Description:
Ron Summers talks about life in Northeast Oklahoma City.
Transcript:
Interviewee - Ron Summers
Interviewers - Mark Griffin
Ron Summers - [laughs] Yeah, my name is Ron Summers [R-O-N S-U-M-M-E-R-S], born in Hobert...by accident. My parents actually live in Oklahoma City, but my grandparents lived in Hobert, and they were down visiting my grandparents...his mom, and so...at the hospital down there. I was delivered...but I was raised in Oklahoma City, specifically on the Eastside all my life. Basically, four years I was away at Howard University in 1970 through ‘74.
Mark Griffin - So you’re a native of Oklahoma City?
RS - Correct.
MG - How far back does that go? Did your parents, grandparents move here? Or do you know any of that history?
RS - Well, actually, my grandparents moved to Oklahoma City first. They were in Hobert..and I take that back. My dad went down to Hobert to see my great-grandmother. So they were all down in Hobert, and then eventually his parents, so my parents moved to Oklahoma City, and they followed them to Oklahoma City. Yes, so...I was actually raised here in Oklahoma City.
MG - And in this part of town, too?
RS - East side, baby. For life...for life...for life. I’m still livin’ over here.
MG - On the East side. A lifelong resident. Now, what...is there….there are probably a number of places that are significant to you, but is there one particular place or a set of places that mean a lot to you?
RS - Yeah, a lot of places...a lot of places. You know, back in the day, a group on 19th street... actually 19th and Lottie...which is maybe like about six blocks from here...but, I remember that we would have to walk to school, and when we came home from school, my parents both worked. We went to the back door. Well, a lot would just open up and go in. Now you’ve got bars and canines and ADT systems. It was a little more easy to get around.
MG - And what about...other than your home, what places do you remember?
RS - I remember I went to elementary school at [unintelligible], which was on 13th street. My grandpa worked here. It was called Douglas back then. And Moon also. My uncle was one of the first black firemen at the fire station at 6th and Stonewall back in the day, so I would go and see him. My father was also a black policeman, so we were all, I guess, community-minded from day one. I think that kind of brings me back to a point...like at Douglas High school, which is where I went to high school, we had teachers at Douglas High School, and you couldn’t just graduate from college and come straight to Douglas. You had to go get some experience. And I think, If I’m correct, there was a guy named Willard Pitts who was kind of my historian...and he has since passed on, but he told me that like at Douglas, every teacher, or, I may say, the majority of the teachers at Douglas, had Master's degrees because of the segregation...they couldn’t go to...because a lot of the schools in Oklahoma were separate but equal, so a lot of teachers that went and got Master’s were paid for by the state, so they went to Columbia University. So, like I said, a lot of them had Master’s degrees at the...yeah, college...I mean the high school, and one thing I really appreciated about the high school was...not only were we
educated, but we were also nurtured. Big difference. You can get educated, but also when you show them compassion, you’re not afraid to kick their behind or get them straight. That’s what the deal was back in my day. And Imma tell you one thing. Really I’m not what you call [unintelligible], but immigration actually ruined the East Side. We had our own stores because we had to have them. We had our own movie theaters. We had our own place to go and have fun and enjoy our surroundings, and let me speak for my own personal opinion...I don’t know how the people felt, but I think...really what I want is not as much immigration as much as equal funding. You know...the history behind Douglas High School is that school was actually built back in 1954 and ‘55. Remember that was a significant year for black people - Brown vs. Board of Education was in ‘54, and they said...well we don’t want to immigrate, so we’re gonna build them a real good school, so they built us a real good school - Douglas High School, which we were very thankful for. At the same time they built the high school, the white folk on the west side of town got pissed. If you’re gonna do that for those black folk, build us...so they built Northwest Classen. So that school was built after Douglas, and it was only built because they were pissed off because...you know, they were pissed off because Douglas got a new school on the Eastside... so, you know, well the black folk got it...well the white folk, we need to get it too. White privilege, that’s what we call it on the Eastside, okay.
MG - So you mentioned a lot...not just schools, but a lot of places of entertainment.
RS - [Willclock] park, I used to go to [Willclock] park, that was right up the street here. What was that? Like 12th and Stonewall? The State Health Science Center took it, confiscated all our land around here and laid it for...I guess, the health science area over here.
MG - What do you remember about that park? Do you have any particular, you know…?
RS - That...where...we didn’t have to have like a daycare center. My grandmother lived half a block from the park. She lived at 1121 Ukeland, so that was like a block off of 11th and Stonewall. The Willclock park was on Stonewall.
MG - Okay, you’ve kind of alluded to this, but obviously things have declined a lot. What else do you attribute that to? I mean, integration probably, you know, affected in many ways…
RS - Well, I think, I probably have a lot of thoughts as to... but one specifically is that, when I was growing up, it was always a two-family household, mom and dad, always...always. Exception to the rule, might have been...there might have been a single mom that raisin’...but she might have been raisin’ her child because the other one passed away or something, but we always had a two-family household. Now don’t get me wrong, my parents didn’t always get along well, but they were...we had a two-family household, and I think that was very key. You gotta have that base...you got that strong base, and then there was also connection with the teachers of the school. Most of the teachers that were teaching at Douglas High School, maybe not most, but a lot of them...like they knew my parents. They went to school with them at Langston. My dad actually had a lifetime teaching certificate, from the...I mean, from the state I guess. Back then, I mean, at least you get a lifetime certificate. See my dad really he wanted to be a doctor. He was a biology major, but he didn’t have the money...didn’t have the funds to go to med school.
MG - What other places do you wish were still here that are no longer here?
RS - I wish we had a freaking grocery store. It’s a food desert, over here man.
MG - What were the grocery stores that you remember here?
RS - Well [Oswald’s?] is still down the street, but there was a shopping center right here on 8th street, had like a [unintelligible], had like a IGA grocery store, had like a place they sold [unintelligible] and hamburgers and fried pies. My dad would take us there every Friday, and we would...the pies I think we're like 10 cents, the hamburgers 10 cents, and I remember because the guy's name was Gravy..white guy named Gravy. But his restaurant was like a bus, like an old-style silver, silver bus, I don’t know what you call them. But he had….
MG - Airstream trailers?
RS - Uh-huh, uh-huh..but he had taken them and converted them into a little restaurant. I think it was a bus. It might have been just the way it was built like that...but anyway, it was, yeah we’d go eat hamburgers down there, and we had the grocery store. There was a pop factory right down the hill here on Stonewall. Man, really everything we had over here, they just kind of took it for the Health Sciences Center, and then kinda took advantage...I don’t know. And I was fortunate enough to go to school on the East coast with Howard University in ‘74, and what I found out, or what I concluded, was that really everything that happens on the East and West coast eventually will find its way to the center, the belly, of the United States. So what I was noticing in Washington D.C….we used to call it chocolate city...now it’s probably like milk city because really gentrification has kicked in [101?]. I went back there for my reunion..well homecoming in 2017, and I saw the black streets and saw women pushing their carts and white folks jogging, and I’m like “what the hell is going on?” So it’s turned full-circle. So I started thinking well, that’s what’s happening on the East coast. And what happens is what I call the donut hole theory. You have people who first lived downtown, and then you have blacks come in, and white don’t like the schools, so they move out in that donut hole. They move further. We couldn't go past 8th street back in the day. Then it became 23rd street. Then it became 36th
street. But all along...was that the people kept...the white folks kept moving out. That’s what happened. That’s why they had the white flight, so what they’ll do is...and I think the key reason the white flight kicked in was because schools. They didn’t want kids to be around black kids really, so they go to Edmond where they have the good school systems right, and what they would do...is that they get their kids good education, and of course blacks want a good education. All we want is the same thing white people want. We want a grocery store. We want to take a vacation, have good streets, have good schools. We don’t want any of that extra. We don’t want you to give us anything either. Just open the door, give us a shot to...you know? To conclude my story...is what would happen...you would have that white flight, then of course you had the no-tax base, so of course the blacks want to get education for their kids, so they keep going out….that can afford...people who can afford to go out, and then what would happen is like the whites that had moved out to Edmond...when their kids get grown, they’d sell the house to the blacks at a higher price, come back to the inner city, buy this dirt cheap, come back in, and throw some gates around it, and that’s how most of these cities develop. I mean, you go back and think about like, Harlem...and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to New York before, but Harlem, the heart of Harlem is 124th and Lennox, down. Maybe you never went to Harlem, but that’s 125 blocks from Downtown, so 122nd and May Ave, 122nd and Pennsylvania, so really what happens is people jump back in when the prices got dirt cheap and sold them at real higher price, and they’ve gonna have to [unintelligible] school system, because the kids are gone. So they got a lot of good deals out there because also really what would is happen, is when they get that like black flight comin’ in with the white flight, well when those kids grow up and they leave, and then they’re parents pass away...they might live in California. They sell that shit. Like we ain’t going back there any damn way. So, what I’ve been doing...and I still live here on the Eastside, I’m buyin’ all the property I can get. Imma be the Sheriff over here, the unofficial Sheriff and unofficial ambassador over here...someway for somebody maybe like a Ron Bradshaw, this guy that’s been developing right here, waiting for somebody to come in and
look at all my properties on the East side and say, you know what? Someone’s gonna give you, I’m gonna give you “x” amount of dollars to sell this property, and me being the retired CPA and numbers man that I am, I’m gonna sit back and say, “you know what I think that that is a good deal, but really, whatever you’re offering I’ll take it, but I still want 20 percent of the project. I’m gonna get in the back seat and ride with you fellas. I’m not gonna drive this car, but let me ride. I’m gonna participate with this thing you’re doing here.”
MG - Now what would be your input, I mean what do you want to see happen?
RS - Here?
MG - Here.
RS - Grocery store, man. Give me a grocery store, man. That’s the first thing is...give me a grocery store. I’ve been around some of these preachers around here. They got maybe a thousand churches. I’m just like...hey guys, everybody kick in a thousand dollars, we got a hundred grand there...and preach in the pulpit, buy your eggs over here, you know? Don’t go across town. It’s just the total fault of, let’s say, the white man. Black folks have a lot to do with it too, you know? It’s kind of a sad situation. It’s been like sometimes hard to win. You get kind of frustrated, and you say, well I’m not gonna vote. I’m not gonna worry about it, just whatever I can get, i’m just gonna hold on to it and use this. But I’m not like that. I’m participating now. I’m watching these young guys, we got some young guys growing up...comin’ around here now, and I get a kick of these young guys always saying...these young black guys right, so there always... we got Northeast Education Resource Renaissance. They have this annual festival here on 23rd street. Tryin’ once again...talk up about the Eastside and showing people that there are some things that people can really enjoy, and there’s some history here on the East
Side. You notice that there’s an Embassy Suites over here Lincoln, and you look at the name of what they call it. It’s called Embassy Suites Downtown [laughs]. Dang, this is not...this is Embassy Suites Eastside, man, but they always don’t want to throw up East side, they’re like...ohhh this is the Eastside...this is where all the brothers live over here….blah blah blah blah. [laughs] Well, when some people see the name black, they think something bad, something derogatory. I think a lot of white people grew up thinking like all blacks are janitors, or all blacks play football. I’m neither...I’m strictly academics...academics. And I was telling my son...it’s been about a week or two, but I was saying, you know, one of the few advantages that a black guy has is that people tend to underestimate you. So when I got into negotiations, and I’ve done my homework right, and they walk in and notice...oh we’ve got a black guy, okay we’ll just lay back, and I’ll just chew ‘em up, chew ‘em up...because I’m prepared, right...mentally prepared, right. When you break their faith the first time, [unintelligible] they back the hell away, and you know what they say when you leave, they smile, they shake your hand...but when they leavin’ you know what they say? That negro a smart son of a bitch, you know? But that’s how it goes, how they….it’s par for the course.
MG - Now you see...you’ve seen things happen on the West Coast, probably some good, some bad. How does...how does that translate back here? What things have you seen in D.C. that you would like to see happen here? What things have you seen there that you think we need to avoid?
RS - Well I want the people on the Eastside, who were born and raised, not to move out to the Northwest side of town. As we say, stay woke...don’t fall asleep at the wheel. Stay woke guys, I’m like...hey if your parents got some property over here, keep it. Don’t move back over here. But I know the reason they might move is because education. They want a good school system for their kids, good education...equal funding, man. That’s what it’s all about. I’m not a racist by
any means. I don’t need to be around white guys. That doesn’t turn me on. Just give me the same equal funding you give on the West side and I can stay over here. But the only reason why people will go North or West is because they’re following the education system to help out their kids. Education is the way out. Well education gives you one leg up...give you a shot...a shot at it, right? A good education will carry you.
MG - You’ll have to kind of….
RS - Narrow some things down for you? Are you talking about the advantage? What’s the pros and cons of...your question about…[sigh]...what would be the pros and cons, things we look at as positive? I’ll tell you...in Washington D.C., they’ve got a good public transportation system... something like that to help you get across town because...really sometimes like...I remember when I bought my first car...I paid 3600 dollars for my car. This was back in 1973. A car nowadays...you can get like a little...this car was fully-loaded for like 3600 dollars...matter of fact... yeah but now you pay 20, 30...you know, but really it’s hard to get a car at the prices that we got... and you know what this guy told me, he said you can get a car, and we’ll finance it for like 84 months. I remember coming back, I was like it was 36 months, and then it became 48 months. Well point is...transportation is key. You need a good transportation system to get people to and fro. Education, transportation system..and somehow a way to lure jobs over here.
MG - Like grocery stores?
RS - Yeah, just jobs too...I mean you know? Man, you gotta provide for your family, you know? If you want to just, you know, take a man’s heart out and stomp it in the ground...let him provide for his family. I mean, you can take away the vacation, but if you can’t provide for your family, then I mean...literally it makes you...it affects your self-esteem, so we gotta find a good industry
here. We got I-35 here...warehouses...something up there, you know? I’d be willing to bet, if we had, let’s say, a place of jobs, the crime would go down because people are workin’. If you had jobs here, I believe...you know less mental health issues around here, you know, because you can’t get a job...your mind’s all jacked up. Can you imagine wanting your kid to have this present or this pair of shoes or these clothes, and you can’t get it. You the man...you’re supposed to be the provider, but you don’t have a job, so that puts stress on you. That’ll depress you...yeah you’ll have mental health challenges. You’ll try to talk to someone...get some help. Jobs, education, transportation. You know what I call that? Jet...J.E.T….like an airplane.
MG - Oh you’ve thought about this.
RS - Oh yeah! I think about this every freakin’ day. Every day I think about it, you know...what can I do to help out? My teachers back in Douglas high school. That was when miss Griers, my math teacher...I take math, what they did back when I was growing up is like they take started maybe the sixth grade, they started tracking the kids, the ones that are potential ones that thought they might want to go to college. They put us on a different path. I take math every year. 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. Take science every year...Bum bum bum...When I left Douglas High School back in the….’69, ‘68, those classes, when we graduate, one of the questions was like are you gonna go to college, the question was like where are you going to go to college? In the end, like some of my heroes are guys let’s say maybe 2 years older than me, what those guys did, was those guys went to Yale or to Princeton, or to University of Penn. They plugged us in...say we’re gonna help you get it...Imma help you get it...you help someone else get in right, so when I, when I graduated, and I was president of my class, by the way, I’m proud to say class of 1970, when I graduated, I had a scholarship to Dartmouth, I had a scholarship to USC, I had my friend could get me into University of Penn, but I chose Howard
University. Now, one of the reasons I chose Howard was the full scholarship. At Dartmouth and University of Penn, they said well give you a little scholarship for $10,000, maybe $30,000. I don’t know the exact numbers. It wasn’t the full...full-ride. You had to come up with some kind of a student loan, but I had a full scholarship to Howard University.
MG - What did you study there?
RS - My original major, believe it or not, was gonna be architecture. I wanted to design buildings, and I always thought it was kind of cool to do a little drawing and you see this thing on paper...and automatically it comes to fruition. Now that might have been your building that you paid for, but really that’s my baby. That was my baby, right so I had the scholarship, went to Howard University, and I was lookin’ at the program, and it was like a 5 year program for architecture, but it was like about 21 hours a semester. So I’m thinking 21 hours a semester, 5 years...that’s 21...average is like 15 hours. I was thinking’...this is gonna take even more time than 5 years. This might take you about maybe 6 or 7...really if you were gonna go 6 or 7 years, you might want to go for a Master’s degree because you go 5 or 6 years and get an architecture degree, you still ain’t gonna be able to find a job, so I went into accounting….Hated it. Hated it, man. Hated it. I’m like...I mean I like numbers, but really I’m more of a people person. I’m not like a numbers guy, but I knew I could always find a job, right? So I taught at OCCC college for 38 years taught there, man. Everyday I get up, go fight win, go fight win...because I, you know, I really didn’t like that numbers. I mean I liked meetin’ the students. That was one thing I liked about teaching is I wasn’t actually doing the accounting work. I worked for a couple accounting firms a semester to get an idea of what’s going on. Boring. Borrrring. So I taught for 38 years, and I don’t know...I sit back now as I get older, that’s when things kinda, kinda unique about getting old, kinda, when you’re young, you almost look to the future…..As you get older, you know what you start doin’ is you start reflectin’ back to like okay man...like okay aw man, I
should have stayed in architecture, maybe I wouldn’t have had a job, I wouldn’t have had money, but I would have been doin’ something I like, and everything I go through I try to stress to my kids. I try to tell them hey man really do something that you like. Don’t do it because I said do it...don’t do it because it might be let’s say good income. Do it because it’s something like, do it because you have a passion for. That way it’s not really a job. It’s like you get up... it’s something fun you go do every day, you know? So yeah, jobs and education.
MG - Now you’re really living your dream.
RS - I am...really I am. Yes I am. And I’m helping in my community and also helping myself. That’s a win-win situation. When I was brought up in in the business world taking business classes at the Howard University business classes at OU and OCU. In business, man it’s like war. And they always teach it like, my teacher always stressing things like what’s that...zero sum game in business. What’s that mean? Means like someone’s gonna win, someone’s gonna lose, and I’m thinkin here’ I am, you know I’m kind of a community-kinda guy, nice guy and I’m thinkin’ really? Why does it have to be that way? Why can’t it be like some you give up something, I give up something, let’s compromise man, instead of me trying to tear your heart out and take advantage of you, but I think it’s getting a little...I think it’s shifting a little bit to more of well I would say probably a qualitative approach as opposed to quantitative, you know? How do you, how do you evaluate loyalty? You can’t put a dollar amount on loyalty. So I think we need to start thinkin’ about like maybe qualitative characteristics as opposed to numbers. That’s what gets drilled in your head and you’re like him or a CPA and taking an accounting class all about the numbers, oh you didn't produce. Oh okay we’re paying you $10,000 a day, you’re making us how much? $8,000? Oh you gotta go...but but but...I was with a company for four or five years, and we had a little downturn. Look at your friend here at OU, what’s the new president, Gallogly? ,*laughs* Let me tell you what I think about this guy. I’m gettin’ a bit off here
*laughs* Let me tell you what, I think they brought this guy here to be the hatchet man. His jobs gonna kill up all these people's salaries. He don’t give a shit. He just, oh I don’t know, I don’t have no relationship with them, no loyalty. He only gonna be there for about 3 or 4 years. His job is done. His job is done. He’s cut the costs. He’s got everything down, and then like he return then they’ll probably get a real guy...I said a real guy with education background, but the next 3 of 4 years, he’s cuttin’ hands. Man, if I worked down at OU. You said, you’re workin’ at OU? When you said that I was like...oh my God, she might not be there next year because that’s how much he don’t care. You might have been there 35 years, and the numbers you produced, so many solutions, got so many accolades, well what do we got? How much are we paying her? How many students in their program? [laughs] Aw, naw, but he got president…[unintelligible]. Don’t mean nothin’. I will see you next year. Where are you? You’re at OCU? You got a chance, that’s...OCU? OCC?
MG - OCU.
RS - OCU, that’s the methodist church right? They might be a little bit more sympathetic than OU. That’s the old man down there, he believe in big bucks, he belives in dollars per day. He ain’t upset about students per day...he cut all the heads off. I believe he’s doin’ a bash job on David Boren, that guy’s done too much for the university to be treated like that. He has no recourse, but that’s another topic, we’ll talk about that next year, when you’re unemployed, no, when you’re unemployed and you’re looking’ for a…[laughs]
MG - That’s right, yeah. Now this is the stuff we hear...
RS - Jobs, education, transportation, that’s the key thing. JET. Flyin’.
MG - Need food in this neighborhood.
RS - Food does it.
MG - What year did the high school move from here further east?
RS - This high school? Douglas?
MG - Yeah.
RS - ‘54. When they built the new school, yeah when they built this school here...uh-huh. Yep.
MG - So by the time you were, yeah...so by the time you were in high school, you were going to school over there. So this was a memory?
RS - Mm-hmm. Now matter of fact, I went to junior high, it’s called Moon Middle School, but actually back in the day, it was called John F Kennedy.
MG - Oh!
RS - Yeah, we were the first class to go through there from 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. I guess...so if I graduated ‘70, that was like ‘64. I think that’s when…’63 was when John F Kennedy got assassinated, wasn’t it?
MG - ‘63.
RS - So, the school was...they named the school after him in ‘64.
MG - Oh, I get it, yeah. And when did it get renamed Moon?
RS - [sigh] Man, I don’t even know. Don’t even know. I’d be lyin’ if I told you. I would say mid ‘80s, but don’t hold me to that, but I would say mid ‘80s.
MG - Now, your children, do they go to Douglas High School?
RS - No, my kids grew up with their mom. I’m separated from their mom, so they went to school in Houston. Now I’ve got a daughter that I adopted. She’s 10, but she goes to Dove Academy, which is right up the street to Charleston and 48th. Yeah they call it Big Dove. Little Dove is further like...4th...5th grade. That’s at 4th and Lincoln, yeah.
MG - That’s the one I go by.
RS - She’s gonna be goin’ to Big Dove next year. She told me a story, she said they...they’re gonna have a graduation, all this stuff, caps and gowns, so they’ll even go to Big Dove next year...but they said the teachers from Big Dove came down to the elementary school here and told them all about the school and also told them...okay now instead of the one teacher you have all day, you have like six teachers. My daughter was like shocked. What? That’s too many teachers. That’s too much to learn. Yep...that’s what it is when you go to the big leagues. You get into the bigger schools like Junior High...was like you know it’s a shock like...oh and you gotta be on time? You gotta find your classroom? That’s kinda...that’s gotta be a culture shock
you know, for kids, so they came in and kinda told them what’s goin’ on, which I think is kinda cool. They didn’t do us like that...like okay man you grew up there, when I left Kennedy Junior High School, it was kinda...back then it was 7th, 8th, and 9th, and then in the late ‘60s and mid ‘70s so...what I remember vividly was like we would go….and we were like sophomores. We were like the lowest of lows. They would take all our girlfriends. All the sophomore guys had girlfriends. The sophomore girls went to the upperclassmen, which I guess is like their ritual. I’m just thinking like I just want to talk to sophomores too, right, talk to young girls right...but I remember at Douglas High School we'd have a thing where like in the auditorium seniors sit here in the middle...sophomores to the left or something, and then Juniors to the right, and when we had a assembly...like If you were a junior and you were dating a girl that was a junior, I mean a senior, and you try to sit in the senior place...ain't happening….yeah ain't happening *laughs* it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy or ritual like everybody has to go through this stuff. Like okay you're still the sophomore, you piece of...yeah okay you get over here. I could talk all day, man give me some points and things you want to zero in on. But I got to cut my yard.
MG - Well I think we've covered the bases here. So I think in terms of...in terms of the…
RS - You got my number If you need something else call me I'm retired man I've got time to burn I got to get my yard cut, but I've got time to burn.
MG - Thank you very much for sharing with us, for sharing your spirit.
RS - I appreciate it...matter of fact this is kind of therapy for me. I let out a whole bunch of stuff here. I even got it on tape, so one day I can go back and hear this. Hope everything I said was okay. I hope I didn't say any bad words my mom would hold against me or be mad.
MG - We won't let her listen to that.
RS - Okay because she will come out of the grave and try to get me, you know she will. You know my mother...I was going to the shopping center...Penn Square...and this lady was getting ready to close the door, and I bolted in front of her. My mother….I had my hat on. She hit the back of my head and said don’t you ever. You respect your elders, son. From that day forward, I never cut. I always open the door and everything, right. But my mother, I still feel that pain even thinkin’ about it.
MG - Wow, well thanks a lot for sharing. Yeah it’s…
RS - Therapeutic, man. Just don’t send me a bill.