Audio File
Transcript
My name is Brandon Strong, Jr. I’m 17 years old.
My name is Cassius Plummer. I am 18 years old.
We interviewed Roland Ford on July 20th, 2018.
I was born and grew up in Hill District. I was born on Wylie Ave. and I grew up in the area they call Sugar Top up on Milwaukee Street. I still have family who lives in the area. I do teach classes right down the street at the YMCA, teaching a couple classes right now over in August, Wilson Park. Next month, we are co-chair for the uphill 5K, which is a race that’s gonna go up and down Centre Ave., and we’re a big part of the Three Day Hill Health and Wellness Weekend.
I have six siblings. There were seven of us, four sisters, two brothers, and it just seems like the whole neighborhood used to always be at our house. There was a point in time where my dad opened up our home to his siblings, so I had an aunt and uncle who also had six kids and when they were on hard times, they moved in to our house with us and then his sister, they had three children, they moved into our house. So there was one family on the 1st floor, one family on 2nd floor, one family on the 3rd floor. So we were 15 children at one point in time in that house, and like I said, the whole rest of the neighborhood used to be over our house too. Both my mother and father were very active in the community. Lot of children, when they put who’s emergency contact, they would put my mother’s name. So even though there were a lot of children in our house and we didn’t have a lot of money, I didn’t know I was poor till I got much older. I would say I had a happy childhood. I was fortunate that I had two loving parents, and they instilled in us a lot of values. I had good role models in my parents, and I was blessed that I ran into a lot of people as I was growing up who mentored me or were positive examples. My father was somewhat athletic. He played semi pro basketball. I was a track and cross country runner and I actually coached our cross country team to a city championship. Being involved in sports and athletics really helped me with a lot of discipline, kept me out of a lot of problems, and now, with the fact that I was running and being athletic all my life as I got into retirement, I sort of reinvented myself, and I have a company that I founded where we actually are directing, coaching, and helping people to develop a healthier lifestyle.
I grew up in a very turbulent time when President Kennedy got assassinated, Martin Luther King got assassinated, and all different kinds of things. There was a lot of civil rights issues and other things. So that did a lot to really shape my development. While I was growing up, integration became a big thing where they passed laws and said that you know you have to integrate the schools. In many places in the South, even when I was growing up, they had separate restrooms. I remember as a child that there was a swimming pool, and if we went to the pool, a lot of times, we’d have to defend ourselves when we’re leaving because there would be fights. It was a racial thing. Where I went to school, I know that we closed the school down. Columbia University was the first school that got closed down in the north because we were protesting lack of faculty, lack of courses, and where the school was invested in South Africa at that time, which still had apartheid. There were a lot of breakthroughs that were going on at that time to get a lot more doors open. And it was a lot more evident in places in the South where they were during the protests, there were dogs being put on people, fire hoses, people going to jail, people were getting lynched and shot and other kinds of things, turbulent times, but people stuck together and won the voting rights and other kinds of things like that. I think there was a consciousness. There was this cultural development that happened about black pride. That made a difference, even though there’s racism, even though there’s a lot of different things, there’s actually a way for you to win. You can win. You just keep moving forward. I believe that if you have a goal and a vision that’s worthwhile that’s beneficial for you and beneficial for other people. And you pursue it, that the act of you pursuing it is going to actually allow you to come in contact with people, places, circumstances, and conditions that will help you, and this is what I’ve been finding for myself that, as I move in the direction, not really totally knowing or understanding how everything’s going to happen because I’m moving in that direction, I come in contact with people, and people say, “you know what? I can help you do this or I can help you do that” or circumstances that’s allowing me to do stuff that I never imagined that I could possibly do. So you may not see the whole path, you know, but just begin taking steps and moving towards it, and you’ll figure it out along the way.