Transcripts For CSPAN3 Reel America All The Way Home - 1957

CSPAN3 Reel America All The Way Home - 1957 July 11, 2024

A quiet street in a quiet neighborhood in the middle of the 20th century. When you look for a house, what are you looking for . What do you see . People who lived in square fine ample houses. The ferocious slums. Many still stand, many torn down, rebuilding among the people and neighbors. A way being made for the projects. Signs of change in all of the cities. And still, the dark red blindness of walls. The cities reach out. The ghettos burst out after a long while. Every kind. Borders into the sunny pushing out into the new country waiting. Some of us still live in uniformity. But the sifting has begun. When you look further, when you look for a house, you see the citys reach. What are you looking for . A place to live . Your warmth, your love, your work, your rest from work, your quiet, the sounds you like, your privacy, your friends, a good place for children. A place to grow in. Easy to keep clean. A place that we can afford. The right place for us. And even from the car we try to guess. What is there for us . Who lives behind these doors . On this quiet street who lives here . Could this be it . This one . Take another look. Im going to get kick on the phone right away. Why do people come here . All of the regular reasons. This room, sod many little things. Bob seeing jenny in her Wedding Dress here for the first time. The time we got back from the hospital after little lori was born. We were grandparents. Christmass, birthdays, dont you feel that way about the room . Of course you dont. Sure i do. Tonight, when i was burning the leaves i felt that again. Not just about the room or the house, but the whole neighborhood. Something about the people here. I just hate to pull out. We have not moved for ages. You think about year jenny was born . Ill get it. It is pretty late. Yes . Yes, this is mrs. Candy. There must be some mistake. It was about those people that were here today you mean because of i knew it, i knew it was minute they got out of that car. I knew someone would throw a fit. But who in gods name would do a thing like that. Youre really very upset, arent you . Can i get you something . Maybe just a bath. It was that bad . Worse. W what gets into a person like that . Do you know what he said . Hello, tom, how have you been in. Fine, ed, you . Are you going to the Lodge Meeting on thursday . Always do, dont i . Anything the matter . I dont understand you, ed. You have always been a pretty regular guy. A great to the neighborhood, too. Im the same guy i have always been. There is something bothering you, what is it . Get to the point, tom . Come on, dont pretend you dont understand. No one will get away with the stuff youre trying to hand out. Nobody is threatening you. There is never going to be any violence in this part of town. You have friends here, im your friend, we want to know what you think youre doing to us. A quiet street, a quiet neighborhood. No trouble here, none at all. So i got off of that bus and i came straight here. Nothing to worry about, ed, nothing at all. Everybody knows you as an ideal citizen. Let me give you a little friendly advice. Take that sign down. That house is a desirable property and well turn up the right buyer for you. I hear what youre saying, but dont turn on the bedside manner. Tom elder was upset. He didnt walk in my door, you cant blamed to, people get nervous. I told them it was probably all a mistake. We know you would not do anything out of line, ed. Out of line . Some people came to look at my house. They were negros. I havent done anything yet. Take it easy, im not todd elder. There is some things you cant do, that sign that is a terrible thing. It is like an open invitation to anybody. You have been around here long enough to know that we dont do things that way. Listen, i have a dozen people in here that would have taken your place and i didnt let them get as far as you. I have to consider the community. Youre leaving and there are a lot of us that will be here for a long time. Now take a tip from an old friend, forget this whole thing and let me take care of your house. That is deesz ted for you. Where is lori . She was here a minute ago. He is is outside playing with bobby. He has a new bike and he promised to give her a rise. No, nothing dad, bob promised to put up the wall paper weeks ago. This saturday that wall paper goes up. Who is the boss around here anyway . Ill help you question get it done in a few hours with these two out of the way. Mom mom, my dress mom never to be the same again. The first sign of the first family entering. The street responds with the old questions. Why do they go where theyre not wanted . Why in a neighborhood like this. Now the old cries, running the place down, values down, wanting our girls. Now images rise up. Riots at night, murder, rape, fear thats lie deep in peoples lives. And a man stands suddenly alone. Did you hear about candy . Yeah, thats all were talking about at our house. School is one thing. Its all right for kids to learn what its all about. But when it comes to your home, you have rights, too. Watch them try to force this on my block. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. They play, they play, and of course theyre all different. But what does it mean when one level is kept. One color, one group. What their grownups think of is one kind of people. Even here playing, are they cut off from part of life . Are they cut off from part of themselves and refusing to touch the variety, the richness, the texture of result that is aults there for us . These children, this place. If thee goes through with this then the land values around here wont be worth a nickel. Some thought they had to protect the on nor of the community. If you want to hide your head, okay. But i cant. I had a steady stream of complaints since we opened this morning. Thats good, it shows a fine spirit. I saw it this morning no no, complaints against can candy. I see. Well, a flood, you say . From home . Maybe i exaggerated. Tom elder, a very central elder anyone else . Mrs. Wesser. Yes, well we both have known her for years. What did she say . It wasnt so much what she said. Youre dealing with complaints it is precisely that. What did she say . She said she could not stand the smell. Listen, i have nothing against those people, but why go looking for trouble . Property values will go to pot if we dont stop what candy is doing. Look, ted, im a practical man. You dont work for this bank very long unless you are. I have to talk to you from two positions. From my own, and from the banks, theyre not necessarily the same. We cant have people throwing us into a panic. Land values dont have to go down. Not if the people in the Community Act like they believe in themselves. Here is an article reported in the New York Times that shows the have actually gone up in this type of situation. Come on, now, ralph, you can do anything with figures, you know that. The important thing is we dont want anything like that to happen here. Ive got two daughters, you know. Whats the point, ted . Well, id like the bank to get word around that no, no, strike that out. I hope that you and the bank will reach a policy decision on real estate loans that will reassure the homeowners of this community and the merchants and the service companies. Thats quite a package. Look, ted, you know i dont make the decisions around here. Ill tell you what. Ill call downtown and see what they say. If you. If youre not on my side of the fence, at least sit on it, okay . Well see. Its hard to know whats right and whats wrong. Its the most difficult thing we ever faced. Not just for ed and me, but for lori and bob and my daughter, and for all the friends weve made. After all, this is our community, too. We leave something here. I was thinking about that very thing. Ive heard about what happened. You know what i cant bear . Ed thinks im so lovely, so full of the morality. I looked at that little girl in all her sweetness and blackness, and i thought just that. Just what . Black. Thats what i thought. Black like them, i thought. And everything i heard as a child came back to me. Dont go near one, dont go into the secellar, even with one you know. Youll be killed, lying in a ditch or worse. That stain wasnt black. Theyre not really black, are they . When i looked out the window and that car drove up and he got out, i thought, no. You know how i was brought up. Narrow. No evil, but not much good, as a matter of fact. Not much soul. And no visible body. No poverty. Just enormous blinders of very good material. So something in me went, no. I was shocked at myself. What would you say that was . So shred of prejudice and an inif infitesimal spark of human feeling. Should you be ashamed of yourself . No. In that moment, didnt even want them to look at the house. After i talked to them, i liked them. After all, its a house they want and they can afford. And when i tried to clean loris dress, something happened. I want them to have the house. Thats the first awful thing youve said, carol. That i want them to be like anybody else, to have a house they want and can pay for . The reason. The fact that its your anger, your resentment over what happened to lori, your hatred that doesnwants them to live he. Its a motive. Yes, i see. How does the church stand on this . Where do you stand . The church sees it as a challenge. We have a chance here to affirm our deepest beliefs in the spirit, in the variousness of man and the unity of the spirit. But not all the church thinks this way. No, not all. But enough of us. Take a look at this, carol. Its a declaration of conscience, a statement of baked principles used as a focal point by those in the community who refuse to allow ignorance and fear and hate to wreck their neighborhood. This problem is the greatest challenge the church has had to meet in a long time. Its not always easy meeting challenges, but this sort of thing can help us with responsibility. Its a place to begin. Stand, ted. Ill stand, ralph. Whats the answer . I understand this is an informal statement and also may be taken as a statement of bank policy. It is concerned only with that aspect of the problem, if it is a problem, and affects us as a financial institution. This bank is in the business of making sound loans properly secured. Period. Sound loans. What does that mean . If this happens here, there wont be many loans worth making, and you know it. I think there will. And there are others in the community who think so, too. In my experience, the question of whether a man pays his debts has nothing to do with the color of his skin or where he came from. You know what will happen. What, in your opinion . Opinion, this is a fact. A better element will leave. Well have a slum on our hands. Ted, i think that depends on us. All right, ralph. Now we know where we stand. You go ahead and talk about bank policy, but ill tell you one thing. Once Something Like this gets started, you dont stop it. And if Anyone Around here is going to sell any real estate, its going to be ted moots. One house, its neighbors, confusion of a street. Theyll try to keep it from flaring up, but each of them has fears that rage and threaten. Threats that seem to come from outside. When you were a child, what was it . The jews, the poles, the irish, italians, chinese . These fears are real about their homes, yes. Is their money threatened . They believe it is. Threat to their social standing guarded so long . They think so. And the laws begin to recognize this. You cant legislate that . I mean you cant force tolerance by law. Of course, you can. But this has nothing to do with tolerance, this has to do with practice. You can by law prevent men from committing crimes against others, but always in reality, crimes against themselves. Thats what law is for. Thats all very fine. But how are we going to keep this neighborhood good . We dont want undesirables. We dont want land values to take a nose dive. Well, you know as much about land values as i do. They dont have to do a nosedive at all. This afternoon i waved an article on Property Values in ted moots face. I really only read the headline myself, but since then i read the article, and this is what it had to say. There was a study in a california neighborhood in which negros had bought homes since 1940. I suppose youre going to tell us Property Values went up . Exactly. The study said prices go up, not down, over a period of time. Now ive heard everything. Im a banker by profession. No heart, very limited kind of head, a mans wallet is his castle, that kind of imagination, all right . Well, let me tell you this. A man is a desirable neighbor if hes financially all right and he doesnt throw beer cans all over his front lawn. It has nothing whatever to do with the color of his skin or his religion or where his parents come from. It has to do with the worth of a person. Thats sound economics. Mr. Candy, youre a man of good judgment. Would you say these people are nice people . Youre the first person that asked me that. Yes, they were nice people. Caddy, what are you trying to do to us . What grudge do you have going for this place, anyway . If anyone is damaging this community, its not ed candy. Im leaving. Were not getting anywhere. Were ready to pull out and no one wants to do anything about it. Just a second, tom. Whats happening here is happening in other places. Its always to somebodys advantage to stir things up. Its an old game that ted moltz played here today. Thats ted moltz, not the whole real estate profession. What happens here or anywhere is completely a matter of how people handle themselves. When they act like human beings, the values are as sound as, well, a silver dollar. Ted moltzs figures show different. He spent the afternoon ringing doorbells, literally giving a sales talk. Some of the signs are out already. Sure. And ted has ten new clients and maybe ted new commissions. Mr. Yates, mr. Hinder, couldnt you walk up and down the street and them that . What we might do, too, is put out our own signs. Something like, were not selling. We believe in our community. I just dont know. I dont know how we can be good neighbors. Even if the land values stay the same, the streets going to be different. Doesnt that depend on us . Did any of us really choose each other as neighbors . We get along. But how long can we keep the door closed without locking ourselves in . What we must learn is how to keep from poisoning ourselves with fear and barriers and ghettos. Nonsense. Negroes dont live in ghettos anymore. Look at the housing projects in the city. Theyre not ghettos. Of course they are. Anyone who is shut out because of the color of his skin is a ghetto. I know that now. I guess i knew it all along, didnt think much of it, though. But they are ghettos. Well, mr. Candy, its not really up to us, you know. Its up to you alone whether the sale will be made. No, jim. Youre wrong there. What i do isnt the reason for it, its what you do. Thats what this is about tonight. Hes right, we cant duck it. Ed candys decision is his own, but its no longer important. Its what we do that counts. This isnt about one man and his house. This is about us as a community. And it has to be thought out in the White Communities and the white people, each in himself. Now its been said the Community Sen gaugis engaged. You can see the pace as people begin to face up to their problem. We need ourselves freed from our old slaveries and exclusions. We are fighting for a sense of community. In order to have that ever, we must look at what we have been excluding. We need ourselves and all our pride of differences to lift the old threat that brought us here. The way we meet the difference in people, this can give us strength. The range, the variousness that we have, this is a source of power always when it is met well and used. This possibility is very great just now. It is whatever we feel and do and think when we go out of here and go home tonight. It is deep in what we are prepared to give, what we feel, surely, in the people around us, in ourselves. All the way home. Weeknights this month we feature American History tv programs to preview whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight we look at the American Revolution with the story on John Buchanan and his book the road to charleston, Nathaniel Greene and the American Revolution. The book explores the Southern Campaign which reversed a series of losses and ultimately led to the defeat of the british in south carolina. Watch beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, and enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan3. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past. Cspan3, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. During the peak of the post world war ii baby boom, redbook magazine produced a 20minute film in the suburbs. Depicting a growing dynamic of young adults, it features many children engaged in leisure activities at home and the hub of activity, the shopping center. They hoped it would lead to an increase of ad sales in the magazine. The film is a time capsule of the 1950s, suburban midamerica

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