Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jack 20240704

Spaces together is important and also challenging white men to not give up on social justice. The first time that happens so you know really trying to sit in that complex and nourish us in ways that enable to make lifelong commitments to the work important to me. Well, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Give it up for your name and i just want to say its been such a pleasure to work with you and be on your journey with you. Youre a person of courage, integrity and grace, so thank you much. Give it up again for gift and you well, everyone, you very much for coming. Welcome to the American Legion. Were going to lay down some ground rules. Please kindly remain seated and quiet at all times. Set your phones to vibrate. Airplane mode. Please hold your questions till the end and. Well have a questions and answers session at the end. Books are available for sale afterwards, and if you dont mind, take a photo of your purchase and then put it on social media of theres also were at the American Legion and they are the volunteers here they try to accommodate us as best as possible. So you dont mind, please step in while without further. I present to you jack cashill 13 presentation for cc pan booktv. Awesome awesome. If you notice alexs sure gear is for a reason were in ocean county, new jersey which is Center Central to the whole theme of the book as well talk about in the second. But the fyodor dostoyevsky, the great russian once said tell the story of your village. And if you tell it well you tell the story of the world and. My village is called roseville, which was an unassuming part of the unassuming city, newark, new jersey. Newark, by way rhymes with pork or kalk or dork, the way god intended it to rhyme. So you dont say two syllables. Its called the shibboleth and roseville is unassuming. Its. Community, like many others throughout the northeast, North Central United States, almost fully ethnic. It was sort of like a snowflake was distinct in its own way. Theres a thousand other villages much like it with slightly different ethnic compositions. Immediately. Our east growing up was a neighborhood called little italy, which as you can imagine, was largely italian, probably newarks most famous village was probably weequahic, which home to the the the century is probably greatest novelist is philip roth. Hes written about it extensively. Theres villages like it throughout talked to people in chicago, detroit, philadelphia, even small towns like newburgh, camden los angeles, San Francisco, who grew up in comparable villages and we had remarkably similar experiences. And i keep hearing from people who have had those and its it is. Both depressing and illuminating at the same time. The just little background on how roseville came to be came to be like so many other communities, so many other villages, farmers yielded ground to developers, developers recruit entrepreneurs and. Each generation were moving further and further away from the original anglosaxon founders. So by the time we get to the 1970s, if the only anglos saxon living in an ethnic village is archie bunker, i thats really what it comes down to everyone else was some kind of ethnicity on our block or just in our block. There were immigrants from 14 different countries, including outliers like finland and i mean, i dont even know who these people were, what they did, but they were there. It was a its a hard knock story for our ancestors the notion that these people were somehow is when you read their histories, you just it dispels that almost immediately. Two of my great grandmothers died before they were 15. Im thinking, oh, thats no. But the average age, the average lifespan for a woman is a turn of the century was 49. They lived a relatively full lives. They all had multiple children. Three of them had six or more. One had three of the six of the eight rather, five were foreign born, which and six were irish descent, two were german. And i cite this not because they were my familys exceptional, because it was normative for our neighborhood. Virtually everyone in my neighborhood and all the kids i grew up with had relatives, living relatives who were born in Foreign Countries, different countries, but Foreign Countries and rose. All the dominant ethnic strains were irish and, italian, but there were people from all walks of life. There was a what happened with the immigrants typically the children of immigrants, as they went to work right out of Grade School High School was not an option my mother didnt go to high school. Her brother didnt go to high school among the women who went to work right out of. Right out of the eighth grade was a woman named catherine, who lived two blocks from my grandmother. My german grandmother, marie muller. They were the same age. Im sure they knew each other, but my grandmother early like 17 to my grandfather, william cassel. And but catherine scheib, went to work. She found a glamorous job, which she thought was a glamorous job right in the heart of the neighborhood at a studio. And may have heard of it. Its called the radium aluminum luminous material corporation. And, you know, when youre doing a book, youre looking for to find stories that illustrate what youre talking about. Finding the radium girls right in the heart of the neighborhood with something. Yes. Anyone read that book . Yeah, its a grim book, but it was a bestseller and it deserved to be. They went to work there and they had this job. They thought was great. They just had paintbrushes and apply it to the luminous dials of these radium watches. And then most of them ended up dying. These horrible, grim deaths. Catherine scheib was the most notable of them because she was a writer. She was the one who pushed for justice. And if you havent read that book, its illuminating and because america was going through its growing pains industrially, but just as importantly, it just illustrates the nature of what life was like in early century america, much more diverse in any which way than it is today. There were immigrants from all over the. Most be. A lot of them couldnt speak english at all, and they came arriving without air jordans and headphones. They didnt know this country of anything and they found a place in this society and they worked their way through it and my familys case, my father had a dickensian childhood. His father abandoned him when he was about ten. So hes living with his mother and his cranky german grandmother. The only friend germany remembered was words for shut the door. I mean, so i can tells you something about that. So his life. They found the depression before the depression and then their, you know their my mother is born in 23. So depression starts when shes six. My fathers ten and thats their life for. The next six, eight, ten years, just carving out an existence. And theyre like everyone else. And as kids boomers growing up, we all heard depression stories. It was incredible. And we know the depression. The cold was or the hot was hot or the snow was this. The rain was wetter and the distances were further than theyve ever been before. So and so and always had to walk to school for 14 miles and two feet of snow, way. They told more stories about the depression then they told about the next adventure, their life, which was the war. So i learned legion hall, which would seem like a likely because there so saying theres an Organization Called the sons of the legion which virtually everyone is room is entitled to belong because of our parents. So they paid the price and they found themselves. In 1953 we moved to my particular stretch of rosewood, which is called avenue and, thanks to the 1950 census. I a lot about myrtle avenue. The census is released for whatever reason. Only every 72 years. So the 1950 census just came out last year. Its like sort of jfk is brain or something. Its like a National Security secret. You cant know it for 72 years. I still cant figure out why that is, but its so so myrtle avenue, in 1950, its a one block stretch strip, unassuming, you know, narrow street. One way so you could communicate with your neighbors across the street, 363 People Living on that one block there, 85 households. And here is statistic that matters most. 85 of those 85 households and this enlightened era they referred to the married male, the head of the household. So bear with them boys. Of those 85 households, 83 had a male had right to widows. Of the 83, two were retired and two were unemployed. The 79 others had and every one of them, i mean, they lost them. Anything. And i list them in the book because there i mean short of lumberjack, theres hardly a blue collar occupation not listed on that block. Some of them were casket maker, right . I never met a casket maker. Reverend boulder. I dont know. That was im sure thats pretty common. John huckster. Yeah, i like that one, but my favorite one, my favorite job of all now 30, i should say 79 of the households, 30 of them had a Woman Working outside the house or the wife working outside the household. My favorite one was a woman who listed herself as janet tress, right so she embraced both her job and her right. I mean, you have to call actress as actors now, but here she was being one to be called the janitor. So i just thought i was going to go and that was that was that. Block we moved there in 1953. We moved to a triplex at the top of the block. Right in the triplex, right next to us were three black families. The block would remain stable for about ten years. About 10 . I took over newspapers, knew every household in the in the block, the it was a remarkably functional neighborhood at that time in 1954, my parents bought a home and in the middle of the block we moved a year later, which made us have my childhood friends, the only ones who were homeowners, which is also critical Going Forward. It was an 1880s fixer upper and. It came with a rumor, a border woman, an older woman who who came with the house say buy the house. And she was and this is montgomery. So she had to be quite old and thought when we moved out of the apartment, we could make noise. And then no, no, we could see someone upstairs. But you know, and then 50 there were 20 different people listed as rumors or boarders or lodgers on that block. And you can a book on the history of rumors and borders lodgers in american history. We wouldnt be here the way my personal relatives will know this if it werent for rumors and borders and lodgers. Since we had an incident in our past that put us on but on the subject. But. Thanks to the work of although the neighborhood was catholic, overwhelmingly catholic actually there are several jewish families. One jewish family that i talk about was the berg family. Samuel berg was a is their father by the was a pharmacist to work like 16 hours a day and to support his family. And unlike the other kids in neighborhood, he didnt make his children work. He made them study. So samuel berg went on to become a physician. He stayed in the neighborhood and he became the neighborhood photographer. He took 2700 pictures. The neighborhood, theyre on display at the new york public library. So i know now everything within it looks like all the stores, all the shops and the shops just within an hour block were, there was almost no service. You could not acquire. And virtually all the shop owners were independently owned. And pops, i didnt learn to ride a bicycle until i was 30 because i didnt need to. I could walk everyplace or. You could take a bus, four different bus routes downtown. You get downtown its a half hour to times square. It a very harmonious, functional neighborhood. I when i posted this my Neighborhood School website i at least three or four people came back describing the neighborhood and this is in newark in a working class in newark without a College Graduate on our block until my next door neighbor became a College Graduate on that later as i idyllic. Right. I mean who thinks of newark. I do like but people did because the neighborhood functioned so well and so samuel went around took pictures of it. His younger brother, morris. Was an extraordinary character. So you know who he is and he deserves his own book. In fact, several books have been written about him and a couple of movies have been made is as maurice moberg, moe berg, who went on to become catcher, soldier, spy. He he spends 18 years in a major leagues as a catcher and hes like the smartest guy in major baseball. They recruit him to be a spy. During world war two, i was asked and then, like many returning veterans, he has something of a breakdown and he spends the next 20 years of his life wandering around the neighborhood. Im sure we pass them all the time. He hung out at our neighborhood soda shop. I prefer hours a day. And you . I never bugged him for autographs. So there was don dodger. Great. Had a bar just a few blocks down and we bugged him for autographs all the time. But we didnt know moberg was there. If you havent read about his story, its really incredible. It deserves its own book. Well a couple of been written, so thats how i got my information in about it. Now, as idyllic as this neighborhood was, the punditry class has no respect for the people live there, not just in our village, but in villages. This throughout chicago, detroit, philadelphia ive heard from people all across the country and i write about some of them when im doing the research for this book and. By the way, the name of the book is untenable true story of white ethnic flight from marcus is why im doing the research. I come across an op ed in, the New York Times, written by a woman named, leah preston, and shes a professor at princeton and shes writing op ed. And she said the, i bet is entitled the culprits behind white flight. And because the neighborhood im talking about the idyllic neighborhood im talking about 1950 1960 would be gone by 1970. It like so many other neighborhoods, it would simply be no longer be tenable. So shes looking for the culprits and she decides shes weighing the options. Is it is it economics or . Is it just pure racism . Those are the two things that factor into her thinking. And so she writes and then, you know, she wrote a book on this subject and the book won some sort of award, which after reading the op ed, i had to wonder myself who came in second that year . I mean, this is such an empty headed argument. Heres how she concludes. And this is this is telling, she says, to complicate the picture, few of them meaning the people who lived in these neighborhoods, left personal accounts, and they may not have been able to articulate exactly why they moved let me read this again to complicate the picture. Few of them left personal accounts and they may not have been able to articulate exactly why they moved. When i read that, i laughed out loud. I said, ive just talked to 50 people. They tell you exactly why they moved and i and there were like 800 comments. And this is the New York Times. So im a little distressed thing of the kind of comment im going to see. I expected them to be like, you werent hard on these people. You know, its all about blockbuster and racism. Thats the only explanation. And there were questions like that. There were comments like that. The amount of the comments said this in one form or another. How can you possibly write an op ed about white flight and not mention schools or crime . Write. And then i started and i excerpted about a dozen of them in the book from all across the country. And these are New York Times readers. So theyre sort of arguing against interest. And this storys stories are hair raising just like youd expect. Like the ones ive talked to, people ive talked to hair, sisters hair set on fire. Grandmother mugged neighbor shot and killed, home invaded second time, you know, stores down one after another after another. Children bused all the way across town. That was one because of it. And so im thinking, what did she think after reading these things . How is it that youre writing book on white flight and you never thought to pick up a phone or pick up a, you know, and call people who left . You never talk to any of them. And when i was putting this book together, its you know, im losing my here but what i discovered is that no one had written this book no one had talked to these people. 60 years on, these voices were unheard. And when they were heard, they were mocked. So i guess me down the title of the book, which is untenable my original title is to be dispossessed. And that is the untold story of the great ethnic diaspora. And there are more resonance. Ocean county, new jersey, where 60 miles from newark, from my Neighborhood School than there are in essex county, where newark is located and there is a political ramifications of that. Well talk about that later. But no ones talked to these people. I said, my gosh, its like an open it shouldnt be, but it is the what i would have liked have i would not my subtitle only tell you i get title first. Im talking to a of mine im im thinking about dispossessed. I run it by some people. I said dispossessed diaspora was sad about it go to the astrodome. I said, well, is a little too formal, too academic. So and a few of you were here last spring when i was there were we met with another friend of ours who couldnt be here today. And. I said to him, okay, im going to mention his name already. You were the last guy in the block. You were the last one to leave. Youre living there with your widowed mother. Now, its about 1972 and 1960, 60, 63. The neighborhood is idyllic. By 72, hes the last guy on the block. And i said, why did you leave . And he struggles for an answer hes thinking about it very thoughtfully. And he said, well, the block became untenable. And i said, what did you mean by untenable . I asked him this and they said, untenable when. Your home is invaded for the second time. Thats untenable when your mother is mugged for the second time. Thats untenable. And then i said, theres a title. I said, already you get the title untenable. And thats what i heard from person after person i talked to and i talked to at least 50 people. And i got same story. One form or another time after, time, and then the subtitle is this the true story of white ethnic flight from americas cities. I would like to not have the word white in the title because what happened to the whites in our neighborhood happened to the blacks in our neighborhood happened to the asians. And they all know you had a couple of asians. We had like the the girl at the laundry whom i used to go there to ogle. Thats there werent many asians. They all left for the same reason, but only. And this is why i put white in the title. Only whites were shamed for leaving. Theyve had live with that stigma their whole lives. White its a its a pejorative it simply is. Flight means are as a forced departure and it kind of is when you talk to someone whose has been mugged for a second time in a home invaded for a second time. Yeah they dont have much choice. So there are several stories i tell in the book about black people who fled some them pretty interesting. One was i stumbled on because i, i was to this guy who lives in our neighborhood and i said i just ask him casually because our neighborhood was integrated pretty thoroughly and our Public School in our block, probably half black and i said to the guy, i said, were there any black People Living on your block. And i said, yeah. He goes, theres a family down the street. And their little girl became a big famous. And so said Whitney Houston. He goes, yeah, thats it. Whitney houston. So i said, i did is i got the memoir. Whitney houstons mom, cissy, to just check out the fact to see if that was true. And as im reading, im thinking, no its not true. They did not grow up in our neighborhood. But then as i get further into the book, i that the mom whos one of eight children stern loving christian father they all believed in music mother had three things that in her life was god, family and music. Right. And they were theyre very big, devoted, churchgoing people. She marries a guy i mean, her name is cissy. I drink she marries a guy named john houston. So i look up the Houston Family and use some family on this guys blog. So what he seeing was their grandchild that their child you know, when she was a little girl, Whitney Houston so. Cissy drink card. Cissy houston writes a about how to her time in new york and newark and she lived and she described it speaking of villages, a cozy little village. It was on the east side of town, integrated neighborhood, mostly jewish, black, german and she started saying, and then things start getting bad. Then theres crime in our neighborhood. Theres violence then the riots come. She goes and i turn to john said, well, you got to get out of here as soon as we can afford it. Were out here. Three years later, they moved to the suburbs. There was a natural of any responsible parent, don and the west, another woman, she grows up in, chicago and she lives in the south neighborhood of chicago. She likes the neighborhood. But then her comes home. Hes been mugged they bullies the neighborhood bullies slashed tires off his bicycle, stole the bike. And she said if this they can do to my little connor, they could do it to anyone. So she moves and she writes, call it black flight. Call what you want. Were out of there. Right. This happened everywhere everywhere. The most interesting case is that of michelle obama. Her name is made name is michelle robinson. She grows up in the same neighborhood south shore is, kanye west, her parents. Her father was a precinct captain in daley machine and he had a front job as a water guy or whatever. But they gave comfortable as barack compared to the cleavers. He says, like visiting the set of levers, a cleaver. Leave it to beaver and. Moved in 1950 to a brand new cooperative of the high end serious place. It was. Two senators showed up. It was such an important thing. By 1960. By 1970, when michelle was ready to start school, theres a brand Public Elementary School a block away. Shes her her brother. Michelles older brother, craig goes there for two years and. The mom says, thats enough. So what she does and theyre very responsible parents. Theyre doing what any responsible parents would do. They loaded up the two kids and they drove them 15 miles, a 15 minutes away to assure to a neighborhood a still a transitional jewish black neighborhood. And thats a classy misdemeanor to do that. If she were caught, theyd have to pay the school district. But she the robinsons doing what other parents did when it came time the high school their neighborhood was now virtually completely black the school on the block was black. So michelle and craig are sent elsewhere. They the takes a second job so she can afford the tuition at a Catholic School for craig theyre not catholic but that didnt matter there she wanted craig to have a good education. Michelle gets sent to a Magnet School downtown more than an hour away on bus and. Its i cant you cant fall for the robinsons at all. Its what they should have been. Its what parents do. But heres how michelle pictures it today. Her experience today and she is not saying anything out of the ordinary is the prevailing sentiment in pundit in the world of punditry about white flight is viewed. And she said this is three years ago at a public forum as families like ours, upstanding families, ours, who are doing everything were supposed to do and better. As we moved in, white folks moved out. They were afraid of what our families represented. I mean, i black People Living on my block my whole life. This was i just took it. I thought it was insulting personally to she goes and then she turns to the audience. She goes, i want to remind white folks that youre all running from us and youre all still running the color of our skin and the texture of our hair. Scare you, right . Im thinking, give a break, michelle. You know that just not the reality. I dont think she realizes how insulting that is. You know. But thats the stigma we have that weve had to live with. And thats part of the reason why i wrote this book just to shed some light on what actually and what did happen. Well, the sixties happen and the sixties came actually started coming in the fifties, but the names of mr. M. C. Is in the sixties and theres like three elements to what i would consider. One was in the change, in the zeitgeisty the notion its a simple change would seem that you were supposed to be responsible yourself and your family to the change, that the system was responsible for you and your family. And if you want to see that change parody this i was rewatched showing west side story the new which is surprisingly smart movie. If you havent seen it worth watching and theyre singing officer krupke right there officer krupke and what they with the jets were doing was parodying the attitude that they were now hearing on the streets so the one line goes society has played him a terrible trick hes sociologically sick theyre not responsible for who they society is making them who they are its systemic now blacks were more vulnerable to systemic change because their migration came later the second wave of the great migration the in 1924 congress cut off immigration from south and east europe. So there are no more , italians, croats, poles coming in. The United States are just trickle. So these are the migration was being filled by people up from the south. There are vulnerable they were susceptible and they were used and Lyndon Johnson with the Great Society played this out. That was his trick. He said, were now we have a whole lineup of social programs that we can offer you. Medicaid food stamps. These all came in the early sixties. Afdc, welfare, basically basically rates, rent, rental rates on your income, not based any fixed price. Theres only one price you had to pay. What you said to the families and that is no married father in the house. If you have a married father, a house, youre not eligible for all these benefits and in the Great Society was first announced in 1965. A lot of these programs had already been moving along at that time. But they one guy had the nerve to speak about his name, Daniel Patrick moynihan, democrat, later became u. S. Senator from new york. He wrote a report, the case, the family, the case for national action. What pointed out was that by 1965, 25 of the black kids in american urban america were living with someone other than without a father and a household in my neighborhood, by the way, just, you know, half mile away or in that neighborhood, that figure is about 1 . And so you have this huge fraternity gap. And that that would would rebound forward into the future and keep rebounding report comes out here and so thats right this makes sense and then certain people said now you cant that weve got the system now and we have the system to blame. So we can milk this as much as we want and well just deep six that report and keep on making believe. Then nothing has changed. Everything is changing that resulted in, you know, as unfortunately just a total breakdown. One of the books i relied on for this was a a fellow named george cooke, who grew up in the columbus farms and which is newarks most notorious Housing Project. He was is came from a black family, about six kids. They moved into communist homes in 55 when the first opened, it was one of the marvels of the world. I mean, they couldnt believe how lucky they were all brand new appliances, all the units, screens on every window. He says its it could withstand a Nuclear Blast maybe you could have the story of how the chromosomes got to be. There is had a level the entire neighborhood a little italy i mean and its not just blacks who are being removed by urban renewal anyone who got in the way got removed by urban renewal, the whole neighborhood gone, all the shops all the streets, all the, you know, 500 houses, several thousand people dispersed, right. Because if you the only way you could get money to build new Housing Project was declare a neighbor too slow. So the headlines New York Times were slums to be cleared in like north little italy right it eradicated the whole neighborhood and as to appease the italians they called it the columbus homes right and and well, you know, two years ago, they took down crimes. Christopher columbus statue so its thats where their are right now the so hes there for two years and hes tall he talks about milkman came to the door anyone whos familiar with these projects in later knows how incredible this is bread men major deliveries doctors made house calls this is to a ten story 1010 building complex right at the time it was ethnically mixed more italians than other but everyone was and everyone is there. And then cook begins to notice a and he talks about it openly. He said the Nuclear Families began to move out and the welfare began to move in and what he had described in just as exquisite terms, he saw amazed by all the wonders, the cleanliness and the the neatness and the modernize of his building becomes within ten years. I right. And when i went back to new york in 82, i for the newark housing authority, even my black bodyguard and i every one every place i went in with an armed guard, he said, im not going to kill him. His arms said, no, no, thats our assignment. Weve got to go to columbus. Oh, were going to go there. And i have notes in the book about i kept the journal that year. Its astonishing if you want to see that breakdown, it was right in front of you and it happened so by 19 we visit 1982 and then like two weeks after our visit because, we had to do an assessment for the bosses the New York Times visited along with the head of hud, and they said the same thing we were saying. And now then raised the whole complex, as you know. And then they blamed on the buildings as. They always do. Its not the buildings. Its one of the myths where they live with. But among the other myths that have to be lived with is this that the the industry left newark and. So these neighborhoods collapsed because. There were no more jobs. And then portuguese moved into the the crummy section of newark and they made a lie of all the stories theyve been telling, they came with their families intact. The Puerto Ricans who came at the same time, they werent tied up the tentacles of the welfare state. They came independent of that and they created the late part of the 20th century. Their own village that could have rivaled italy or roseville or any other villages in any other cities, the country and that was a that was the the really that that they live with, i should say when i say across the country when olivia boston wrote that in the the op ed the Comment Section went on one after another from philadelphia detroit, chicago, boston, trenton, newburgh, little cities, big cities, everyone telling the same story of how their became untenable. The portuguese showed it didnt have happen. Theres a model for doing right and that is the bottom line is get married and stay married. I mean, if you want that one simple solution for for fixing all our problems, that would be it. The after moynihan we went 43 years before anyone of consequence dared to say publicly what Patrick Moynihan did and the person who did was barack obama. He was a candidate. Fathers day 2008, speaking at the Apostolic Church of god in chicago. He gets up and he says, and by the way, he hes a model father. I mean, he was an ideal position to to drive this message home. He says, if were going to be honest with the real problem our family is the absence of fathers in the household. He goes to a number of fatherless household has doubled since i was a child and he was right. And then he he went on and he listed the consequences of that five times more likely to drop out of school. Nine times more likely to commit a crime. These are father with children, 20 times more likely to end up in prison and he needed to continue that message. But what happens three weeks later on a hot mic, Jesse Jackson is overheard making a very serious threat against barack obama. And thats the last ever hear of that story. He is never, never talks about it again. And in a meaningful way. The so here we are today and its hard know how we move forward because things have not gotten better 60 years later were still blaming the same things and its its really because i live in a city ive in the city all my life and its my future. Its all our future as and now the cities are emptying again. But its and its flight again. But its the who are fleeing are the people who are writing the editorials and op eds. So theyre not stigmatizing themselves, theyre just being quiet about it. Cities like new york, los angeles, San Francisco losing hundreds of thousands of people in last few years. The. The ultimate solution is im convinced and this is a good place to start any is and i close the book with this because i tell the story at end of the book a visiting with my mother on her deathbed. And she was a tough. Obeirne was not a very sentimental lady. Those who knew her know that and so i said to her, i said, do you have any regrets . I would say, i think of something to say, you know, i mean, this is her last day. I knew that she goes yeah she was you know if i knew those cigarets werent going to kill, were going to kill me. Im going to give them up five years ago, you know, as a summary of my life, you know, so but then again, those roles did give us every clock and skill and in our house. So theres theres something and. Sure. And then i said, is there anyone else is there anyone you want to see any you want to see . And she said, name the name. Her name is helen walsh. And she had grown up right next to us from the time where even before we moved to myrtle avenue and stayed touch all those years, moved and forth. Sometimes were close to them, sometimes and helen, when we moved to roseville, helen and her family moved to roseville when our neighborhood went bad and we moved to a public Housing Project, helen to wellsburg, which is relatively nice section at that time. And when vales went bad, helen moved to ocean county, where are today . 60 miles from newark. So mother said, id really like to. Helen right. So good, son, that i am, i drove down ocean county, picked her up when we got back to a right. And that is the price paid for me for for being dispossessed and you know we dont its too late to make amends except to make amends by Going Forward and telling truth. Thank you. Appreciate you coming. And well take questions. How do we do this with this mic here . You know, someones got to come up first and i cashmans talk about your baloney sandwich again or no hotdogs or no no you dont have to as all story families are any questions or comments when you come up whos whos going to be brave enough to volunteer first all right to impress someone frank get up here. Frank, by the way, was a very instrumental in me putting this book together. He lined up of my volunteers. So. When i went to grammar school, the other were good friends and like everybody else in newark, you grow. And when we graduated from grammar school, he went one way or the other, he was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to very Prestigious School in new york. I wound up in as a catholic, and it was a good school. But being of italian extraction in the irish christian was not very christian to me. I got a beaten almost every day my life until i said, i cant do this anymore. And i went to another school where i graduated fairly well with nanny, not National Honor society, but i got a good education, able to go on to a good job in college to a good career, but jackie is saying about what went on in the neighborhood is absolutely correct i was about my first time when i was four and they took my candy. I mean, yeah, my sister sold that she was she ran away and left me there to get beat up and this is not complimentary to my family my uncles who were in their teens at the time. They took umbrage at this and they went out and they robbed three or four candy stores by surprise. And it was in a bad neighborhood. What they referred to a black neighborhood at the time. And as time went on, i saw the neighborhood deteriorate and talking this with other people, the police were not very interested in taking care things and its horrible to say, but when i moved, i moved to the country. I Sussex County and the difference was so vast i couldnt believe i came from york and my wife she doesnt half the things that i tell it happened she wrote the first chapter in the book and she wrote it i understand now why you wanted to be, but i have to say it still wont work, right . I go back there. I go to good italian hot dogs and i go to the pushkar and they go to cedar orange blossom, the Cherry Blossoms because its home and you dont want to give it. But i feel that we were dispossessed also. We had to move. No house. We owned about 6417 years. My mother sold. She bought it in 1951 for 9,000. Her my father. And when she sold it in 1970, she got 16,000. And the guy who up at the closing 1,000 short, she said, ill take just to get out. And thats i think thats good example of basically what about you know its just if i could put in a good word for the police my father was a cop. My uncle, seven of my cousins talk about jack, but my, my, my First Official mugging was at nine and im yours. Mine made the newark evening news. You know, were. What do you expect . No, no, no. Well, i made the newark evening news is because when i got here, first of all, i got robbed 3, which was for me it you i put it in my back pocket, my mothers 70 store. Im walking to the house thinking im not im the trauma of the mugging is already gone. Im worried about the trauma of telling my mother, dont have the 3. So it took me a to convince her i didnt you know, stash someplace and then she says, she said, hmm. Ill, ill ask skip some of the words she goes, they mugged the wrong kid, right . My fathers a youth aid detective. Right . Hes like three blocks away, so hes home. In 5 minutes, we go to the scene of the crime, we go to the school nearby, you know, and then we found the perpetrators. And that that. So i made the talk even use. I was officially nine years old. Fortunately, know none of my future muggings were made the papers some of you were here with the men when we had them. But it was a and youre right there. The neighborhood was no wanted to leave. It wasnt like we like the theres an antiracist cartel. People like robin the angela white fragility to make in 700,000 a year telling other white people how fragile are what a frigging wreck that i. I wish id gotten in on of myself. I thought of that. But, you know, they there was a there was the opportunity at that to integrate blacks into our lives is just another group. Were heading in that direction. And then it turned and it went the other direction and now were going further and further from from that as a norm and its really unfortunate. So thanks a lot. Frank appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. For your call. Yes, they the live in baltimore. I was born in. Can you talk about the riots changed landscape of newark . As you know, we had riots in 2015, right . Well, in newark in 1967, had the first major riots and then as that, it was the first major riots in northeast united. And its not that big a city. So and 25 or so people are killed and it was a major shock in our because were only about 400,000 people and then recall reading tom hayden who is the future bride of jane fonda, had spent four years in newark. Radical losing the young when he wasnt offered in vietnam North Vietnam that is and that our the other end of vietnam and so he and others were there planting the seeds of riot rebellion and they were finding increasingly Fertile Ground among the fatherless disaffected youth right. So it all explodes. In 1967, hayden gets a book out that same year, which suggests to me he had pre written and its called the in newark and what he says only one cop and only one firemen were killed i said it like to explain to the families that word only know im sure that bomb for their wounds but no is it had a major effect the theres a firehouse right on Central Avenue where the one fireman was killed and and one guy a lot of these people have written books you know theres unpublished memoirs and you know, selfpublished books. They tell incredible stories. And the one guy was a fire chief. They already on our neighborhood. And he said, you know, before 67, you know, people were moving. He said after seven floodgates, everyone was gone. The one story i tell in the book and, hes this is a really amazing story by this two girls who are both adolescents, the time they live right near, a Central Avenue, which was the the southernmost main drag and roosevelt and the one girl whos probably been 19 at the time, she said she sees these guys carrying crates up to the top of a nearby building. But guys and then she saw an armed sniper on the rooftop. This is before the riot starts. And then when the riot does start, the girls see busses coming in, charter busses dropping off on the street to riot and to to her. And they stayed there, parked all night and they took off. And this is a lot of this is orchestrated by people like hayden baraka and others. And then they the neighborhood is like, what, like a war zone . And they said, weve got to get out of here their fathers a truck driver. Hes on the road. So they call the boy the one girls fan, say he comes, gets them, theyre out on the street. They get knocked down from the crowd up and down. They never come back. They never come to newark again. They were renting. That was it. That was in story. It really, you know, rebellion and rebellion. Hayden says the riots, white neighborhoods well, thats a major well left scars. And after six or seven or was never the same, there was another factor, too, in my familys life. In a life of many is they put a highway right through our house. Right. One of the myths that they perpetrate right now is a racist. I was the highways were planned divide white neighbors from black neighborhoods mayor pete etc. And i looked throughout the country i couldnt find a single highway that did that our highway which is now 80 to 80 divided. The white northern half of roseville from the white southern half of roseville, largely white in both cases. The other highway that came through newark, i70 eight divided the largely jewish southern half of weequahic from the largely northern jewish half weequahic, where newark was 35 black at the time. If they want to divide highways, their aim wasnt. I mean, they could have done it, you know, many different ways. That wasnt the purpose. Some highways went through, right through black neighbors. They didnt care. When you read plans, the how utterly indifferent they were to the the neighbors who are getting their neighborhoods destroyed. It was on the for the in 1959 they put out the plan for 80 to 80, which became tied to 80 and they said all six. Among their variables was how did all this affect the neighborhood . They were more concerned about how many exit ramps are there downtown . I mean, really same thing they did when they built when they demolished little italy. And its odd because the people there were and the other half, you said you have the dreamers and schemers when get together in a city like newark Public Private partnership, in a city, newark means Something Different than it does place else in america. It means that now getting 90 federal money. So its not our money anymore. Were playing on house money. So we could do anything we want. And so the gangsters, the boyata family on whom david chase based the sopranos, which is set in north. They started demolition companies. I mean, and then the mayor is in on it and and its all federal money and no one cares except for the people whose homes are being demolished and destroyed, whose neighborhoods being ruined. So it took a lot of it wasnt a conspire is it . Some people think it is. It was just a conspiracy of opportunism for a lot of people with varied interests. And as to the people got caught between white, black, hispanic, whatever to bad, you know so and then not much has changed and the questions comments longings from other wishing for a pizza to come so dont have to sit here any longer. Yeah alan glad that you mention to be coming through. Right, because my vote would have stayed honorable avenue till. They died right . When suddenly they were told they had to move because to i was going to be built there right and i can remember picking and the day before they left because my father had moved down the 1920s, i think the day before i left my mother calls and said, i think your decided going crazy because hes down on the cellar and hes mumbling and saying theyre not going to get this because people moved out. So its neighborhood kids not necessarily bad people would move in take what . Right, left and so i keep hearing him doing that and then we picked them up the next day when the the moving round would come along and pick them up the next. And my father said, its 40 years to the day. So i moved in of a life. Brother. Yeah. And you know and i said oh really. I, i was kind of busy so i wasnt very helpful to them, but you know, its the way they did. I was them and germany accelerated the flight totally and this is i should i the i know i like to make believe a room full of strangers maybe there are some strangers there but but ellen and one are just purcell who just spoke was our next door neighbor. When we into the middle of myrtle avenue and the social media at that time you went online with your clothes line. So her mother and my mother got to talking and on our block there is no such as a College Graduate. No one save for college. I mean, the notion that you save for college unheard of. And most of the guys i talked, even in my generation, went right from high school to the military or you know, a lot of them went to vietnam, of them didnt come back. But there was a rare College Graduate on our block, a budding and that was ellen and my yeah. And my uncle andy whose brother and sister so much as go to high school was also graduating from college. So they started talking as they hung their clothes and they said to introduce ba ba. Two years later there was a wedding and. Seven children later, several of whom are here. We have our future. I did see, however, thanks to your son tom, who is instrumental in his a family genealogist, the offer made to buy your house right now they lived in a very kind of nice two story that you could upstairs quarters you did have that People Living upstairs what with a cellar with a cellar to boot and mr. Hanlon asked for 25,000. They offered him 15 and they said, if you refuse this before the board of condemnation. So that was it. I mean, the notion that we were building equity is ridiculous. The we sold our house for if the highways went ahead and built bought our house, no one would have. Because by that time, neighborhood values were plummeting. And we were lucky to out whatever whatever they gave us. And then we got sent to a public project. So i can remember. When the riots started. Yes your mother called us, so we were in cedar grove. Right. And said, your friends are burning my 7000. And we said, what . Were here because we cant stop. You know, they moved to the suburbs. Its a theyve become like a sort of if i can say this, the family of liberals at the time, you know, the people who were left in newark were not much in the way of liberalism. And oddly and this is the political ramification is that ours was a as kid was a totally democratic neighborhood in 1960 i was preteens for jfk. I was over top for james. You know, its tribal where irish were catholic. Right. And yet it but by the time left that neighborhood they had changed party affiliations. So now and so many of them move to ocean where we are now is ocean county is redder than West Virginia and when 2 to 1 for trump both elections and Seaside Heights boardwalk which is where they film jersey shore has a shop that only sells trump paraphernalia. Thats how radical, a political came as a result of this and no one talks about it which is crazy right so and the but nonetheless thanks for bringing that up ellen thats ellen was my best interview repository. She had the best and longest memories our neighborhood so not imply that youre older than i am, but its not so. Yeah, you are. Very good. Thanks for coming. Okay. Get time for one more question. One . Yes, sir. Yeah. When i tell people about newark to tell you about it was when i was a child. We had two trolley tracks burned in front of our in springfield that im going to our downtown one go towards irvington north with a garden. We had shopping right with new york. We had ball club, we had a a venue, Madison Square garden called the laurel garden. My grandmother lived next door to they had wrestling. They roller derby. They had entertainment shows with singing boxing. I mean, everything, everything you could ask, everything going for it. And im sure nursing went right down the tubes and it was in politics and and as as i point out in the book, it didnt just happen in newark. It happened in essentially every major city in america. And whats painful about it, 60 years later, 50 years later, is that until i wrote this book, which id pick up, except its on the floor. No one is thought to talk to the people who get driven out of their homes. You know so. Hey, thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. And stick around for the festivities and i will have book signing afterwards. Cspan thank you very much its very important that you guys came today. Thank