Host Sharon Hinton invites her guests both in person and over zoom to talk about one of Bostons most famous historically black neighborhoods and infamous housing projects; Columbia Point, especially in tandem with the struggles of the desegregation era.
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On Another Level
[BLANK_AUDIO] >> I have a problem every year, around in the payday. Because the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For some reason has been treated as America's Civil Rights mascot. On this day, you'll have folks who would have never in their life marked with, agreed with, voted with, anything he believed in. One of the biggest biggest, in the United States Congress. If you are that, you will send out a Dr. King vote. >> The march has begun every day. We rise like the sun is right till the battle is won. Can you hear the footsteps? >> Good evening and welcome to another edition, another episode, an amazing show on another level where we're gonna bring your consciousness, hopefully, to another level. Now you know, I tell you at the beginning, have a pen, have a paper. We give out information to build a nation, to bring your brain nation. That's what I made that word up just now, cuz that's what you can do in live television. We've got a lot of information, we've got some amazing guests in studio, and in Zoom, on Zoom. And what we're gonna talk about tonight is one of the most dynamic, impactful, powerful black communities. Now when I tell you the name of the community, you're gonna be like, if you're from Boston, you probably should know, and you're gonna have some kind of reaction. Columbia Point Housing Project, the point, what's up? I worked there, and they lived there. And we all fought there for justice and equality. And we're gonna talk about the 70s, like how it started, where it went to, what it was like when we were there, when they were living there, working there. And then what happened to it, and how it's Haba Point, it's Haba, Haba Point. Now, this whole transition, we don't have enough time, but we'll be here for an hour. Stay tuned, we're on another level, don't go nowhere, pay attention. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] So this is 380, where you guys lived? [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Were you guys next door neighbors on my first floor? >> Yeah. [MUSIC] >> Hey, go on the front door, you have to pop in here, pop in there. Another one here in the back door, that's what we were. [MUSIC] >> See, it's a weird build. >> It's about how guns and drugs. [MUSIC] >> And over here, it was all seven-store buildings. [MUSIC] >> It's definitely a lot different now. [MUSIC] >> Now, that is Columbia Point. That was what Columbia Point looked like. And you saw the people that had the complexion for the protection. I'm just saying, it's a different thing. I'm going to show you now, we're going to roll some tape now, about the same place. And I'm going to talk over it. You've got to understand what, if you guys can roll the video. Now, this is Columbia Point during the '70s, the early '70s. Now, you saw that earlier video tape with those happy, happy joy people, going to church and everything. Look at it now. When there were majority of black people that were living there. Now, if you know anything about housing projects, the whole development of housing projects, where it's because there was redlining and there was racial segregation discrimination, even if you had the money, because the banks wouldn't loan you the money. Even if you had the money, you could not buy properties in the suburbs. And if you got there, then you had to fight. You'd end up having burning crosses and arguments. Your kids having fight in school. This is during our lifetime. You see the difference, right? And this is some actual footage that somebody took on video. And you see the difference. Look at it. Do you see all these flowers and the streets and the whole thing? The complexion is different. And the services were different. The BHA was involved in both the administration and the management of this complex. During both of these times with both of these different demographics. And one of my guests is in the studio. He actually lived in Cathedral, but he was involved and was a participant. Look at the windows. Look at the participant. He was a participant during this, I'll call it, police riot. But it was a march to desegregate Carson Beach, which was behind these housing projects. And I worked in this housing project. In the drug program with Leon Rock and also in the youth program. And this was the community center. Was this a community center, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that was one of the videos. And there's another video that's going to come on. And I have to tell you that it's only a few seconds. But Dottie Haskins, Dorothy Haskins, her daughter's in the studio with us. And Derese Haskins, do I have to give you last name too? So yeah, well. She's one of my guests in the studio. We have two guests that are on, it's supposed to be three guests on Zoom. My guests are William Washington, it's going to be on Zoom. Marty Joe Pete's going to be on Zoom. Derese Haskins Darden, that's in the studio with me and her husband Lawrence Darden, who actually lived in Columbia Point. I want to play this one clip. And we're going to see her mom, a community advocate in Columbia Point. Fourteen years ago, Columbia Point had benches outside of each building. We had trees. The highways were beautiful, they were clean. Because the management, he went door to door every day. He was going through building the building. And whatever highways weren't clean, he knocked on the tenant's door. And then hallways were clean by the time he got out the building. In those days, the project manager was the backbone of public housing. Not only did he have a strong voice and tenant selection, he also had a maintenance staff under his control. But in recent years, the BHA has systematically centralized authority, removing it from a project manager's hands. To many tenants, this signaled the decline of public housing. When the leadership for management and BHA went down, the leadership of the tenants went down also. At one time, we had a maintenance office right here. For one of the plumber, we go to the office and a plumber went through. So, Dottie Haskins was a beautiful black woman with that beautiful afro. And it was lovely glasses. And it was a while ago, it was in the 70s. That piece, I want to thank Hezekiah News. We're looking for footage and have actually been actively looking for people who used to be in Columbia Point, who used to live in housing projects, specifically Columbia Point, and also the day that there was a march to desegregate Carson Beach in my lifetime, in our lifetime. So, you hear about that happening in Mississippi, and you look at eyes on the prize with the black and white stuff. But it happened up here in Mississippi, where we had to sit there and desegregate beaches. In the studio, thank you so much, Ms. Doris Haskins-Darden and Lawrence Darden. Look at the bling with the glasses, I'm loving it, y'all. Beautiful black couple, King and Queen, welcome. And also, on Zoom, we have Mertie Joe Pete. I don't know if we can see them for a minute. And there he goes, Bill Washington, hi Bill, how are you? And Bill was a resident in Columbia Point. He wasn't there the day of the march. But Mertie Joe Pete was also, she's very connected to Columbia Point. We want to talk about Columbia Point. Now, I remember Columbia Point being this vibrant black community that had this reputation, like, don't go in and be messing up. Like, don't go in, if you're not from Columbia Point, like, you had to come correct. You couldn't come in there with the okey-doke. First, they had one street in and one street out. So, you couldn't play with that, right? And then, I remember when I worked for the youth department, the smell of the buildings and all the community meetings. So, you know, you could see in this videotape, the first videotape, because it was, firstly, it was all white at one point. And they had, I think, seven housing projects around in Boston, right? And the BHA was supposed to be managing all these places in South Boston, stayed white for the longest period of time, up until recent history. That was always white. They had further run in one of these videos when I was researching it. You can see all these black and Latino applicants applying for South Boston, but they made sure that South Boston stayed white. But Columbia Point didn't start off like that. And then Columbia Point always sort of stayed mixed a little bit. But the activism, I remember the activism of the community and the force of the community. And your mother was part of the force in the community. And so, you're not your mom. We're going to clear it up, but you were there. And so, I want to ask you first, you know, ladies first, if you don't mind, I want to ask you, what was it like growing up in that vibrant community that sometimes had a bad rep? What was it like growing up there though? Growing up in Columbia Point was like, at first it was mixed, like you said. I did have Caucasian classmates, neighbors. And then as the years went on, and the Caucasian families left Columbia Point, that's when the buildings started, you know, getting boarded up. People moving out, you know, the majority of the buildings that were boarded up were Caucasian people that had left the community. And then the building started getting boarded up, you know, less maintenance, turned down buildings, you know what I mean? Like, it depends on what building you lived in. If the tenants kept it clean, like we kept our building clean. We lived on Mount Vernon. First we lived in Monticello, which they kind of like shut that whole street down. And we ended up moving to Mount Vernon Street. And it was a three-story. We originally lived in a seven-story building on the seventh floor. And once they started, you know, condemning buildings, they kind of moved people like to the front of Columbia Point projects. I remember that 'cause towards the back where the water was was real pretty, was where it was all boarded up, so you didn't see that. Right, so between Montpelier, so I would say Montpelier, Brandon, and Mount Vernon was where people were living after, you know, all the, you know, people leaving out and stuff like that. But... Now, how old were you, the ages that you were growing up in Columbia Point? Well, I went to elementary school there. I went to the Paul A. Dever, and then I went to the McCormick School. Then I was bused out to South Boston when the desegregation started. And so I was about... I want to say I might have been about five or six when we moved there. And I moved out when I was about 16. Oh, wow. That's a considerable amount of time. Yes. So what was it like going to the school across the street? And then when we were looking at that first clip, you even said, "Oh, I used to go to church there and across the street." And then you have this community where you had a lot of kids. It was a lot of people. A lot of people, right? And then you get told you're going to be on a bus, and then you go to South Boston. What was that like? It was scary because at that time, that's when, like, it was really, like, violent. So they used to, like, bomb the buses. Like, if we left the Columbia Point to go to Dudley, like, they used to just, you know, rock the buses. They used to ride through at night and throw rocks and bottles out the windows. White people used to ride. Yes. They used to come through. But they had, like, a police detail at the beginning of the projects. But they didn't ever stop them, like, you know. And they would just ride through, yell, scream out the window, throw bottles, cans, and everything out the window. And you were a child. And I was young. I was young. It was scary. It was scary. You know, how did -- so you were a child. And then you're going and seeing all these adults yelling at you and being violent. How did you -- are you still processing that? Well, you know, it was tough. It was a tough time in my life, but I kind of moved on from that. And once I moved out of Columbia Point, that was, like, something that I just kind of, like, blocked out. You know, but as far as, you know, living in Columbia Point, with the mentors that we had out there. And the activities that we had, you know, growing up to keep us out of, like, we had a teen center, which was called the snack bar. We would go down the airplane cards. It was just the food trucks. We had food trucks. We had food trucks on Mr. Taylor. He had a food truck on Brandon and -- Brandon and Belville Road, whatever that treat was. And we had Parker's truck. He was on Montpelier. And we had the beehive, which was called the -- that was the main store. And it was on Montverna. So that was where I lived. I would always make sure -- I hung out, actually, with William Washington's sister, Brenda. They lived on Montpelier. So I would make sure I came home before it got dark, because it was so, you know, it was kind of run down and dark, and the streets weren't really lit. Like, it was really dark and gloomy. So I would make sure I got, you know, to the other side. They'll meet -- they'll walk me halfway to, like, Brandon, and I'll go the other way. I mean, I'll just, you know, go on. So Lawrence, you lived in Cathedral. Cathedral had his own reputation, right? Cathedral was more open. Columbia Point was shut off, because it was on the peninsula, and there was one street in, one street out. Cathedral was sort of -- it was wide open physically. But then once you got in there, because my aunt used to live in Cathedral, once you got in there, you better know where you're going. Because it was -- both of those places, to me, seemed like mazes. Like, the buildings all looked the same, and you really had to know where you were going. Are you going to end up in an elevator somewhere else, and maybe the elevator wasn't going to work, right? So what was it like living in Cathedral? And how did you get over to Columbia Point? Because sometimes, if you were from different projects, because you had Academy One, Academy Two, you had Cathedral, right, and then you had Whittier Street. I mean, I'm thinking about all the different housing projects, and each one of them had their own kind of flavor. Their own kind of culture. What was that like being in Cathedral? Well, growing up in Cathedral, I wanted -- well, it was a melting pot at the time. There was white people that -- there were still my friends that grew up in Cathedral, and then all the surrounding areas. There was Chinese people, a growing group of Chinese people that were moving from some in Chinatown, but they were moving towards the South End, then there was a Spanish community coming in towards the late '60s, early '70s. Villa Victoria is a housing development that sprung from that. But basically, living in Cathedral, I thought I lived the best of all worlds at that time. It was -- ironically, I was just talking to Mike King. 1968 was a big watershed moment because his father, the great Mel King, was telling all the people that lived in the South End do not sell your houses. Right. The brownstones. We own a lot of brownstones down there. That's right. And I remember going with my father to what is now, Tent City. He had a tent like it was a parking lot, but there was nothing there. And he set up a tent to try to inform all the people that lived in that area, don't sell your houses. And this was 1968. I'll never forget it because I walked up the street with my father where Back Bay Station was, now it's called South Bay, I think, but I got a lot of information at that time. And '68, Martin Luther King got killed. And I remember that just as a young tent, his funeral was on my birthday, April 9th. I turned 11. I remember us throwing rocks everywhere because we were angry. And I was still in the South End. I had no idea the same thing was going on in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mada Pan. It was a mess. And it was such a mess. I didn't even realize that James Brown came to Boston. For a free concert, and I never knew anything about it. I saw it on TV. I was like, "Why would have went there? I love James Brown. Say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud." I was there. She was there. She was there. She was there. But I wasn't. But educationally, there was a lot of stuff going on. My father was one of the other ones. Actually, it was Ellen Jackson, Ruth Batson, and my father started Operation Exist, which became that come. There you go. And I saw stuff about that in 1965, where they had freedom schools. But anyway, she was telling me, "Gee McGuire was my older sister who passed away in '63, was her school teacher at the Hurley. And then she eventually mecco started. That was a good thing." Now, did you get busted? Did you go mecco? Luckily for me, I was very smart. So I went from my first five years in school, was kindergarten through four at the J.J. Hurley. And it's funny, I just met with my old fifth and sixth grade class members in an advanced class at the Abraham Lincoln, which was towards Chinatown. And then from there, I went to Latin for like two and a half years. And then after that, I ended up going to Boston Tech. So I didn't get busted. You went to Latin Tech this well. Okay. Yeah. So I had, I saw some of the stuff, my sister, my late sister, who was born ten days before her, she was getting busted south Boston. And she was, it frightened her to the point where she basically stopped going to school. She dropped out. She basically dropped out. Didn't go to school no more. And I know a lot of people that went through that experience going to south Boston, annex, being busted. I mean, I walked to school when I was a kid, whether it was the Hurley or the Abraham Lincoln. You weren't that close. I mean, you walked to school? That was a long walk. Yeah, but, but, my sister, who's still alive, she went to English high school and she was fighting when, when they were building the new English, right? She was going down the city hall when, when Kevin White was all, was flipping whether he was going to give the school to Harvard. He ended up giving it to English, but she ended up having to go through the Boston situation. So she didn't even graduate from English. She ended up going to girls high in Roxbury. And that's how she ended up graduating. And I didn't really, again, I went to two test schools where I went to that school and then I went to the other school. I had no knowledge of people that were actually in certain schools, and then all of a sudden they had to go to different schools. That's interesting that you're seeing back then you were kind of insulated because, as recently as right before the pandemic, the black students at Boston, Latin Boston, Latin Academy were still protesting about the racial segregation. Let's bring out two more of our guests. So we have two guests there on Zoom, Bernie Joe Pete, and also Bill Washington. I want to ask you, what was it like being in Columbia Point? First, I'm going to start again with the Queen, Bernie Joe Pete. What was it like growing up in Columbia Point? I didn't grow up in Columbia Point. I came to Columbia Point from Texas. Oh, you were working in Columbia Point, though? Huh? You were working there, though. Yeah, I worked at the drug program in Columbia Point and, again, at the alcoholism program in Columbia Point. At the drug program, I worked at the school program. It was originally a drug counselor, but I was really young and really had problems with the denial that was going on with some of the people who were on drugs, so I chose to work with their children. I worked with the children at the Paul A. Deaver and the John McFarmer School. Working in Columbia Point, I usually took the kids on different activities and planned activities for the children. One of the activities we would do was go to Boston Beach because it was very close to Columbia Point. But, again, I'm going to on Carson Beach in the reason why people were so adamant about getting on Carson Beach. We had to use the rocky portion of Carson Beach to get down from the back of Columbia Point and walk down through the rocks and just had a very small portion of that beach to have activities on. And, you know, we weren't able to go to the beach where it was clean. We weren't able to go to the beach where it was swimmable because when we were on the Columbia Point side, it was just rocky and all the dirt and filth, you know, watched back to Columbia Point among the rocks. I'm working in Columbia Point. I think it was a community because people, the residents in Columbia Point supported each other. That was my experience. They had a lot of activities in Columbia Point, like the summer things would come out to Columbia Point and we would gather and have a good time at the summer things. I remember those wholeheartedly because it was something to do in Columbia Point. But when I originally came to Columbia Point, from the south, I got lost. It was like a maze. Like you said, somebody said it was like a maze and I couldn't find my way from Monticello to Brandon Avenue where my mother lived. So it was like I had to wait around, going around and around in circles until I saw some children who led me by the hand back to Brandon Avenue. So that was an experience. And during the time of the desegregation of Boston Public Schools in 1970, I was fighting against it. I was working with the children at the John McCormick in the Paul A. Dever and I was saying like no, I was saying no, we won't go because I had an investment in the children that I worked with in the community children. And by incident, because we were always at Mayor White's office, always protesting something or another that was going on in Columbia Point. One of the things that happened, well, we were fighting against BHA in the beginning because BHA had started letting squatters move into Columbia Point and just live there for nothing. And when the buildings burned down, the fire department would stay by the mall and wake to the buildings burned or even when the buildings hadn't burned, they would go into a person's apartment and throw the furniture downstairs and break the windows out. And, you know, that was another boarded up building. And that was a way of getting residents out of Columbia Point. Now, there was, I want to bring in Bill Washington. Bill, tell me what it was like. You weren't there the day that Carson Beach was desegregated, but you grew up there too. And as a black male, I remember there was a meeting. Bernie Snead was there. It was the community's response to, like Doris said, there were people that were driving through and shooting at people and throwing rocks and everything at night. And so I remember a community meeting in the community center where everybody got together and Spence was there, the BHA guy, Hal Spence, or whatever his name was. I'm trying to forget his name on purpose, but he was so serious. He was there and he was actually responsible for bringing some of the developers in and really breaking up the community. And I think we have a clip that if we have time, we'll show it. How the mayor stepped in and these three white developers stepped in and they had just characterized Columbia Point in a certain way, in a negative way. And a lot of Columbia Point was vacant. And so they came up with this so-called solution, but I remember that that was one of the meetings where they were presenting this solution, but then the community was pushing back. It's like, they have these people coming in here, they shooting at us, you all are not protecting us, the police are not protecting us. And then the brothers said, okay, sisters, you know, we got this, we figured, we listened to everybody, but this is what we're going to do. And then about a half an hour, the street was blocked off with these cars and it was like, I guess it was a basketball with a sheet hanging from it and it was hanging from the street lights. And the brothers were like there and they were daring people to try to drive through there. And it was a couple of days after the next day, they were swapped on the top of the buildings pointing guns at us. Like, you had to be able, in order to get in Columbia Point, you had to show an ID, showing that you worked there, or that you lived there. And there was a period of time when you couldn't really come in there, but it felt like an arm camp, like it was occupation. Columbia Point had been occupied by the feds and occupied by people that didn't care about black people. Because I remember them shooting, you know, pointing from the top, pointing kids, pointing grown women. So Bill, you know, talk about what it was like for you being a black male, growing up in Columbia Point and experiencing Columbia Point. Can you hear me? I can hear you. My family moved to Columbia Point in 1968. At that time, I think Columbia Point might have been, say, 60% minorities, 40% white. It was a little harmonious in the beginning, but as the '70s came in, that changed. I think, and don't quote me on this, but I think the white people still thought they owned the project. So when there were incidents that were going on, and I remember this so clearly, there was a, this had to be like 1970. It was the whites against the blacks. In Columbia Point. I remember when we first moved in there, in the hallways, I lived on, we moved to Columbia Point, 115 Monticello Ave. The hallways, we had curtains on the windows. After that chance, that migration, you never seen curtains in the windows anymore. Then there was a point in the early '70s where, when UMass came to town, and you mentioned Bernie. And Bernie's need was a liaison between UMass and Columbia Point. Now, there were some monies that came from somewhere, and Columbia Point had their own security company. Oh, with their point security company. I remember, I worked as a youth advocate there, and that lasted for a while. But towards the mid '70s, no more money was being put in the Columbia Point, because I guess by then the plans were being laid for Harbor Point. So let's slowly get these people out of here. Mm-hmm. You know. The impact study, the impact study that they did through UMass, were a line of work for the Azaleasian with Bernie's need. And we knew that that impact study was a way of phasing Columbia Point out. And one of the things that what is now based on expo used to be the mall. And they started closing store after store after store. The only thing that was left that is now based on expo was the Chinese restaurant. That was the only thing that outlasted all the closures in that mall. They took our livelihood away from us. Yeah. Little by slow. Yeah. They do. I was thinking of another incident though. Lawrence was talking about his sister. I graduated from high school in 1972. The busing started in 1973 to 1974. But I know for a fact, if I had to go to high school and deal with that, I would have dropped out myself. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't have been. I met some women from powder keg, and that was a group that was a part of a roar. Okay. And they were at Mayor White's office, and those women were saying, "We got to march and march until they stop this buzzing thing." That was right before buzzing. And I was saying, "Hallelujah, ladies, I'm with you." Because what access did the people in Columbia Point have to get to South Boston if they even left into South Boston? And we had to send our preschoolers out to the Andrew, out to all of those schools where they were. Where they weren't protected. And the first thing, the first day, the first thing we did is get those preschoolers off the bus with all the windows broken out. Mm-hmm. Crying and grabbing at anybody that even looked familiar to them. They were scared to death. The whole one for their life. Yeah. They didn't have to go under those conditions. So we started the school at the community center. Remember, BHA, right over BHA? Yeah. Miss Manning. We started that school. We decided that we weren't going to send the kids to school anymore. That we were going to teach our kids at home. And, Sharon, I was cleaning up the community center. And the police came up. And he was pointing out M16 in my face. Mm-hmm. And my brother, Frank Grant, my brother said, I went up the stairs and I'm scared. He's going to be shot and killed because he was pushing the police men out of the way saying, that's my sister. What are you doing? Are you crazy? That's my sister. Mm-hmm. Wow. You know, this is one show. And this is one show that we're going to have to be, like Leon always says, to be continued. I remember that. I remember seeing those buses come back into the point. And those kids were crying, had glass in their hair and everything. And the parents, you know, looking like, what are we going to do? I was like, and I was pretty militant back there. I was like, what are you going to do? And he's standing home, I'd be on the bus and dare them. This is not doing that stuff for me. It was very volatile. It was very, but I remember it unified community. There was even Karen's out there throwing stuff. Oh, yeah. Hey, Ray Flynn was out there. Ray's out Boston. Come on, talk about that now. Yeah, please. Who is there? Nick was out there. Yeah. Nick's in Paladino. Oh. Yeah. Listen, in the '70s, there was a college student from Boston College. She was doing a documentary. Prior to coming to Columbia Point, she was going around interviewing young adults, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old. And in the interview, she brought her back for us to head. And they were like, well, I don't know what those black people want. They got their own radio station. What more do they want? Now they want to take over our schools. We did not want to go to their schools. We did not want to do that. I don't know why they thought we wanted to go from worse to worse. Because it wasn't no improvement. Mm-hmm. But the only reason why. It's because they couldn't get government funding unless they decided they needed those schools. That white society did that. And it was to help the white schools out, not the black schools, because the Paul A. Dever and the John McCormick were A1 schools, and they were accessible by the people in the project. Mm-hmm. I'd love to go on the school right across the street. You'd love going across the street. So when people saw Boston or something, when we went to community schools, you and Brady Joe were saying the same thing. But that's not what happened. So Lawrence, you were actually at the march. So you march, I think you said it started. White Stadium. White Stadium. Franklin Park. All the way down Columbia Road. Now I was there, but I wasn't walking on their way. That was a long way. So I'm serious. So I parked my car because I could, because I worked in Columbia Point. And then we met where the mall was. And there was a group of people. And then we met when people were coming down from Columbia Road. And we remember about that day when there was this, it was a police riot to me. Wow. I just remember when we was at White Stadium in Mel King, and we was ready. We was ready for some stuff. You know, in my mind, because it already had started a year earlier as far as desegregation. And the results of them, Boston School Committee, the City Council, all white, they didn't comply. That's the whole point of, of, of Arthur Garrity doing that. He said, you don't want to do the right thing. We're going to bring them to your area now. You know what I mean? And, and so though I didn't have to deal with that personally, my sister did. And I remember that her coming home and being just traumatized. Traumatized. And so when we met that white stadium, Mel King's talking, and a bunch of us is ready. You know, so once he finished his conversation, we're going to meet. We're going to meet people from Columbia Point at Bayside. And so we started walking. And just kept it. It was a nice day. Some was out. And we just kept walking, kept walking, kept walking. And then when we got to the, to the, to the sand, I was like, I was like almost in shock because the street, Dave Boulevard, I think it's called, they had the MDC police. They were on horses. And the horses went. They had two lines. They had them on the horses and they had the ones with the batons in front of them. And they went all the way to the water. Yeah. And then behind it. From the bathhouse to the water. And that was a big building. You know, it's gone now, but it was really big. And that was like the line of demarcation. You can't cross over here. And we standing there and, you know, stuff started happening. And you had the rocks behind you. You had the water on one side. That's right. You had the cops on the other side. And then Dave Boulevard was up there and then down in that little field was a bunch of whole other white folks that had hockey sticks and stuff like that. Yeah. And it was crazy. Should I say what I did? Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Some rocks started getting thrown our way. From behind the cops. I picked up a rock and threw it. Allegedly. Allegedly. And I know the person I allegedly hit went under the water. And when he came out, he was full of blood. And I was like, "Yes, I got wonderful." Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. So, Mertie Joe, I mean, Bill wasn't there. That particular day he and I talked prior to this interview. But Mertie Joe, were you there that particular day? I know you were there dealing with the kids and everything. What do you remember about that time? I remember going to the beach and protesting and dragging my cousin from Texas with me. And, you know, I was out there really up in everybody's face screaming. Because I used to be really, really militant, you know. And all I could remember is just seeing red and just seeing people, you know, trying to prevent. I've never, I come from the south. I've never seen anything like that. You know, I mean, really, we knew where we stood. We knew the places we could go and we knew the places we couldn't go. But in the interim, I say, for instance, Gaba's done beat just a lot of beaches in Texas. It wasn't anything like that that you couldn't go to the beach. And that was down south in Texas. And I think it was traumatized. The other part, I wanted to, you know, we talk about being militant. And you remember Doris's mom, Dottie Haskins. What do you remember about Dottie Haskins? She's still with us, by the way. It's not like she passed. Yeah. We're just talking about it because she's not in the studio with us. What do you remember about Mother Dottie's sister, Dottie Haskins? Dottie Haskins was a very good friend of mine. Then Dottie had hung out a lot. Right, Doris? Yes, ma'am. So we hung out a lot. And I admired Dottie for her activism. She was out there, she was trying to educate the community. She was out there again. When I say I was at Mayor White's office, it was like a daily thing. Dottie Haskins lived the charge. You mean that? Me and Dottie was very close. What do you remember about your mom? I mean, the back of Thursday, very strong activists in the community. Doris, what do you, I mean, what do you remember my mom as being, like she said, in a community activist, always looking out for the community, for the children, rather good or bad. She was always there standing in, putting together things, you know, for the community, making sure things were done. She was a friend. Up front. I remember being at meetings with my mom, especially when they were trying to do the hopper point thing, so she would be in meetings and I would be there with her to like 11, 12 o'clock at night. What was it like with your child watching that? I think it made me, it made me who I am today. It made me strong because I am a strong black woman. It taught me a lot as far as, you know, what to accept and what not to accept. Speak, speak up for yourself, you know. It's just, just powerful, you know. I just admire my mom for all she's done, you know, and I think she needs to be recognized for, you know, her doing, you know. She's currently down, bedridden right now, but she's still dirty. She's still, she got a little feistiness with her. But I'm just grateful to be her daughter because she's done a lot. She's done a lot and it was like, my mom was always, if she wasn't at a convention, she led welfare rights. Your mother was by 60. I'm getting the health care center there too, right? She was one of the founders of the Health Association which got together and they opened up the Health Center. So she's one of many that put in place health centers throughout the city of Boston. So the first one was in Columbia Point and then they branched out to the project over in South Boston and then it just goes on and on, you know. You know, remember I told you that this was going to be painless, right? It was going to be almost over, it's almost over. She said, "Okay, great job." So we look at what our parents, what our grandparents, what we had to go through, what our kids are going through, and the... Still going on. I was going to say, so looking at what is happening now and what's about to happen starting in January with Orange Man, do you have some advice for the people that is still here, because some people are tired. You know, we've been fighting this for a long time. And then the young people that come in after us, because you were young people, you're young, I mean you're still young, but you were a young person watching your mom pave the way and then we have young people behind us. Do you have a word of advice, each one of you? I'm going to each one of you. Do you have a word of advice for the young people now in terms of looking forward to what needs to be done and how they can be a part of it or should they stay out of it? Because we didn't stay out of it, we were in there. Yeah, I was in it. I would say, you know, try to get involved in things that are going on in the community to make your voice heard. You know, just stay active, stay up on top of what's going on in your community to make it better for you and your children when they have children. Talk to, you know, your peers, you know, because it was a village in Columbia Point. So with the, like I said, with the mentors in what we had in Columbia Point, we had a lot of good mentors, butchmere, twine that ran the house, you know, ran the teen center, we just stayed positive. Stay positive and try to stay out the way because they come in for us. They're coming for our children and just stay positive and try to do good things. Okay. You know, and stay out the way, but stay involved. Thank you, Queen Doris. Well, quick King Doris. She basically covered everything, but I'll just say this. I remember being 9, 10, then 11 and things happened. I'd never heard of Malcolm X until Martin Luther King got killed. That's crazy now to think about it. But because of what happened to Martin Luther King, I became very aware. I went to the Boys Club, which was right in the cathedral. There was a Southland Boys Club. And we started doing a lot of things. I started, I started, and this is just me and all the kids that I grew up with, we started becoming aware of what's really going on. 'Cause you're at that age and some of the stuff we did, some of the anger I had. It's watching dogs and all that stuff on TV. I want the youth to understand that I thought of this about things like that. She didn't believe me when she was 5. Now she's worse than I was. Well, not worse, but she's more aware of everything that's going on. And I told, I said, let your experiences tell you what I've told you. You don't have to take anything I say, but incorporate it into your life when you see it. I just put it out there. And then we got grandkids. We talked to them all the time about being aware. Just be aware of what's going on. And though you may not think it, a lot of things are designed to make you fail. And you got to see it and know it and understand it and do whatever you can to not be a statistic. Okay, now I want to get to the two other guests. Marty Joe Pete, I'm going to actually have you be the last person to talk because I want to get to Bill. Bill, follow up this young king right here. You're a king too, King Bill Washington. What advice do you have from the wisdom and the knowledge that you gained from what you've gone through to the young people? Are you still there? Do we lose them? I don't know. Okay, so Marty Joe, I'm going to come to you. What advice do you have? Because you got some wisdom and African proverb is when we lose the elder, we lose the library. And we're losing a lot of elders. We just lost Gloria Fox, who I met in Columbia Point at 33 years, you know, as a state rep. And she's gone. Mel King last year. We're losing a lot of the elders. You're one of the elders that I bowed down to. I remember you being there. And Leon Rock was supposed to be here tonight. We'll get him another time. The conversation to me continue, what kinds of wisdom do you have as an educator and also as a community activist for the young people that are coming up now? Um, um, Mel King was a mentor. I'll call him a great male king. I think what needs to happen is our youth needs to stop being reactionary. And not be acting to a certain situation or a certain time. We need to be planners and active in planning and carrying out our plans and not violently, but through legislature through, I mean, I don't even think we would have got to this point if we didn't think we already had it made. Because we still would have been pushing our children were as our children who were bust out. They were traumatized and left with PTSD for generations, not for one, not just for one generation, because our children from the preschool all the way up to high school. And not only did the high school just drop out and then get fully educated. Our young people, our middle school kids, our elementary kids, they dropped out of school through then traumatized. I hope that our children begin to be educated and not necessarily through college or anything, but educated about the situation that's going on around you and not being reactionary, but be active in planning your future. Thank you so much. I hate to cut you off and we got to go. I told this is going to happen first really quickly, but I'm going to have a standing now that you've been here. Yes, ma'am. So I want to thank Bernie Joe Pete. I want to thank William Washington. I want to thank you Lawrence Darden, and I want to thank you Dorese asking Darden for being here. I also want to let you know that there's a podcast that I have on Tuesday evenings on WBCA, learning to relearn, supporting identity, and a culturally-affirming classroom. Kwame Sarfomensa will be with me here live on WBCA 102.9 FM. Thank you for being here with us this evening. This is to be continued because this is history that's not a mystery to us, and our kids need to know. God bless you. Take care of yourself and each other. Civil rights in America. On this day, you'll have folks who would have never ended life. March with, agree with, voted with, anything he believed in. One of the biggest biggest in the United States Congress. If you ought to actually send out a Dr. King vote. The march has begun. Every day we rise like the sun and flight till the battle is won. Can you hear the footsteps? Listen, 'cause we're coming like a game on the streets, so you better start running. It's time for some action now. Historical progressions, generations march in succession. Through 400 years, hate, blood, sweat, and tears, and counting, the resistance is mounting.