Host Sharon Hinton continues her discussion from the last episode about Columbia Point, now talking about the desegregation of Carson Beach with her guests Lawrence Darton, Mertie Joe Pete, and Leon Rock.
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On Another Level
I have a problem every year around MLK Day because 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 marched with, agreed with, voted with anything he believed in. One of the biggest biggest in the United States Congress. If you want to actually send out a Dr. King vote. The march has begun. Every day we rise like the sun. Hello, and good evening to another live episode of On Another Level. I'm your host, Sharon Eaton Hinton, and the producer. You know, last-- well, I'll say last week's because you weren't here. But the first part one of Columbia Point, the narrative, this is now a first part two. So a friend of mine who you will meet again tonight, or actually you'll meet him for the first time tonight, Lawrence Darden you'll meet again, Marty Joe Pete you will meet again. We are going to talk about the march to desegregate Carson Beach tonight. Part two of Columbia Point. So we laid the groundwork about this iconic, to me iconic housing project in Columbia Point, the point. If you're from here and you know what it was about. The video piece that you're going to see is a really short video piece and it happened in 1975. For those of you who are from Boston or being town or, you know, Mississippi, then you might have remembered this happening. So we have people in the studio tonight who are going to talk about live experiences. I was there, Leon Rock, who is also with us tonight was there, Marty Joe Pete, who was, she was also there, she's with us via zoom and Lawrence Darden was also there. He actually had the probably the longest stretch because he had the gumption and the fortitude and the strength and the endurance to march all the way from White Stadium. I wasn't doing that. So I want you to look at this. You can actually roll the clip because the very beginning of the clip of this demonstration, there's no audio and then it goes into audio and you can see just a snippet of what we had to deal with that day when desegregation of Carson Beach was taking place. Roll the clip. These were the people that were on one side of Dave Boulevard that thought they were going to have a picnic. These were the police, the late Mel King and I don't know who this was. I thought he was going to a beach, but he was definitely going to make sure there was no conversation on our plot. Louise Day Hicks. I'm going to ask you what, and what paid for me placement too, cannot be. I want to thank you to the Associated Press. Let us use that piece right there. Let me start with my guest who is in, welcome both of, all three of my guests, but I want to welcome the guest that's actually in the studio with me, Lawrence Darden, first. You were there? Absolutely. And that is such a mild depiction of what we saw. For me, it was one of the several instances of racial terror in Boston close up. I mean, it was during the time when we would see eyes on the prize and stuff like that, and we were looking at things were happening down south, but it happened up south. What was your experience because you were at White Stadium right at the beginning of the march? Well, I just remember, and I'm trying to really recollect in my mind because I was 18 then. Why even went to White Stadium? I had heard something going on in Columbia Point, and Mel King was a great activist, and he was trying to rally the troops to try to support the people in Columbia Point. And he got a large crowd to come to White Stadium, and I was one of them. And I think in my mind, I was thinking, I used to go to that beach when I was a little kid with my father and my sister. So what's the problem? I used to go all the time, and then suddenly there was an issue and the people that lived there, Columbia Point, they're the closest ones to the water, and now they can't go. So I wanted to support them. And that's part of the memory of it. The other part was us marching all the way to Columbia Point, and we were trying to get people because we weren't right through Dorchester. I forget the roof. Is that the road? Yes. And we just walked. Yeah. Okay. There you go. We were trying to get more people involved, and some people joined and didn't know what was going on, and we were going. And that was my experience. Now when I got there, I was like, wow, they're really preventing people from using a public beach. I was angry. Hold on two seconds. I want to bring on somebody else. So we have two people via Zoom, Leon Rock, and he and I worked together in Columbia Point. And we were there in the Columbia Point because I was walking all the way down there. And Marty Joe Pete, welcome Leon Rock and Marty Joe Pete, can we see both of them together in the screen, please? There we go. He's my brother, my brother, and Marty Joe Pete, Leon, thank you for coming on here. You had all of your hair, you had all this beautiful black afro, and you and I were in Columbia Point, and you were involved in the organizing. Tell us what happened and what you knew about what actually precipitated the march, because we would see in Columbia Point, we were working there, and we saw what was happening to the residents of Columbia Point. And Marty Joe, I'm going to bring you on too. But we saw that. Tell me if you can recollect what really jumped off the march itself to desegregate the beach. Hold on two seconds because we got some audio problems. Bring up the audio, please. I can't hear him. Let's try it again. Here we go. Can you hear me now? Yes. Oh, very good. I was wondering what year we were talking about because it's been a long time. I know. That's a long time ago. But I do remember in so many ways that it was all about the people of Columbia Point, and the conflict that arise over and over and over again, with people from Columbia Point going to Carson Beach and actually being assaulted numerous times. And then, you know, folks called the NAACP, folks called the Roxbury Multi Service Center. I mean, it was awash with people calling up saying that there has to be something done. And groups of black leaders came together to say, "Hey, guess what? Let's do something. Let's have a demonstration over at Carson Beach. And so Bell and UB Jones and folks from the Multi Service Center, a couple of the leaders there, all came together. Bellowins. Bellowins, as well. Yeah. They all came together and said, "Hey, guess what? Let's lead this effort to desegregate for another time Carson Beach." And as Brother Darden has said, it was never a problem going to -- well, I wouldn't say never a problem. I would say that we were cautious as we walked into South Boston from time to time before Carson Beach. But because of the challenge of school desegregation, it became a big problem with the residents of Columbia Point in getting access to that beach, which they had a right to have access to because it was a great next to you. And, Merti Joe, I want to bring you on. Thank you, Leon. I'm coming back to you. Don't get too relaxed now. Merti Joe, you were -- had experiences because you didn't grow up in Columbia Point, but you had experience that day too. What were your recollections of the desegregation of Carson Beach? Well, my recollection was I used to take the -- I did it after school program for kids of parents who were addicted to drugs. So I would take the kids to Carson Beach, but the only place that we could go was the Rocky part of Carson Beach, and that was on the back end of Columbia Point. So this was -- this energized me that we would have more access to the beach on a daily basis. So I was motivated to join in to do a demonstration of access, to have access to that beach. My experience was, when we walked down from Columbia Point, you know, we began to notice the police presence, you know, so it was a difficult day. Did you think there was really going to be a picnic that day? No. I didn't anticipate that at all, you know, having the history of Carson Beach and knowing the people from South Boston. So as a black woman, coming from Columbia Point, understanding the dynamics of the strength and the character of the people from Columbia Point, what did you see? Because I remember there were two contingencies. There was the one that Lawrence was involved in that was coming down, Columbia Road, down into De Boulevard, and then there was a group that was coming from Columbia Point, up from, you know, where the mall was, and then coming into Columbia Point and seeing the bathhouse. And there were two lines of police. So if people can think of this in their minds, it was like a backwards kind of a "J." And at the beginning of the curve of the "J" was the bathhouse. And there were two lines of police. There was one in front, on foot with the batons, and there was one behind with the horses. And I remember all the people coming down from Columbia, but there was a couple of trucks, food trucks. And there were some people that had blankets and picnic baskets, but I think those are the people that were in the march. I don't think anybody from Columbia Point had any picnic baskets or anything. What do you remember, Leon? Well, I remember exactly the same, but I'll tell you, one of the things that I did notice is that leadership in the African-American community were really organized in the sense that they were able or willing to put themselves upfront. Many of the leaders, particularly Mel King, actually, Mel was one of the people that were arrested, and after he was just trying to use the public beach in the Metropolitan Police Department at the time, MDC, started beating Mel King and enraged the whole black community, while others on the other side were screaming, "Beat 'em, beat 'em, beat 'em." And the N-word, so that's what I remember, I'm not going to change on that one. It was a horrible day for Boston, it was a horrible day for Massachusetts, and it was definitely a horrible day for the people of Columbia Point. Do you think, Leon, that people, was there a difference between the expectations of the people from Columbia Point versus the expectations of the people that were marching down Columbia Road? Well, I can't comment on that other than I know Brother Darden was there, and maybe he would probably comment on that better, on the perceptions, even though in Columbia Point, they were battle strong. They had been putting up with folks running in their neighborhoods, coming in from South Boston, and kind of sort of attacking, and that's kind of sort of actually attacking people in Columbia Point for years. So the Battle of Columbia Point, in terms of access to public beach, was not going to be something that they took lightly. They understood that it was going to be a battle, and actually they were ready for battle in so many ways. So now you were at the, I remember, I think they were called the PLP, the Progressive Labor Party. They were a group of young white activists that had picket signs, and this is my perception now. I just remember these little skinny sticks with these picket signs, and all of us looking at them, it's like, what are you going to do with that? Like we're thinking this, put them up front, because we kind of knew that we weren't going to go there to have a picnic. I don't remember anybody from Columbia Point having a picnic basket or a blanket or anything like that. I remember other people coming down with that. And so on the Columbia, because you are an activist, you're still an activist Leon, and you had experience as a student activist leader, and you also had connections and you still do with some of the black leadership, I'm going to ask you a question in terms of the black leadership then in Boston, and the black leadership now, in terms of activism, in terms of motivating the people. Do you see any difference, and what are the differences? Well, if I'm on a comment about black leadership, then I can really comment because I was fully engaged. Exactly. So the black leadership then was very, very clear on what it wanted to do, and how to address it at a grassroots level. I'm not too sure if that is still in existence. From the outside looking in, it doesn't seem to me. What was some of that? Were you on the inside of the organizing of the march? Yes, I sure was. And being involved in that, the leadership was listening to people, but at the same time, they didn't know when to end the march. But I mean, okay, you're being very succinct. I know that you and I were there, and it seemed like I remember the police ending the march. The police started trying to catch people in the propellers and the boats that were in the water. I remember one of the police coming over the bullhorn, and so the sequence of events that I remember, we came down, and from behind the police, from behind the horses, came the tops of cans, the regular cans, like when you take the can openers, and so these discs that came flying along with some rocks that came flying from the back of the police. And then as we moved back, the cops moved up, and like Marty Jo said, there were rocks behind us. There was water on one side, there were rocks behind us, there were the police in front of us, and on the other side of Dave Boulevard were all these cell Boston ice cell Bostonians or whatever that had the hockey sticks and the bats screaming and yelling and starting to come up over that hill. And then I remember is people started the cops and the horses that are moving up on people, people started defending themselves, allegedly, grabbing horses, punching horses, punching police, and then the police fighting back. And then I remember hearing someone over the bullhorn, okay, picnic is over, and it was like this chaos because people didn't seem like they knew what to do. There wasn't, didn't really seem like there was an exit route except going back to where we were, but we couldn't see up over the hill and knew it was really there. Columbia Point, we knew Columbia Point was Columbia Point, it's like, okay, so if you bring us back there, then we got something for you, but we ain't moving right now. And I remember people fighting, I remember a motorcycle, a policeman's motorcycle landing on a black woman's leg and burning her, I remember the boats in the water trying to catch people in the propellers, I think it was, they were young people, I don't remember that many baby babies, but they were some young little kids, but it was mostly like teenagers, young teenagers, and grownups that were there. And so you were in the March part of it, were there children, was it teenagers, or who was it? Well, me being, I was 18, I was an adult, I had just turned 18, I could drink now, I could do this, right, so, and then they changed a lot. But I believe there were kids there, there were probably kids of some of the parents that was involved, and we just wanted to show our support for Columbia Point. That was our goal, and Mel King was the leader, and anybody else that was there, they were in on it, they were with him, and I was with him, I grew up with the family my whole life anyway, so I knew I was going. So like I said, when we marched down, we were trying to grab anybody or tell them to come, and this is the reason why you haven't gone to Columbia Point, have you ever been to Carson Beach? This is a beach for everybody, and that was the main message. They're trying to support Columbia Point, but hey, we have a right to go there too. And I know as a child, I went there, and I had no problems when I was little, because we used to go, we used to catch the 49 bus downtown, catch the City Point bus, me and my sister, and go with our father, and I would play with them, same white kids I probably was fighting with that day. Did you know, well did you know when the march was over, and what did you see the end of the march? I think aside from my alleged situation, because that was the highlight of my day, I think the statute of limitations is over. It's kind of hazy, I remember White Stadium, I remember marching, I remember being kind of almost in shock, that they had a line up of cops, preventing people from enjoying the beach. I was facing us, facing the Black people, and I couldn't understand it. I was like, really? Like you said, I saw the dogs biting people down south on the news when I was five, six, seven years old, and I was like, wow, that can't happen here. I always had that thought in my mind that it can't happen here until '67, with Louise Day here, threatening to become mayor, and all the stuff she was doing, and then Martin getting killed, and then my whole, and I'm 11 years old on his birthday. My birthday is his burial day, and I became totally grown up in the south, and I became totally aware of everything. I had never heard of Malcolm X until Martin Luther King got killed, and I find that like, huh? I didn't know that, and he lived in Boston? Yeah. You know what I mean? Dale Street. Yeah, and so my whole world awakened after Martin Luther King got killed, and as far as being, knowing that I'm a person of color, and it matters, or the black lives matter, all that stuff. It was all coming to fruition with me, so that led to busing. My sister was busting south Boston, and she basically quit school because of that. She was my younger sister, and then it leads us to '75, so I'm totally, I'm like, you know, I'm ready to get down, you know, if it's gonna be some getting down, I'm ready to go. Let's do it. So that was my whole recollection of even going there, and then when we got there, and I seen all the police officers in the row of horses, and the people behind them, like, they're with them. I said, yeah, well, yeah, that's typical, right? So, listen, here it is, almost 50 years later, it's getting worse, in a lot of ways. And like Leon said about the people that were, the activists back then, I just don't, even though there's more people of color in positions now, where they never was back then, let's say that most of the people are not aware of what's really going on, they're just trying to live their life, they're not being active about anything, and they need to be. Marty Jo, I remember you telling me a story about the SWAT actually pointing guns at you and threatening you, and your brother had to come up and actually defend you. You were down there at the beach, what were your recollections of desibergating the beach and actually working in Columbia Point, there was a time when you couldn't go into Columbia Point unless you lived there or you worked there, and you were working there, and then you went down to support the people, you could have stayed home, why did you go down to the beach? Because like I said, I worked in the half the school program with the children of Columbia Point, and not having access to that beach was, you know, I couldn't fathom that coming from the south, even in the south. We were able to go to the beaches, they were accessible, and to have a beach right on the corner of Columbia Point, and knowing that these kids couldn't enjoy just going down to the beach and enjoying the beach, digging for shells, just throwing more rocks in the water, swimming, doing anything on that beach, but my recollection of that day, lines were clearly drawn even before we got to the beach. The police kept us at bay, they had a line between us and the angry folks on the other side. So, you know, we were at a disadvantage not even being able to, you know, have any kind of interaction with those folks who didn't want us there, not having any answers to, you know, what was the problem of youth in that beach, as if we would contaminate it. I didn't understand. So you have some southern background, southern routes, compared what happened, and you gave some comparisons about, you know, experiencing the south and going to the beach. And now you're at Columbia Point, and you see a beach. Do you draw any comparisons, do you see any comparisons of the differences between the two, other than the fact that you could go to the beach in one place, down south, where you expected not to be able to do it, and here you are in Boston, it's supposed to be, you know, free and up north and everything, and you couldn't do it. Or they, you know, legally you're supposed to be able to do it, but then when you try to exercise that right, it seemed like you couldn't do it that particular day anyway. What are some of the comparisons, or, that you, or contradictions that you saw between the two places, being up south and down south? I guess, down south, I think that everybody has this notion that people knew their place. So it wasn't, how can I say it, it wasn't a threat. Here in Massachusetts, it seems like more of a threat that a black person would wanna, how can I say, participate. I think the participation here was, you know, kind of one sided. Tonight, it blew my mind, because down south, we didn't have anything called desegregation. We had a choice to make, whether we went to one school or another. We didn't, it was maybe in Mississippi, I'm from Texas, maybe in Mississippi they had to have armed guards to bring children to school, in Texas they made it a choice. You had a choice to go to any school district that you wanted to go to. So it wasn't like, okay we're gonna desegregate the school. It was called integration, rather than desegregation. So that's interesting. So did you have any flashbacks when you're on the beach, and you saw these police starting to beat up on black people? Oh, I was so angry. I think at the time I was so angry, and the only thing I knew was to just scream at the police. I turned my back to the folks on the Carson Beach side, on the South Boston side, and I just started screaming at the police. They had no, they weren't in my aura. It was the police that angered me more than the folks that were preventing us from going on the beach. So Leon, as a black male, watching women and children getting assaulted and getting beat up, and it's not either/or because they were, I remember them, well you and I have experienced a couple of different things. I was thinking about Columbia Point when the cops came in and beat Bernie Snead, and beat him so badly that he was never really physically the same. What were the concerns as being a black male watching this armed troop on the side of the people that were screaming all of these obscenities, not just the N-word, but how did you feel watching that? Was there a sense of, I mean, Marty Joe said she was angry. How did you feel? Well I had experienced it pretty much, we have experienced it in Roxbury section of Boston all of our lives. Segregation was part of and remains part of the fabric of Boston, and so just experiencing it was nothing new. We've had been experiencing it during desegregation, before desegregation. You couldn't go into parts of East Boston, Chowstown. We can go down the line, Hyde Park, Rosalindale, there were places that you just didn't go to if you were black in Boston. So it was nothing new to us. How did I feel about protecting black women? Like I always do, protect them with your body, heart and soul. That's how I did then, and that's how I would do today. Be cautious with the police because they had that blue street going across their chest that says that they can pretty much do anything. So the bottom line is get folks out of the way of the harm of police and hold our leadership accountable too, because as I said earlier, the biggest problem for that march was not knowing how to end and when to end. We had an entrance strategy but no exit strategy. When going into conflict, you have to have an exit strategy. If you don't, you're going to be bogged down and that's what happened to us. We got bogged down with the women in the front of the bog down. Wow. We're going to take a short break, about 30 seconds, about a minute. What we're talking about is really intense. If you just tuned in, we're talking about the desegregation of Carson Beach and as Leon Rock just said, they were coming up 50, 60s, 70s. Even some places now, there are places that you knew as a black person if you went there, you may have to fight coming back. Fight going to there and fight coming back. I remember living in Dorchester, wanting to go to the Strand Theatre on Columbia Road. If you went there in a certain time, you knew that you were going to have to fight. Now that's Columbia Road, Dorchester. Through the research of this particular project, what I didn't really realize, even though I grew up here in Boston, is that only 10% of the population in the 50s, only 10% of the population of Bostonians was black. I remember moving into certain places and not being able to move in other places in terms of buying homes and that's red lining. This show is not about that, but it kind of is because when you look at, when we talked about it in our previous show, and we're talking about it a little bit now, is how there were certain areas that were cordoned off to certain populations. Boston has a kind of tribal attitude. You got the Italians in the North then, you got the Asians in Chinatown, you know you had the Irish that was in South Boston, and you had the black people that's in Roxbury, Dorchester. So, earlier on, coming out of slavery and stuff, back in Bay and Beacon Hill were all black. And then you had the mixture of people in the south end. And then so as people gained more money, you thought they would gain more mobility and be able to move out, but across this country, between the collusion of the banks and the government, there were certain places and housing policies that were put in place in highway building policies that were put in place to continually cut down the unity and the power and the economic stability of the black community. However, wherever the black community could be, you look at the history of this country and they would drive a highway, all of a sudden the city would snatch the eminent domain and snatch it and make it a park. Most people don't know, Central Park was a black village, it was a black community. Now it's a park. And as you look at, and I'm saying this before we go to the break, think about what is happening now in Boston. And I hear people say with these little pontoon things, these bicycle lanes, these are black people, you know they're not building that for us. You know they're not doing that for us. And so if you're living there, can you afford to turn a blind eye? Three people that are on this show with me now, Merti Joe Pete, Leon Rock and Lawrence Darden chose not to turn their backs when their other men, human, women, children, black people, people of color needed their help. Lawrence Darden lived in Cathedral, he didn't live in Columbia Point, he knew people, Merti Joe Pete and myself and Leon, we didn't live in Columbia Point but we worked in Columbia Point. We could have quit getting another job but we stayed there. What are you going to do? Because January 6th, inauguration day 2025 is still coming. We're on another level, hoping to bring your consciousness and your thinking to another level, stay with us, we'll be right back. Interested in becoming a radio DJ, Boston neighborhood network's 102.9 FM is offering in force of radio production that can get you started. For more information, please head over to bnnmedia.org/services/portshops. I told you, we're coming back soon. Enough of me to drink some water, enough for you to take a moment to think. Think about this piece of history, I want to thank the reparations task force that the mayor put together that decided to disperse small funding pockets to people who are Boston residents or people who wanted to tell the history. As I researched this piece about Columbia Point, a piece that I lived, a piece that Leon lived, a piece that Merti Joe lived, a piece that Lawrence Darden lived and other people have lived and many other people are not still here because it was 50 years ago. People didn't know and unfortunately that's happening with a lot of black history, a lot of black stories. There is legislation in this country to keep from teaching black history. They give this dog whistle name of critical race theory, garbage. Black history is American history and if you're not telling the whole history, you're bound to repeat it. This happened to people who are still alive, the woman who told the lie about Emmett Till just died. She just admitted that she lied about this 14-year-old that lost his life, was brutally murdered down south. How many other people are still alive? They remember being on that other side of Dave Boulevard with the bats, with the tops of the cans, with the rocks yelling the n-word and how many of them still believe that? We're back here. I want to go back to Merti Joe because we didn't talk about this. When you expected, when we expected the SWAT, because the SWAT was in response to people that were driving into Columbia Point and shooting at people and wanting to fight with people when one street went out. You told the story about how, and I remember, we had community meetings in the health center, community center, and then the brothers had said, "Okay, sisters, we got this," and then in less than an hour, maybe about a half an hour, there were cars going across that street that were blocking out the street, and I think it was a basketball, but some kind of ball that had a sheet on it that was hanging from the street lamp, and the brothers were standing there and daring them to drive through the event. And it wasn't too many days after that, all of a sudden there was SWAT on the buildings, and they were pointing guns at us. Merti Joe, talk about that experience that you had. I think what we really remember is when the police first came in to Columbia Point, and they lined up on one side of the street over next to the community center, and that was a day that Bernie got beat up by the police. And I think Bernie went over to assist this pregnant woman that was being pushed around by the police, and he went over to her sister, and that's when he got beat up. What I remember is, my mother was still living in Columbia Point, and she was on the fifth floor of, I think she was at 15 Brandon Street. So when the police came up, they came up through the stairway. They didn't come up on the elevator, and they got up on the roof. They had dogs going through the doors. They had those German Shepherd dogs going through the buildings, and they just told everybody, they screamed at all the residents to get back in their apartment, that they were coming up with the dog. And I remember going to work, and I worked at the drug program, and just to walk down the street to see the police on the roof with M16s, and they were pointed inside the community, and that was like we were in an armed encampment, like we were in a, how can I say, in a concentration camp. That's what it felt like. Went to work in that on a daily basis, which kind of, pardon me, it was, it was, it was disheartening to see that, to see you. >> Leon, how did you feel? Coming in there working, because you and Marty Joe worked in the drug program together, right? >> We did, actually, you, Marty, was the person that brought me to Columbia Point in so many ways, and our good friend, Boochi Lombax, actually, Marty and Boochi Lombax were the two of the three people that interviewed me for the first position I had as a counselor at the drug and alcohol program. That was way back when, a little while ago, so all I could do was say big respect to Marty because she got me started in housing and community development. If it wasn't for Marty, I wouldn't have been at Columbia Point and bringing me to realize what is important, and what is important is people in organizing. If you get people to kind of see their own light, because they know, before you think you know, they know what is important to them and their communities, and the folks at Columbia Point, they knew what is important for them, and that is to fight for their, not just survival, but their growth in their own development, and that is what they were all about from the time that I joined the wagon, the, actually, the Mertie Joe Pete wagon of community change, her and Terry Mayer and Barbara, and just a whole host of black, actually, I am going to tell you the truth, black women fighting for their own justice and for their children and for their parents and grandparents. That's what it was all about, so all I can do is salute you, Mertie Joe. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. Wow, she gets her, I like that. Thank you for doing that. Believe it or not, we are coming down to the last 10 minutes of show, less than 10 minutes. What are the lessons, so I am going to start with the Lawrence in the studio. What do you think was some of the lessons that were learned from that particular day? For me, I guess, it was just trying to make sure people understood what was going on and how things went, the reason why it was busing in the first place, because they wasn't complying with the rules and regulations that were set forth, just make people aware of what's really going on. You have to expand your mind out of your little conclaves or wherever you're at and realize what's going on around the world. I have a young daughter who's 28 years old now, and I explained to her a lot of things that went on in my life at a young age, and she would look at me like I was crazy, and I said, "Trust your situations. Learn from your situation." You don't have to listen to me. Keep it in mind though, but learn your situations, and then you learn what's really going on as a person. Now, she's more of a fighter than I was, because she heard everything that I told her about life growing up, and she started experiencing some of those things. Whether at first thinking that doesn't exist, and I think a lot of people growing up here in Boston now, they don't know. What should they know? They should know that, specifically, Rox Bay, Dorchester, Mattapan, where a lot of Black people live, it's basically under siege in a lot of different ways. And you have to understand what's really going on. Look at everything. People are fighting for Franklin Park now. A lot of rules are going to change. A lot of things are going to change. Some of that centers around White Stadium itself, and people are fighting, but they're not being heard, and it's going to affect everybody that lives around you. Like you said about the bus lanes, everybody's wondering why it takes so long to get in and out of traffic in Boston. They're cutting down the streets. Two lanes, one lane. Guess what? Blue lives next. And they still are having planning meetings, planning and development meetings are still ongoing. Leon, what are some of the lessons that should have been learned, should be learned and take Lessons learned? I don't know if there were. Well, entrance strategy, exit strategy. That's a lesson learned about what we do when we're fully engaged in action organizing. No way to go in how to exit. The second thing is, we should learn from Columbia Point, period. Marty Joe, many years ago, was saying that Columbia Point, they have a master plan, and the master plan was to reconstitute Columbia Point from a low-income public housing community to then a mixed-income community to then facilities for people that went to university in Massachusetts. That's what the grand plan was, and Verde was playing it out and showing people that was the master plan. Well, Marty can do the same thing today, I'm sure, about Roxbury, Duchess, to Remada Pan. It's the same, it's the same playbook. Nothing knew, nothing did different, and so if we're going to learn something, we should learn something from people like Merti, people like Darden, people like Oh, Sharon, that can give us guidance on how to move forward. We've learned a lot. We can learn more. Marty Joe, Queen Marty Joe, what was learned, what are the lessons, the takeaways from the desegregation of Carson Beach and Columbia Point? Right now we're focusing on Carson Beach and the political action, the organizing that happened that you were a part of, what are the takeaways, what should we look at, what can we apply now? I think what we should look at is just the whole idea of gentrification, and that's what all the black communities are going through, we're being taken over. We are being denied access, so I think the takeaway is to develop a strategy, and not only to begin with, to be active around, but have an exit strategy also, have a plan. I think we talked about this today, that we used to have our planning meetings in the churches, and the churches were fully behind us, and it was some type of unity there, that where the activism was happening. I remember back in the day, we had people in the mayor's office that were telling us things, we had people in the newspaper writing stories, and this is not happening now. We don't have that now. We did talk about it, you and I talked about it over the phone, and how the organizing happened in the church, that coming together happened in the church, and you don't see that happening today, so I'm going to throw this out to each, in the last four minutes, we got each one of you, what are the next steps we should take now, considering what is happening, and has been in motion for the last nine years, since you got out of office, and we're coming up on 2025, what are the steps that the black community has to take in order to be alive and thrive in 25, that's my thing, be alive and thrive in 25. I shouldn't put that on the t-shirt and sell it for $22.95, be alive and thrive in 25, because it's four years. What do we have to do to get, I remember the black political task force, and Leon talked about the different community meetings, Marty Jo talked about the organizing in church, and we had that since slavery, because legally, we weren't supposed to be able to get together unless the master said it was okay, and the quietness of the churches, right? And then you talked about being 18, and being a young person, but you would take an armed responsibility for people other than just yourself. So I'm going to start at the Zoom, and in the studio, Marty Jo, what can we do? What are the next steps we need to take? We talked about having exit strategy, strategizing, bringing the churches back, so the churches aren't so quiet, and what about the young people? We're going to, like I said, we need to talk to the young people, but I think my whole idea when we were young, we were at the mayor's office, Leon. I mean, I think it was not a week that passed, that we were knocking on the mayor's door, asking him about different situations. I think we need to get back into activism, we need to teach our children how to be active, not to be reactive, but to be active. We have, you know, when they do, when they come into a community, they bring an impact study with them also, how is this going to impact a community? Whether it's going to impact a community, negative or positive, we don't even see those impact studies before they come in, when UMass came into the community, into Columbia Point, we had the UMass Field Office, and that's how we got access to the impact study that was going to bring about the whole demise of Columbia Point as being a low-income community. We need to see these studies that they're doing around our community. We should come together and understand what is going on, because gentrification is, I go into Boston and I'm like, oh, this is new, this is upgraded, it's more, you know, people are leaving, of Blue Hill Avenue, it's changing, I can't even recognize some of the places I've already been and they did, and know that this is Blue Hill Avenue, this is Columbia Road, it is changing, it's changing. So Leon, about 60 seconds, next steps. Educate, agitate, organize, I would say legislate, but in this day and time legislation is a tough one if you're talking federal, locally, good, statewide, good, but the bottom line is educate, agitate, organize, similar to, yeah, that's what it's all about, if we can't do those three things, we're lost as a group of people, but I think we can do it, again. Again, thank you, and Lawrence, in about 60 seconds. I think we just got to draw, we have to draw a line in the sand and say, we're not going to take this anymore, but education is the key, Merti Joe, I meant to say that before you went back to Merti Joe, gentrification is alive and well, and it's been on the dias since I was a little kid growing up in the South End, because that's what happened. Mel King was a visionary because he knew, he told all the people that had houses there, don't sell your houses. So we have to do the same thing, because they're scouting Roxbury, Dorchester and Mad of Pain, all those black, beautiful homes, they're trying to get them. They've turned Jamaica Plain, which is right up the street, into Roxbury, into Jamaica Plain. We're done. Thank you, and we are actually done today. I want to thank my guest, Lawrence Darden, the studio with me, Merti Joe Pete and Leon Rock there on Zoom with me, and I want to thank you being here with me. This has been on another level, Educate, Agitate, and I got to add one another to organize and communicate. We've been communicating here. You can learn to be a communicator. My name is Sharonine Hinton, God bless you, take care of yourselves and each other. Have a good day.