martin Luther King said, oh, I think about it, you know, I’ll call you back. Right. So Martin Luther King called him back later and said, yeah, I’m in. And so, Mr. Dixon, my grandfather said, that’s good because I told everybody to meet at your church. Right. So that’s how the Montgomery boycott started rolling. Mr. Nixon was very civic-minded already. He was a member of the Pullmans.

Erich Schnack [00:16:03] Pullman Porters?

Sherri Green [00:16:04] Porters, yeah. And he was very interested in getting people registered. I think he was a part of the NAACP in Montgomery. So he knew everybody. And so he was able to organize the boycott that led to desegregation of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. And to think that I have some connection to that prominent history has really floored me. Like I said, I just found that out this past week and made the connection of who he was.

Erich Schnack [00:16:43] Wow, that’s an incredible story, isn’t it? Hopefully you’ll be able to learn more from the family [crosstalk] about him.

Sherri Green [00:16:49] I certainly will be.

Jamila Taffe [00:16:52] So how has your parents, like their work, how has that influenced you?

Sherri Green [00:17:00] Well, they were both staunch Christians. The family was heavily Baptist. And my father Bernard and my mother Alice were both from Montgomery, Alabama, but they didn’t know each other in Montgomery, Alabama. They didn’t meet each other until they both ended up at Mount Hermon Baptist Church, which is on 40th Street between Central and Woodland. It’s still there, but again, it was one of the few churches where Blacks could go. So my, I wish I had thought to bring that back. My mother and my father met at Mount Hermon Church, but this would have been like I was born in 1953. So this would have been- They met, you know, late ’40s or something.

Jamila Taffe [00:18:03] So do you know the story of how they came to live in Cleveland?

Sherri Green [00:18:08] Well, it was during the Great Migration. I know it was early ’30s, ’40s. There was one migration, and then they said it was a second one. I don’t know if they were part of the second one or the first one, because the first one might have been like 1920 or something. The second one may have been later ’30s or ’40s. So I’m sure they came up during that, during that time, while they settled in Cleveland. I think it was some other family members already here, which is what they did. You would go somewhere where other family members were. And some of the family, I think, moved to Detroit because of the factory over there. Some of the men, like some of my mother’s great uncles, my great uncles, her uncles and stuff, went to Detroit because of the factories there. So I have had some people there. But we settled here because Aunt Hilda and some of the other prominent family members were here.

Jamila Taffe [00:19:19] So could you talk more about where you went to school? I know you said you went to Charles Chesnutt.

Sherri Green [00:19:23] I went to Charles W. Chesnutt Elementary School. I was- Up to the sixth grade, and I was a good student because I remember I used to get baseball tickets and, you know, garden tickets and stuff, 4H tickets and stuff for having good grades. So. But by the time I went to junior high school, we moved from country Garden Valley because it had become unseemly. And my mother wanted to get us away from there. So then I ended up at Patrick Henry Junior High, which is again in the Glenville area, because we moved to 131st Street, which is right at the border between East Cleveland and Cleveland. So I went to Patrick Henry Junior High for high school. And I got in so much trouble [laughs] at Patrick Henry with my friends. 

Jamila Taffe [00:20:38] What kind of trouble was that? 

Erich Schnack [00:20:40] I would love to hear that.

Sherri Green [00:20:42] [laughs] We’d cut school and hang out, you know, and so I failed math. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t smart. I got good grades and everything. But for some reason, math must have been at the end of the day or something, I don’t know, after lunch or something. And the teacher was so happy to give me an F3. And when I saw that F3, it kind of like, just shocked me back to reality. So I had to go to summer school. That summer to make up that math grade. And then I said, you cannot go to now. At that time, they split the classes up. And some of the people in that area went to Glenville and some went to Collinwood. Probably Collingwood just had just opened up for Black people. I don’t know that history for sure, but it had probably just opened up to allow Blacks to come to Collinwood. So some of my friends went to Collinwood and some of them went to Glenville. Neither one of those was a good choice for me, me looking at that F3 grade. So I ended up going to Jane Addams Vocational School, which was on 30th Street. And also because my mother had went there. That was her legacy. Even though she didn’t graduate from there, she had went there. She might have got her seamstress skills from there as well as from the family. She may have honed them there. So I went to. And I was the first class for Jane Adams when it was all girl. And it opened on 30th and Woodland, Quincy. It was all-girl at the time. It’s since become co-ed, like, long after I left there. And I took medical secretary. That was one of the trades. And that was an excellent school when people give CMSD a bad rap back in the day. I got an excellent education from CMSD. And again, I went to a vocational school. And I was trained well as a medical secretary. Some of my friends were in food prep. They had legal secretary, medical secretary. They had accounting and business. And I mean, we learned all the tricks of the trades. I learned shorthand, how to take shorthand, all of that. And then the last year, our senior year, we went out in the field and worked. And I worked at Mount Sinai Hospital, which was down there 105. So this would have been. I graduated from Jane Addams in 1971. So this would have been pre-1971 that I was working at Mount Sinai.

Jamila Taffe [00:23:59] So could you also expand on, like, some things that you did for fun growing up?

Sherri Green [00:24:06] Really? Do I have to? [laughs] No, I’m not gonna- I’m not gonna-

Jamila Taffe [00:24:09] You’re gonna exclude yourself?

Sherri Green [00:24:12] [laughs] Not since this is being recorded for [posterity]. I just- I don’t know. I had to go with my oldest sister. Bernadette was three years older than me. So my mother, thinking she was keeping both of us safe, she sent me with Bernadette. Well, that was the wrong thing to do because all of my friends ended up being her older friends, right, so, you know, I started doing what they were doing, but I’m not going to tell you what it was, [laughs] but if you know the timeframe, you could probably figure it out, right. So. Yeah. So. But anyway, so when we moved out to 131st Street, I used to still take a bus and/or hitchhike back to Garden Valley because that’s where all my friends were. And so that’s what I did. I would go to school, do my homework and everything. Bye, Mom. I’m gone. I’ll see you later. And then she probably did know that I was hitchhiking all the way back down to Garden Valley. And I had friends, so I wasn’t by myself. But fortunately, nothing happened, thank God. And it was safer then for you to do that. And I lived. I survived.

Erich Schnack [00:25:41] And how old were you when you were hitchhiking around?

Sherri Green [00:25:45] I was still probably at Patrick Henry, so I would have been 15, 16, 17. And I thought it was safe. And thank God, like I said, nothing ever happened. But all my friends were in Garden Valley. And I was not happy that we moved out here. But my mother again, was moving out of Garden Valley to get us away from that element.

Erich Schnack [00:26:19] Now, when you talked about how Garden Valley changed and mom wanted to move away, what exactly happened over there at Garden Valley? How did the atmosphere change?

Sherri Green [00:27:25] Well, Blacks were confined to a certain space. Like I said, we didn’t have money to go downtown. We didn’t go all over the city. As a matter of fact, we probably couldn’t. I just didn’t know it. And some of my older friends might have known it, but they couldn’t afford to get there because they didn’t have cars and stuff. So there was this playground right behind. I think it was the port playground. It was right behind Charles W. Chesnutt. So that’s where we hung out in the playground. So the guys played basketball and shot dice. The girls, we got dressed up and walked through the playground so that the boys could whistle at us, you know, stuff like that. And that’s what we did. We just hung out pretty much in the playground. Well, she just thought that was horrible that, you know, all these guys were over there leering at her young daughters, so she couldn’t wait to get us down there.

Erich Schnack [00:27:43] Now, you said you were 15 or 16, 17 when you were hitchhiking. Was it common for 15, 16 year olds to hitchhike around? I know it was very socially accepted back then. Safer, like you mentioned, too.

Sherri Green [00:28:24] Yeah, that was the thing. I mean, you know, Marvin Gaye even wrote a song, Hitch Hike. You know, you just go out there and put your thumb out and say, you hitching a ride, where you going? And they would take you. So I don’t know. I didn’t have a clue about how I should have been scared or frightened or cautious or I didn’t care about any of that. All I knew is that I wanted to go play with my friends, see my friends, and that’s all that mattered.

Erich Schnack [00:28:33] So you’re playing with your friends, you’re in high school, and music is always so very important to people when they’re in that age. And I’m wondering, what were you listening to during that time?

Sherri Green [00:28:45] Everything was Motown, because Motown hit the world stage as I was growing up. And now that you say that, I’m thinking their Garden Valley Center on 71st in Kinsman, it was like a recreational spot for young teens. So the first time I heard a Motown song was at Garden Valley Center. And my sister Bernadette had went, and she came home just- They were just- Everybody was just awestruck at this music, you know, because that was something new. Motown. Smokey Robinson, “Please Mr. Postman,” “My Guy.” That was just- That was music that had not been- Just like when the Beatles hit the scene, when Motown hit the scene, it was, like, fantastic. We had never heard anything like that before. So my sister Bernadette came home and said, oh, I heard this song. You know, I still remember the song “Please Mr. Postman.” And, oh, and I just begged my mother and begged my mother and begged my mother until she let me go up to the center with her. That may have been the start of me going with her, because I just had to hear this song. And from then on, we were hooked. Everything Motown that came out from then on, I know I listened to it. If you play one of them right now, I can sing it. [laughs]

Erich Schnack [00:30:28] [laughs] We’ll have to do another karaoke. Very cool.

Sherri Green [00:30:34] So, yeah, so that’s how the music came, and that was something that we did. We went to the Garden Valley Center. But probably after we left the Garden Valley Center, then everybody went off to the playground.

Erich Schnack [00:30:45] So it was predominantly high schoolers going to that Motown Center?

Sherri Green [00:30:50] There actually may have been junior high. I was in junior high. They may have been in high school, but I was still in junior high.

Erich Schnack [00:30:58] Just in our last oral history, Mr. Williams was talking about how important dancing was when he would be out and about. Were there any specific dances you would remember? You know, maybe going out to the center or, you know, what would you do? You hang out, have a drink?

Sherri Green [00:31:17] Well, anything. Anything that was connected to that Motown song, we did it. Like, I don’t know if the twist or, you know, whatever the popular dance was at that time. When the song came out, then everybody did that dance. The Funky Chicken, the Mashed Potato. You know, there were certain songs that when they were played, that meant that we were to do that dance. And so, you know, we did all the dances. We did all the we did all the dances and then we would hand dance. You know, a hand dance is where you would hold hands and go back and forth and do it 1, 2, 3, step, like that. And then you would turn them around but you hold hands the whole time. And you know, and so we would hand dance. We were the generation that I think kind of originated that because my mother and them, they didn’t do the hand dance, I don’t think. And these kids these days don’t do the hand dance. So when Bernadette and I go to places and we hand dance for my nieces and nephews, they just be like, oh, you know, because they don’t know that dance. But that was what we did.

Jamila Taffe [00:32:49] So what type of work did you do throughout your time?

Sherri Green [00:32:53] Okay, so I was trained as a medical secretary, like I said, from Jane Addams. And I use, still use my secretarial skills that I learned at Jane Addams. I’ve used them throughout my college life and throughout my career. I managed a nonprofit. Of course I was able to run the office because of my training as a medical secretary. I went to school. I should have gone to Gallaudet, which was a college for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. But I was too home-bodied to leave home, so I ended up at Cleveland. I started at OU and did one semester there, got homesick, still came back home, and so ended up at Cleveland State. So I wanted to teach deaf children. And people used to say, you want to teach deaf? No, deaf. But because I wouldn’t go away to school, I did not pursue my passion. So I ended up in special education at Cleveland State because that’s all they had. And it was for moderately, profoundly and severely retarded young adults and kids. So that was my career. I ended up teaching specialty needs kids for the county board of MRDD for 31 years. Okay. But again, those secretarial skills I had got, you know, I was able to use them, you know, doing my homework, paperwork, you know, in college. And so it was just a tremendous boost for me that I had learned those skills. And that’s why I say I would recommend a vocational school to anybody because again, that those trades did, because I know my friend who’s still in foods, you know, top notch. So that was my career, was teaching special needs children. The passion for people who are deaf and hard of hearing never left me. So 2005, I ran into the right people and I was able to start a nonprofit for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. And the name of it is Hands that Speak Volumes. And I was the director, founder, and the mission was to improve the quality of life for people who are deaf and hard of hearing in Greater Cleveland. Because the only reason why you don’t see people deaf and hard of hearing integrated into our regular society is because they need interpreters to speak their language. They don’t speak our language. So why would you. You wouldn’t go to a Chinese school or a Mexican school, and you don’t speak that language. Correct. Because you wouldn’t get the information. Correct. So you’ll see people deaf amongst the community, and you won’t know that they’re deaf until you try to communicate with them. And then if you do, you have to either know sign or if they can read lips, you know, and then you can write a note or something. If you want to take the time to do that. Well, most of us don’t have the time to do that. So I- My thought is, is that everywhere you go, you should see people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Only thing is, you just need somebody to know their language.

Jamila Taffe [00:37:17] So what sparked that passion?

Sherri Green [00:37:20] That passion was sparked for me at age 7, and I saw the Miracle Worker.

Jamila Taffe [00:37:28] Could you explain to me about the Miracle Worker?

Sherri Green [00:38:03] The Miracle Worker is the story of Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan. And it came out. Well, it was the original one with Patty Duke and Ann Sullivan. And I was a preteen. I was about 7 or 8. And I saw that movie, and I just. The fashion was just birthed in me. I didn’t grow up around anybody deaf. There was no one deaf in our family. So that’s all I can attribute it to is that I saw that movie, and boom, there it was. So I pursued it. You know, I still use sign, and I still have friends in the deaf community, but not as much.

Jamila Taffe [00:38:22] Are you pretty fluent in sign language?

Sherri Green [00:38:24] I’m not fluent. And I went, I’m not proficient and I’m not flowing. And I was at Tri-C West because they had a deaf program for certification for interpreters at Tri-C West back in the early 2000s, but I did not finish that. And that was because I started raising my grandson. But I went through that program, and I got almost to the end, and then I had to quit. So I learned a lot about the, you know, I know sign part of the deaf community. If I see some of them, they would recognize me like a doctor would.

Erich Schnack [00:39:07] I want to go back to your school years and your college years. Could you tell us, you know, you’re getting out of class, you’re hanging out with your friends, you got some extra money in your pocket. What do you do for fun?

Sherri Green [00:39:21] Didn’t have any extra money. I don’t think- We scrounge up change and stuff. He just going to make me tell it. Just going to make me tell it. [laughs] You keep coming back. [crosstalk] Okay, so I’m going tell it. You bold enough to ask. I’m bold enough to tell you. We would collect up our coins and we would buy wine and drink it. We were teenagers yet, but we could always find somebody hanging out at the corner beverage store. The store was right on 71st, 70th, 72nd or 73rd and Kinsman. It was a beverage store there. And it was always people going in and out of there buying beverages. So we would scrounge up our money and send them in the store, buy us wine, and then we would drink the wine.

Jamila Taffe [00:40:29] There’s no shame in it.

Sherri Green [00:40:31] Well, that’s what we did. I mean, you know, we didn’t use a lot of drugs. We didn’t have money for, you know, like hard drugs or marijuana or anything. All we could really afford was a cheap wine, orange twist, red screwdriver, all that old stuff. Bad dog. Yeah.

Erich Schnack [00:40:51] Oh, yeah.

Sherri Green [00:40:52] That’s what- That was the big secret. [laughs]

Erich Schnack [00:40:56] Well, thank you for spilling the beans.

Sherri Green [00:40:59] Okay. But that’s what we would do. Then once we got intoxicated and it didn’t matter. [laughs] I mean, the boys flirt with us and all that stuff. And we would sometimes go in. It was a Hobby Horse. I guess it was an old barber. It was called a Hobby Horse. It was on Kinsman. And they would let kids in there, and we would go in there and dance and listen to the jukebox. So, you know, they weren’t strict about the rules about buying the beverages or going in the bar. I may have been- That was when I was probably going back down there, even though I was in high school. So I might have been 17.

Erich Schnack [00:41:42] So that was called the Hobby Horse.

Sherri Green [00:41:44] It’s called the Hobby Horse Kinsman. Right on Kinsman.

Erich Schnack [00:41:48] Can you tell us more about that location? Was it just like a bar in a jukebox?

Sherri Green [00:41:55] It was just a broken-down old bar, nothing fancy. But we just thought it was to catch meow because it was a place we could go. I didn’t understand that the places that we could go were so limited, which was why we had to confine our entertainment to right in our neighborhood. I didn’t understand that then. That’s probably why we hung out at the old dilapidated bar was because it was within walking distance. We didn’t have cars, we didn’t have bus fare to go anywhere else, not that I knew of. So we just hung out right in the neighborhood and the Hobby Horse was the place. The Hobby Horse, the beverage store, and the playground. Those are some fun things.

Erich Schnack [00:42:55] It’s a good combination of fun for that age. Thank you for sharing, Sherri.

Sherri Green [00:43:01] Mm-hmm. I loved it. I had a great time growing up and managed to stay out of a lot of trouble. So that was good too. Thank God for that.

Jamila Taffe [00:43:11] So earlier you mentioned that you didn’t really have very, like, prominent memories of 105, but I was wondering like maybe once you got older, like, was there anything that stuck out to you?

Sherri Green [00:43:25] I must say before we end here, that this building was where my OB-GYN resided. He was Dr. Joseph Martin. And I always wondered why his office as prominent a doctor as he was because he worked at Mount Sinai. I think he was head of the OB-GYN at Mount Sinai. And I often wondered why he had his office in this little rinky-dink kind of looking because they really renovated it but back then it was just, you know, elevators sometimes wouldn’t work and stuff. But his office was- But not just him. There were so many other prominent doctors in this building right here. And so this is a historical site, right? Right. So but I found out when we did the Chocolate City thing that this was the spot for all of the prominent professionals that were Black back in those days. I had my son at in 1983, so this would have been late ’70s that I was coming here and then I had my son in ’83. So all of the prominent doctors. There was architecture, you know, somebody they pointed that out over there. And again, even though my grandmother lived on the street, I did not know that the reason why all those prominent historical figures were right here on this street was because it was the Gold Coast, was the Chocolate City. And probably the Blacks could not go any further than right here to get their off-, to have their offices. So this was like where it stopped for them to go back then. Isn’t that something? 105 was like it’s- Well, like I said before, prior to being able to come to 105th, 33rd and 55th Street was as far as we could go. And if you ventured out of those spaces, I don’t know what kind of trouble you would be in. But I didn’t go. [laughs] I didn’t know nobody that went, you know, anywhere. We stayed in our neighborhood.

Erich Schnack [00:46:30] And that would have been further out west then, right? So don’t go further out west.

Sherri Green [00:46:34] Certainly not west because the river divided the east and the west, and so the west was always kind of off limits. I was an adult before I actually started going on the west side. So, yeah, I don’t know anything about the west side as a child. And these few areas that I’m telling you about were all I knew on the east side until I became an adult, started driving myself.

Erich Schnack [00:47:05] You mentioned the elevator here in the building. And I’m curious to know more about, like, what did it look like inside here? If you remember. You’re walking in the door. Was there a greeter at the front?

Sherri Green [00:47:20] You know, at the, in the elevator, there was a pharmacy on the first floor, but it was also tiny. You know, you could tell by the office space that down. I mean, you know, how could you have a pharmacy in a little bit, you know, like where the bookstore is or something. But that’s where it was. But I guess we were glad to have that space because that was all we could get, probably. But it was by the time, again, by the time I was coming in the early ’80s, it was kind of run down by then. So I again wished, again, I wished I knew what it was like in its heyday when it was the prominent place for Blacks to come and be upper-class or middle-class Blacks would come here, this area. And I was so fascinated by Chocolate City. And I really want to learn more because again, you know, I was right around all of this, but I just didn’t know what was going on. So that was quite an eye-opener for me to hear that.

Jamila Taffe [00:48:37] [inaudible] -for you to hear that. So how would you say the community has changed over the years? Like 33rd, 105.

Sherri Green [00:48:46] Well, this is interesting because you’ll read- Now stop me if you want me to because I know I can talk. [laughs]

Jamila Taffe [00:48:54] Please do.

Sherri Green [00:48:55] Okay. This is interesting because you’ve heard of how urban renewal was used- Freeways were used to bust up slum areas. And so I-71, I-77, right there by Tri-C Metro, those highways were used to burst up the slum area where Blacks had migrated to when they came from down south. But when they got tired of us congregating there and they wanted to scatter us, then they built the freeway there. I just thought they just was building a freeway. Right. But no, there was a reason why they built the freeway where they did, and that was to bust up the slums. So we had to scatter. So we, you know, went a little further out. I’m not sure when that would be. But again, when my parents came, we were all confined. They were confined to 33rd, Quincy.

Erich Schnack [00:50:18] It would have been pretty much completed by, like, the mid ’70s or so.

Sherri Green [00:50:22] The freeway.

Erich Schnack [00:50:23] Yeah. Same thing happened in Akron, too, down there at the Akron Innerbelt.

Sherri Green [00:50:29] And if you research it, you’ll find that it happened in a lot of places. And when I read that, I was like, oh, okay.

Jamila Taffe [00:50:44] So did any significant cultural or social activities take place within the communities you grew up in?

Sherri Green [00:50:53] I thought about that, And I thought about whether or not my mother was active in politics because Martin Luther King was at Cory, Malcolm X was at Cory. She went to Olivet Institutional Church, where Reverend Hoover was very popular, and she went there, but I don’t think she was active in politics. When I asked my sister, Mommy seemed like she was more interested in the arts, so we took classes at Karamu. Bernadette said she took piano lessons at Karamu, which wasn’t, still wasn’t far from Kinsman, because Karamu’s on Quincy. I don’t know if you know the area, but Karamu’s Quincy, and Kinsman is like the next couple streets over. And I remember going there for some dance classes because I was in a Miss Teenage Pageant or something, and Mommy had asked one of the choreographer dancers there to teach me a dance. So Mommy was more connected to the arts than to politics because I don’t remember her taking us to see Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or any of those prominent people that came to the city.

Erich Schnack [00:52:35] And you mentioned the Karamu House. I mean, talk about a venue and a place in Cleveland that has really standed the test of time, goes back to Langston Hughes days, just like this guy here on the bag and up into the present day. I’m wondering if you’d like to share more about your memories at Karamu House.

Sherri Green [00:53:01] Well, like I said, my first real introduction was when Mommy asked this choreographer - I wish I could remember her name - to give her the credit for that, to help me choreograph a dance for the Miss Teen Pageant. And then after that, growing up, I used to do some stage plays there because I kept the dancing. You know, that was always my most artistic expression was dancing. I could sing a little bit and sign and do other stuff, but my most artistic expression was dancing. So I used to dance for my church, but that was in the middle ’80s. We started a dance troupe at my church, Mount Zion Fellowship Church. We were the first church to have a praise dance group, and I was one of the founding members of that. So the passion, the love of dancing that I had got at Karamu. Just stayed with me. And so then actually later, as I said, being involved with the dance troupe at my church, we did stage plays at Karamu. We did the gospel, we did Black Nativity. We did a play at the East Cleveland Theater called the Gospel at Columbus. Right. And we did some at Tri-C Metro because the choreographer, Dr. Marcia Taylor, was stellar in her work. And so she was well sought after for directing, choreographing plays back then.

Erich Schnack [00:55:04] Thank you.

Sherri Green [00:55:06] These are all very fond memories for me.

Jamila Taffe [00:55:10] So what kind of values were prevalent during your time within your community?

Sherri Green [00:55:17] Well, I think I was starting to say about my family being Christian and on both sides. And so they both were very responsible, very hard working, full of integrity, honest. And I believe they represented Christ well and their dealings in the community within their neighbors. Members of the church, we all were raised in the church, so we went to Mount Hermon there a long time. Then we ended up at Harvest Baptist on 71st and Kinsman, the original Harvest Baptist on Kinsman when we moved to Garden Valley. So the values would be integrity, honesty, treat others the way you want to be treated. You know, being virtuous and kind, patient with others, you know, not treating others harshly or wrong. And these are the kind of values that I grew up with and I believe I still exhibit today.

Jamila Taffe [00:56:51] What are some dreams you have for your community?

Sherri Green [00:56:56] I currently live in East Cleveland, and East Cleveland, as you know, is 98.8% Black. I envision free East Cleveland, it being a cultural mecca, the city where all things African, you can get it there. Now, this is not an original thought, but I do read a lot. Dr. Claude Anderson, I don’t know know if you know him. He says every city you go to is a Chinatown, Italiantown, Greektown, you know, every other town, Germantown, you know, every other city has those towns. But where’s the Blacktown? So I envision East Cleveland being that Blacktown, it being a cultural hub where you can get African garb, you can discuss African, our African history. Maybe we could relearn some of the things that were taken from us when we were forced enslaved over here. You know, that that would be a hub where we could go and learn some of the things that were taken from us, as well as it being visually like an African cultural place. You know, with the garb and the decorations, the patterns and stuff like that. You can buy them in the city. Stores would be Black-owned. That’s what I envision.

Jamila Taffe [00:58:44] That’s beautiful.

Erich Schnack [00:58:46] Yeah, it’s a beautiful vision.

Sherri Green [00:58:48] Mm-hmm. And by me being a part of East Cleveland- I lived there. I’ve lived there for 40. I’ve owned a home there for 40 years. You know, I do little bits of stuff, like I go to city council meetings and I’m involved with the League of Women Voters and stuff like that. You know, just to kind of keep my foot in the door so I’ll have a pulse on what’s happening politically in the city. [whispers] None of that is happening- [inaudible]

Jamila Taffe [00:59:20] I think he knew, unfortunately.

Sherri Green [00:59:27] [laughs] They just still squabbling. You edit that out, right? [laughs] [whispers] Edit that part out. But that’s my vision. And I’ve said that on several occasions too. Whenever they give me a chance, I’ll stand up and say that’s what I would like to see for East Cleveland, because it’s a logical place for it to happen. It’s already 98.8% Black.

Jamila Taffe [00:59:53] Do you have any, like, follow-up questions?

Erich Schnack [00:59:58] So I sort of want to go into the ’80s here a little bit, the late ’80s specifically, because I think we touched upon the earlier years of the bit. I’m wondering, in the late ’80s, what was this area like? You know, how would you compare it to those earlier periods in your life?

Sherri Green [01:00:25] Being a youngster and being in this area, like I said, preteen, seven, eight, nine, ten. By the time I was a teenager, I was 18, Garden Valley, I don’t remember visiting this area at all. I probably did, but I don’t remember it.

Erich Schnack [01:00:49] I guess I should say not this area specifically, but Cleveland and where you lived?

Sherri Green [01:00:57] Explain what you’re asking me again.

Erich Schnack [01:01:00] So in the late ’80s, when you were living in Cleveland, what was it like? You know, just the atmosphere, people. How was it different from when you were a little younger?

Sherri Green [01:01:22] Well, when I was younger, I seemed to remember that more than I do when I was a young adult because I was in college, you know, and I was focusing on that in the ’80s. I graduated from Cleveland State in ’78. So late ’80s, I was at my career. The community was more of a community. And that may be because we were all in one place, you know, so we knew everybody, everybody knew us. Everybody knew our family. What they say about, you know, if you got in trouble in the neighborhood, the neighbor’s mother would whoop you and then she would tell your mother and you would go home and get another whooping just because the neighbors had to whoop you. It was like that in the projects. I thought it was great, but I didn’t know any different. I didn’t know anything different. I never was in the suburbs as a child. I don’t remember any of that. I just remember being in Garden Valley. We probably did because we had some middle-class family members that lived in Shaker Heights. Like one of my cousins, she since passed, she first integrated Shaker Heights, stuff like that. And so we would go out there. But again, I was so young, I, you know, I didn’t know what was going on.

Erich Schnack [01:03:10] The last question - I always like to end with this one - is what gives you hope?

Sherri Green [01:03:21] Being a Christian. My faith, Jesus Christ gives me hope. Other than that, I don’t see much.

Erich Schnack [01:03:32] Your faith really helps you?

Sherri Green [01:03:34] My faith sustains me.

Erich Schnack [01:03:41] I guess one more question to wrap up. Looking back at your life, what are you the most proud of?

Sherri Green [01:03:53] Well, other than the things that I’ve mentioned about my parents, the kind of parents, gritty parents they were. My career, I think I made a difference in the lives, the families and the special needs kids that I serve. I still have friendships with a lot of my colleagues that I worked with and that’s been like 30, 40-year friendships that I’ve had. So I’m proud that I’ve been able to maintain, you know, those relationships over the year with the parents, the colleagues, my family members. And then I love my passion of working with people who are deaf and hard of hearing because they don’t have a voice. So most places I go, I end up being the voice for them, and I like that. So I’m proud that God has touched me to want to do that, to make people aware that there are other ways to communicate with people. Everybody doesn’t talk and, you know, read and stuff like that. But if you want to reach everybody, you got to learn some new ways to communicate.

Erich Schnack [01:05:09] That’s fantastic work that you did there, finding that nonprofit too. Could you actually tell us a little bit more about the nonprofit and, you know, how you went on to find that?

Sherri Green [01:05:22] Well, first I’m digging the pants you got on. I keep looking at them.

Jamila Taffe [01:05:27] They’re custom made.

Sherri Green [01:07:28] I could tell. Well, again, it was just fate. And I ended up being at a workshop, and the name of the workshop was Zocline and Associates. Don’t ask me how I ended up there. It was just fate. And the workshop was Zocline. The man was helping people to file the papers to have a 501. And I just was there at the right time. So he was asking everybody what was their passion, what would they want to do? You know, keep it broad, improve the quality of life for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. That means anything that have to do that would improve the life of people deaf and hard of hearing. My 501c3 can support that. But everybody had different things, you know, some, you know, I don’t know. Mine was that. And he gave us the forms to fill out, told us how to fill them out. He helped us write our bylaws, Stuff that people pay a whole bunch of money for now to fund or found nonprofit. I think he may have charged us. I don’t think it was 500 because I would have thought that was too much. But again, it was the early 2000s and so once I filed all the papers and he told us exactly how to do it, you know, and it was going to come back because they’re going to ask you for this and that and the other. Sure enough, it did and, and we filed the papers and I’m incorporated.

Erich Schnack [01:07:34] Do you have any favorite stories from your time working with people of deaf or slight of hearing? Any touching stories?

Sherri Green [01:07:46] Touching? Well, yes, and I- Yes, and one of them is also with a special needs youth that I had. So his mother and I are the best of friends now. Because he was 15, he wasn’t potty trained. And the father did not like that because they couldn’t really take him anywhere because he would, you know, they have to change his diapers. And he was 15 and so they just didn’t want to do that. So he was 15. So I told her that my team, the classroom had we would potty train him. And we did. And to this day she’s like, you really like- It just changed. His whole, I mean, his whole dignity and, you know, respect, self esteem and everything for himself changed because he was no longer in diapers. And I’m you telling, telling you, that boy peed all over the place. He peed on the bus, he peed in the classroom, he peed in the lunchroom. Because we took the diaper off just like you would potty train a child, right? We took the diaper off. So he peed everywhere, all over the place, the mother’s car. The father was exasperated because he was peeing all over the house. So this young man, I taught him the sign listen. And so I could communicate with my special needs kids. We would be on field trips and stuff, right? And I could do like this and they would know that that meant to listen, you know, like to follow directions, right? So I taught this young man that sign. You know, we do, we do toilet basic stuff like that, to eat and all that. But I taught him this one and I saw him recently and the mother called his name and said- And he said, no, no, no, because he knew what it meant. It meant he had to listen. Like, no, I don’t want to listen. But he still remembered that that would have been a decade or so ago, if not more, that he still remember what that meant. And the mother was still using it. And he knew that that meant he didn’t. He didn’t. He was supposed to listen. But just like any young guy, toddler, he was like, no, he didn’t want to listen. So that was a combination of the sign as well as, you know, I usually say she’s one of my favorite stories, but I have plenty, you know, stories.

Erich Schnack [01:11:13] I mean, working with that-

Sherri Green [01:11:15] Special needs kids. 

Erich Schnack [01:11:17] I can’t imagine how many lives you’ve helped out in the long run.

Sherri Green [01:12:19] I’m still friends with one of my students and we just hooked up. I just had this 70th birthday event, right? So one of my friends that was one of my students who is now my friend, she and I have hooked back up. And so she and I have been going places recently. Like we’ve been to a drum circle, I took her to the movies, stuff like that. And. And so she’s my friend now. She’s not like my student now. We are friends. And even though I’m 70, her brother told me she was 50. She’s 50 now. And so I didn’t realize that I was just 20 years older than her when I was teaching her. But so she and I are friends. So that’s what I mean by having lasting long-term relationships with people that run- I’ve said her name. She and I are still friends even after all these years.

Erich Schnack [01:12:33] Mm-hmm. And meaningful work is so valuable.

Sherri Green [01:12:36] Mm-hmm. But I should have taught people who are deaf and hard of hearing. But teaching special needs kids was a great second, and I was still able to incorporate my signs with the special needs kids as well. And any kid that was hard of hearing, they were always put in my class because they knew I would teach them signs.

Jamila Taffe [01:13:03] That’s very important work. Thank you for doing that.

Erich Schnack [01:13:07] Thank you for sharing your memories.

Sherri Green [01:13:09] Well, thank you.

Erich Schnack [01:13:10] It’s been a real pleasure hearing about your memories growing up and the work that you’ve done.

Sherri Green [01:13:18] I hope that I’ve been able to shed some light on this beautiful city that we call Cleveland because it is a fantastic city. We have a gem right here in this city and we don’t- Most of us do not even know it. And I would say that that’s how it has changed, that the people that live here now don’t understand the historical connections that we have in this city. And if somehow they could learn it or find out, I think we would have more pride, more self respect for each other and ourselves.

Erich Schnack [01:13:56] Telling these stories, that’s a part of that, right? Tell those stories and people will hear them.

Sherri Green [01:14:02] I’m excited that maybe my grandkids or my great grandkids may see this somewhere and say, oh, that was my grandma.

Jamila Taffe [01:14:11] That’s the goal.

Erich Schnack [01:14:13] It’ll be out there.

Sherri Green [01:14:14] Okay. Well, I look forward to seeing it. And thank you for your time, Erich, for following through. Thank you for your work that you’re doing.

Jamila Taffe [01:14:23] Thank you for being here and being willing to be interviewed.

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