Louis Gleason Interview, 25 February 2013

Abstract

Louis Gleason attended the only Catholic Church (and the affiliated school) in Cleveland that welcomed people of any race. He attended John Carroll University before serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War, returning to school, and finally working 24 years for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland until his retirement in 1995. He discusses how the Air Force recruiter assumed he was white because of his light skin. He discusses his experience of racism in the service in spite of Truman's desegregation of the armed forces. Gleason recounts his experiences in the Civil Rights movement, including seeing Martin Luther King Jr. speak on two separate occasions – once in Cleveland and once in Washington D.C., where he participated in a march for rights.

Interviewee

Gleason, Louis (Interviewee)

Interviewer

Malone, Carol (Interviewer)

Project

Cedar Central

Date

2-25-2013

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

53 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Louis Gleason Interview, 25 February 2013" (2013). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 131005.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/596

Related Resources

Cedar Central @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Mark Tebeau [00:00:02] Go ahead.

Louis Gleason [00:00:05] What would you like me to say?

Student [00:00:06] I would like you to say your name and when and where were you born.

Louis Gleason [00:00:11] My name is Louis Andrew Gleeson. I was born [in] 1929, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Student [00:00:29] How did your family come into the Cedar-Central neighborhood?

Louis Gleason [00:00:33] Well, it’s a long story and a short story. Which one would you like?

Student [00:00:41] The easiest one.

Louis Gleason [00:00:43] The easiest one? Okay. My grandparents came from Mobile, Alabama. My grandfather was an Irish immigrant, and he married a young lady in Mobile that was part of the local community. He became a blacksmith, which in those days was a blacksmith and when he moved up east to Cleveland with his buddies, they called him a wheelwright because his buddies had opened a carriage shop. They made wagons and carriages, and they needed someone to do the metalwork to go around the wheels. So Bill Gleason, that was his name, William Rose Gleason, came here with his wife and four children, his oldest of which was my father, William Andrew Gleason. They lived on Outhwaite for a while, and as one of six kids - I’m the one in the middle - we eventually moved to Mount Pleasant, which was east of downtown Cleveland. And then in about 1936 or ’37, we had a wonderful President of the United States named, I can’t think of his name, but he decided to do something for people that were below the poverty line, people that were living in a subculture. And he made the Outhwaite Homes, which was an area that was bounded by 40th Street and Woodland, over to Central and then Cedar and then up as far as 55th Street. That was the first time that people of color like me were able to move into housing that was brand new, had never been lived in. Does that answer your question?

Student [00:03:00] Yes. Do you have any family members that live in Cleveland?

Louis Gleason [00:03:11] In Cleveland, I have one son. But this is, what, 2013? Not too many people live in Cleveland. Many, many people live in the inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland, which I think there are about 12 or 14 inner-ring suburbs that are bounded by Cleveland. Cleveland can only go so far because it’s Lake Erie, you know? [laughs]

Student [00:03:41] Well, could you describe your son?

Louis Gleason [00:03:43] My son has a very similar name to mine. His name is Louis Karl Gleason. Karl with a K. He lives on Triskett, which is on the west side. He is my only son. I have five children and he is my only son. And he has two boys. The oldest is Louis Jesus Gleason. The younger one is, I guess his name is Kevin. Yes. Now, am I answering the questions that you want?

Student [00:04:37] Yes.

Louis Gleason [00:04:38] Okay.

Student [00:04:39] So what did your neighborhood look like?

Louis Gleason [00:04:42] In the Central area? Well, we lived at 2562-B East 43rd Street, which was bounded by Woodland and 40th Street. It was a maze of brick buildings like they are here in the projects. And since my family consisted of five children, we got a corner apartment because those were the only ones that had three bedrooms. And then there was an alcove that went around to the next development, and above that were apartments. And many of those apartments housed people that are very well known, such as Louis and Carl Stokes. Louis Stokes, as you know, was a long-term congressman, and Carl was the first African American mayor of the city of Cleveland.

Student [00:05:49] So did you have any, like, restaurants or churches around the neighborhood that you liked?

Louis Gleason [00:05:54] In those days there was nothing much in the projects itself. There was a- I guess it was over- It was not on Case. It was over towards Central that there was a pharmacist and a drug store. And the biggest, most popular building was the Portland-Outhwaite Center, which was a recreation center for that community. They had a swimming pool. They had basketball courts. They had everything that you see today in a community center. And next to that was Kennard Junior High School. But basically, you had to go across Woodland to go to the commercial area, where there were stores and bars. And in those days, there weren’t many gasoline stations because not everybody had a car. And across there, on the corner of 40th and Woodland, was an elementary school called Case Woodland. That was the neighborhood school for people that lived in that neighborhood that I lived in.

Student [00:07:25] So how was your school back then? What school did you go to?

Louis Gleason [00:07:28] I went to Case Woodland. I started at the third grade, and it was very, very different for me because before that, I was going to Lafayette Elementary School that was in Mount Pleasant. And Case Woodland was a school that was predominantly Caucasian. And most of the Caucasian students were families of immigrant people. And they, too, like we, were in some degree of poverty. And the kids from the projects went to Case Woodland, but many of them were able to have a little bit more affluence in their lifestyle because they didn’t wear the same clothes every day and they didn’t have a problem with bathing. The thing that was different in Case Woodland, for me was because, I guess after the first couple of months, I realized that in the middle of the day, there was a heavyset woman that was dressed in, like, a uniform, and she would walk up and down the aisles in the classroom and pick out different children, and they would go to the front of the classroom. And after she had finished that, she would march them downstairs into the basement area where there were showers and toilets and facilities for those children to pay attention to their hygiene. And then they would march them back up.

Student [00:09:30] So when you were younger, like, how old was your family? Like, could you describe them?

Louis Gleason [00:09:35] Say it again.

Student [00:09:36] When you were younger, like, how was your family? Like, could you describe the family members?

Louis Gleason [00:09:41] Well, there were five. There were- My parents birthed six children, and the child, the girl before me in line was Satina. And Satina died during the flu epidemic. She was about a year and a half old when she passed. And soon after that, my mother birthed me. So I was number three of the six. But basically I was the one in the middle because I had an older brother and an older sister, and I eventually had a younger brother and a younger sister.

Student [00:10:31] So how did you all find entertainment?

Louis Gleason [00:10:34] For entertainment in those days, we played in the backyard of the projects. They had playgrounds. Nothing as sophisticated as playgrounds are today. And we played hopscotch and jump rope and hide and seek and tag and things like that. And we were very, very restricted of going across 40th Street at Woodland because the neighborhood was basically unsafe. That neighborhood was run by a young fellow who was the leader of the gang. Everybody knew him as Adam, and Adam’s gang never wanted us in the projects to go into his territory, so we were very careful of that.

Carol Malone [00:11:37] What year for the gang?

Louis Gleason [00:11:40] I guess that would be ’37, ’38, and I can’t say ’39, because we were part of that community in ’39. My parents were raised to be Roman Catholics, and that’s a religious group, a religious organization. And in those days, being Roman Catholics, we went to the only Catholic church in the city of Cleveland where people of color, people that looked like me, whether they were darker or even much lighter than me, were only allowed to go to those churches, that church, which was Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, and that was on 79th between Quincy and Central. And the reason why that was is because the Roman Catholic Church was then, and is one of the most racist religious organizations in the world. It is extremely restrictive. And during that time, if you were a parishioner at a Roman Catholic Church and you had children, they were supposed to go to the church school. Every church in the city of Cleveland that was Roman Catholic also had a Catholic school that the children of the parishioners were expected to go to school there. So we, five of us, went to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament five days a week, went to school there. My oldest brother and my oldest sister eventually graduated from that Catholic school - it went as high as the 8th grade - and then they went to public school. My oldest sister went to Central High School, which at that time was on 40th Street between Quincy and… Outhwaite? Anyways, it was the local high school. My brother went to Kennard Junior High School, and then eventually he went to Central. I went to Our lady of the Blessed Sacrament School until I had gravitated to the 7th grade. And when I got to the 7th grade, my parents were asked to leave the projects because my daddy was making more money in his salary than the people that lived in the projects were allowed to make as a salary. And my parents bought a house in Mount Pleasant, 3250 East 121st Street, which was in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Now, as a young student, you should know that from my perspective, in those days the city was composed of neighborhoods, groups of houses and stores that reflected the ethnic community of the people that lived there. So that there was an Italian community, there was a Polish community, a Hungarian communion, mostly European communities, because they were the immigrants at the time that were coming to the United States and those that came to Cleveland for economic reasons, because Cleveland had become pretty much an industrial community.

Student [00:16:12] So in the forties and fifties, what would you do with $5?

Louis Gleason [00:16:18] In the forties and fifties, what would I do with $5?

Student [00:16:25] With $5.

Louis Gleason [00:16:26] Well, one thing that we always did as kids, we got an allowance. The younger kids got fifty cents and the older kids got a dollar. And that was because my daddy shared his salary with his children and his family. And people like me had to use part of my fifty cents to buy tickets to ride the streetcar. Tickets to ride the streetcar for my age group was two cents, and that was the two cents that we had to spend once a day to get on the streetcar to come from school, which was Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament on Central to ride down to where we lived on 40th and Woodland. In those days there were streetcars. Do you know what a streetcar is like?

Student [00:17:28] No.

Louis Gleason [00:17:31] And the rest of the money we would use to buy candy, and that would be the store over by the Portland-Outhwaite Center. And sometimes at school you were able to buy things, treats that the nuns that ran the school would have for your purchase.

Student [00:17:55] So what type of TV- Like, what type of shows did you used to watch?

Louis Gleason [00:17:59] Shows? Well, that was before there were TVs. The only thing that you had was a radio. And we would listen to the radio very often in the evening. During the day we were playing and doing our homework and trying to behave ourselves. But in the evening when it got dark, when the streetlights went on, it was time to come home. And lord help you if you stayed out later than the lights, because then you were in trouble. So we would listen to the radio, and many times we would read books, and sometimes we’d sit on the stoop of the house, and the neighborhood kids would sit together and talk. And sometimes there were very proficient older kids that would tell us stories, spooky stories, all of the stories that they would make up to entertain this group of five or eight or seven kids sitting on the stoop.

Student [00:19:14] What type of music did y’all listen to?

Louis Gleason [00:19:17] Well, we listened to what was on the radio, and we always listened to, the music in the church was an organ, and the nuns played the organ, and we learned the songs to go with the church service. And many times that was part of the music that we learned. And then when we came home, we would listen to the kind of music that was on the radios. Or sometimes there were some kids that would want to try to make up songs, but they just weren’t the kind of songs that we would repeat. Does that answer your question?

Student [00:20:07] Yes.

Louis Gleason [00:20:07] Okay.

Student [00:20:08] So how would you compare the neighborhood today from what it was back then?

Louis Gleason [00:20:13] Well, the good thing is that the neighborhoods today have an opportunity to teach people that irregardless to what your history is, you’re all in the same neighborhood and you need to behave like that. There are some people that are a little bit wealthier, and there are some people that are a little bit poor. But if you live in the same neighborhood, you should probably learn to be friends and neighborly and share and respect. And as you get older, you’re supposed to go to school and build and develop the skills so that you can go to schools of higher education and then have the possibility of getting a decent, respectable job that will earn a living at today’s marketplace. Does that answer your question?

Student [00:21:25] Yes.

Louis Gleason [00:21:26] Okay, good.

Carol Malone [00:21:37] If you could tell us something, Mr. Gleason, when you were coming upstairs, you were talking about your father’s establishment. Could you tell us something about that?

Louis Gleason [00:21:45] Sure. Sure. This is a long version, but not that long. My dad worked for the Standard Oil Company and his boss was Alonzo Wright. Alonzo Wright was the chauffeur for John D. Rockefeller. And when John D. Rockefeller decided to leave Cleveland - because Cleveland was his home - he told his chauffeur that there’s no such thing as a retirement plan. But you’ve been a good worker. I’m going to do something for you. I’m going to make arrangements for the Standard Oil Company to lease to you a gas station so that you will be in some ways, self-employed, although the Standard Oil Company basically controlled the establishment. But it was an opportunity to live, to make a living wage and working. And the gas station that they gave my daddy was at 125th and Kinsman. It was on a corner of 125th and Kinsman Avenue. And my dad hired a couple fellas to work with him. And eventually, I don’t know whether or not you want to hear this, but he became very successful because across the street on 125th was a building that had three garages. And those garages were repairing cars. And the good job that they did and the customers that they had were people that were in business with slot machines and different enterprises. And the name of the family that owned the garages was the Felice brothers. The Felice brothers were extremely creative in helping the customers cars to be souped up so that if they were out collecting slot machine money, or as you would call it, lottery money, and the police came along, their car would be able to outrun the police cars. So that the Felice brothers had just a wonderful lot of cars that the racketeer barons needed to be in good shape. And because of that, my daddy was able to sell tires and batteries and all of the things at the cars, for the cars, because the Standard Oil Company gas station that he ran was the most convenient place for them to buy them. And very often the men would bring their cars in and get what they needed to keep the cars going and put it on the tab. And then once a week, the boss would come to pay the tab for the gasoline and the tires and the servicing of the cars. And my dad used to be very pleased, because beside, the boss would pay the bill, and then he would go to the back of his big car and open the trunk of the car. And in the trunk was what you would call a wash basin, a big wash basin. And it was filled with coins from the slot machines. And the boss would tell my dad, Jap, ’cause that’s what he called him - my daddy looked like a Japanese little boy when he was little, and they knew him as Jap Gleason - that he could take one and reach in that galvanized bucket and all of the coins that he could hold in it was his bonus. And in those days, there were things like bo dollars, which was a dollar that was a large coin, and 50 cent pieces that were large. So he would go through the pile and pass up the pennies and nickels and dimes to try to find the bow dollars and the 50 cent pieces. And I remember vividly when he would bring them home, he would empty his pocket and put it in a sock and put it in the top of his dresser. And that was the money that my parents saved, so that when they needed a stove or refrigerator or washing machine, my daddy would go into that drawer and count it out.

Student [00:27:09] So where did you work?

Louis Gleason [00:27:11] Well, now, if you know that right now I am 83, I’ll soon be 84. But in those days, I went to, I went to Audubon Junior High School, which was on East Boulevard and Buckeye, and from there, I went to John Adams, which was over in Corlett, and that was a different neighborhood. And at John Adams, some of my best friends were Italians, because where I lived, it was a large neighborhood of Jewish people, and Jewish people often didn’t speak the language that I spoke, and they were restricted because of their religion, not to associate with people other than Jewish people. But the Italians were different. They came from a part of the world- [school bell rings] Do you need to get out? They came from a different part of the world that was Roman Catholic. So consequently, my family being Roman Catholic, we got along very well with the Italians. And after I left John Adams, I went to John Carroll University, which was a Roman Catholic college, to study there. And after a year and a half, I was recruited by the United- the Army Air Corps, and I was recruited to go into pilot training, and that’s where I left John Carroll and went to the Army Air Corps.

Student [00:29:20] Before you had left with the army, what were you studying?

Louis Gleason [00:29:24] Well, in the Army, yes. Well, in the Army Air Corps, even though I was recruited to be in pilot training, I flunked out, because in those days, when you were flying in an airplane, you had to have an oxygen mask, which was a facility to keep you breathing oxygen, even though you were flying very high. And because I had very bad sinuses, I flunked that test. So I had an opportunity to choose between what else the Army Air Corps had to offer, which was being a navigator, a radio man, a flight engineer, or a bombardier. And I chose a flight navigator. And after a while, I realized that the only job that you had as a navigator was flying in a bomber, and I wasn’t very attuned to that destructive life. So I became a flight engineer, and I spent five years in the Army Air Corps, which eventually became the United States Air Force.

Student [00:30:44] So how was it there?

Louis Gleason [00:30:46] Well, it was very different for me, because when I, as a Roman Catholic, came from John Carroll, it was unusual because of my skin color for people to acknowledge that I was, in those days, called colored. Today you call them African Americans. So when I went into the service, I went in as a Caucasian person. And I guess when I got recruited- [school bell rings] When I got recruited, they never asked me what my race was. They just assumed since I was a young man and the color of my skin and being Roman Catholic, I had to be a Caucasian. Nobody asked me was Italian, Jewish, or Hungarian or anything like that. You just go with the mob. So, in those days, it was when they decided to have the Air Force that people of color, the coloreds, merged with the Caucasian servicemen, and they all became one. And I did five years in the service, which included the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War. And in 1952, I was able to leave the service, even though it was a year past my original recruitment. But because the United States was at a stage of war with the Korean War, you always had to spend an extra year. So I came back to the United States and eventually went back to John Carroll, and then I went to two other colleges, and the education I got allowed me to do the things that I was hopeful for, but that didn’t always pan out for different reasons. Thank you. So I did the kind of work that allowed me to make a decent wage and raise a family. Got another question, or was that enough?

Carol Malone [00:33:28] It’s very fascinating that you said that when you went into the military, nobody bothered to ask you what was your ethnicity? So, you know, you just went on being a human being in the military. Could you speak a little bit about that? Because this generation doesn’t know anything about how skin color played such a part in terms of where you fit in society.

Louis Gleason [00:33:56] Okay. Now, I am not uncomfortable answering that question. My mother was Caucasian. My grandfather was Irish. My grandmother was from Mobile, Alabama, which is right next to Louisiana. So in those days, it was a blend of many cultures. My daddy was brown skin. He was the most brown skin of the four children that his parents birthed and raised. So being a blend of those, those two cultures, most of my siblings, my brothers and sisters, as well as my children are rather light skinned. And because you come from a Roman Catholic college, John Carroll, I would imagine someone would be intimidated to ask you, what’s your race? Because in those days, there weren’t very many African American Roman Catholics here in Cleveland, wherein in the South, there is a considerable amount of Roman Catholic people of color. So I didn’t get put into any specific area. When I was recruited, I was a Caucasian. And then when Harry Truman, the President of the United States, demanded that the armed services be integrated, then there were mixed of the races for whatever kind of job that you had, and the jobs that I had in the service, there were many people of color, and there were many Caucasian coworkers and we were there for a common reason. And I didn’t experience any racial problems. As a matter of fact, I realized that I was given, if you want to call it a pass, because when I was recruited into the service, I was given a train ticket to go down to the terminal to get on a train. And we went to Cincinnati, where they change the engines, and they put on Pullman cars. And my ticket entitled me to have a Pullman berth. And in those days, that was only for people that were Caucasian. People of color were not allowed to be on a Pullman car. But I had a good time because there were redcaps - that’s the people that take care of your luggage - and Pullman porters who managed the Pullman cars that treated me so well because they knew I was in between.

Carol Malone [00:37:16] Can they explain to them what that what you’re- I don’t think they really get what you’re saying.

Louis Gleason [00:37:26] Well, I’ll tell you this. I had a group of fellows when I was in Fort Worth, Texas, and we were being shipped- Most of us were flight engineers, and then there were some mechanics, and we were being shipped from Wichita Falls, Texas, which was a training facility, to go to Houston, Texas, where Carswell Air Force Base is. And that’s when the air Force had created a special kind of a bomber called a B-36. It was a huge airplane that had six pusher engines. They weren’t in the front. They were in the back. And they pushed the B-36s in flight. And they were so big and so equipped that it was known that you could get on a B-36 and be flying for seven days, not because it had that much of a gas tank, but because they had developed a refueling facility where a tanker plane would come up in the air and attach to a B-36 and refuel it. That’s called in-flight fueling. And the point I want to make is that when we left Wichita Falls, Texas, I was given a stack of personnel folders for the people that were in my group. And when we went to the train station, I got on the train and looked behind me for the rest of the fellows to get on board, and several of them got on behind me. And then I saw the rest of the fellows standing there, and the conductor was telling them, you can’t get on this train. So I got off the train and asked him what the problem was. Now, you have to remember, all of us were dressed in Air Force uniforms. We were the military. And the conductor said, those people, meaning those people of color, those African Americans, people of our group, couldn’t get on the train where I got on, because we were in the area where the separation, the segregation between black and white existed. So they had to go down to where the beginning of the train was, where the engine was, and there were a couple cars behind the engine. That’s where colored people went. So I walked down with my group that I was responsible for, and they got on the train, and then the conductor put his finger in my face and said, you can’t get on there. I said, well, I’m responsible for those men. He said, well, I’m responsible not to let you get on the train with those men. So I said, fine. So I went back to the train car, and I got on it. Okay. What was the last, okay. So when we got on the train and the train took off, I went back to where the men were on the Black part of the train to see if everything was fine. And they were very comfortable and very happy because we had whatever we needed. And then we went to a city called Fort Worth, Texas, which was not too far. It was a good distance. And I ran into many of those fellows since then. And one fellow that lives in my neighborhood, his name is Jimmy Adams, he constantly reminds me about Lou, if it wasn’t for you, I don’t know whether or not we’d be able to get to Fort Worth, but we got to Fort Worth, and everything was fine.

Student [00:41:55] Do you remember anything about the Civil Rights movement?

Louis Gleason [00:41:59] I do.

Student [00:42:01] So, could you describe it?

Louis Gleason [00:42:04] Well, what I would describe for you may be something that you will try to understand, because it has always been sort of difficult for me to understand. The Civil Rights movement was, in my mind, a movement of the people that in the South, people of color, African Americans, people were struggling because they were living in a certain part of a town. In many cases, they weren’t allowed to vote. In many cases, they weren’t allowed to have the kind of jobs that white people had. And in many cases, they were abused because they were people of color. So as they got more knowledgeable, and in many cases, the church, the local church, encouraged them that if you’re a Christian, you should be treated better than the condition that you’re being treated. And many of the ministers encouraged them to rebel against the segregation and be lack of authority to do the things that everybody else did. And that started a movement in many small towns, and many of those towns became very noticeable. And people up in the North who didn’t have those restrictions came to their support. Now, those that came to support were not always black people. There were many people of many cultures and kinds that felt that there was an abuse going on, and they wanted to be part of amending that disproportionate possibility. And that’s what became the Civil Rights movement and people of influence, some of them supported the movement, and others rejected the movement. And it took a long, long, long time for it to become something that people were willing to look at and work at and try to remedy.

Student [00:44:39] Do you remember anything about Martin Luther King?

Louis Gleason [00:44:42] I do.

Student [00:44:43] Could you describe?

Louis Gleason [00:44:45] I saw Martin Luther King twice. Once when he came to Cleveland. He was part of a Civil Rights movement that was probably developed by the African American churches, and they had the support of, at that time, Carl Stokes, who was the mayor of Cleveland. And they would march and demonstrate and try to get the TV cameras and get people to be enthused and understanding and young people in colleges to understand that part of their education should be a movement towards some degree of equality and opportunity. And the second time I saw him was in Washington, DC. And because of the work that I was doing at that time, I saw the marches and I marched with those people, but I was not a noticeable person. I was just one of the mobs of people that went on for miles and miles.

Student [00:46:06] So how was that experience?

Louis Gleason [00:46:12] It was very rewarding, because part of what they were, the movement that they were working towards, I had experienced almost all of my life. I never knew segregation, and many of my classmates and many of the fellows that I was in the service with, suffered from that racial discrimination, but I never really experienced it, and I thought it was very unfair. And my children never experienced any racial segregation, except my oldest sister. When she got out of Central High School, she wanted to go to a local college. And the local colleges, I thought, put up pretty much roadblocks because she was not really identifiable as a person that they wanted to get into the school. So she went to Talladega, I think it’s Alabama, which was an all-Black college. Now, my brother, my oldest brother, he was part of the group that was able to get into Ohio State. Say it again.

Carol Malone [00:47:48] What year did your brother go to Ohio State?

Louis Gleason [00:47:50] Well, let’s see. My brother was three years older than me, and I went to school. I went to college in ’48. So, you do the math. [laughs]

Student [00:48:26] Do you remember what happened on the day that he was assassinated?

Louis Gleason [00:48:31] No. I saw it on television, and I. Many people like myself, mourned the assassination of the man, but it was something that history would say was predictable, because Martin Luther King was- He was an extremely mentally, racially, religiously gifted. And I’m sure that he was willing to, at any time, to sacrifice himself as long as it would create something that was good and positive.

Student [00:49:18] So what happened to the big groups of people that was fighting for their rights?

Louis Gleason [00:49:23] Well, those big groups got older and taught their children to join the mob. And even up to today, you’ll find that there are demonstrations for equality. And if you would go back less than a year and look at the newspapers or go on TV, you will see that there are people in the South as well as in the North that are trying to deprive people of color or people who are poor from being treated as equal as those that are up North. And the only way to solve the problem is to get involved.

Carol Malone [00:50:23] Do you all have any more questions? I think we should- Does anyone in the group have a question? Well, what I’d like to know, what I’d like to ask is what piece of advice could you give these students as they move forward in their life in terms of the importance of history?

Louis Gleason [00:50:51] The importance of history, this is my view. I own it. If you behave yourself, pay attention, try to live a good life, you’ll stay out of trouble, because if you get in trouble, you are moving towards being a loser. But if you stay out of trouble, you have an opportunity, and you young people have an opportunity now because you’re able to get an education and you’re able to make many, many choices. And if you really, really thought about choices, nobody makes choices. But, but you and the choices that you make are going to create your future. If you decide to get a good education, behave yourself, pay attention to your parents or those people that are older that in some ways are responsible for you, as long as you understand that they are trying to help you get to be a better person, when you get older, you’ll have a chance to make choices that are of more importance than they are when you are young. The choices that you make when you are young are usually the choices that your parents told you, Don’t do this and do the other. But as you get older, you have an opportunity to make choices. And those choices create who you’re going to be and what you’re going to be as you get to be older. [inaudible voices in background] Go ahead.

Student [00:53:01] I didn’t see anybody ask any more questions. I just wanted to say thanks for the information that you gave us.

Louis Gleason [00:53:08] You are more than welcome. I feel honored that I have been invited to share with you some of my life. And I am such a very, very happy person because I am respected by my children, my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren. I had a very good job. Worked for 24 years for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. I retired in 1995, and this is 2013. And through the goodness of payroll deductions, I get a Social Security check. And I was able to save some money while I was working. And I’m not rich, but I don’t have to go to get food stamps or any supplement. You know, I have all of the entitlements that a person that made good choices had. And I am very gifted because I was able to spend this time with you, and I hope that the time that you spent with me was worth your time. Thank you.

Mark Tebeau [00:54:28] Thank you.

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