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Abstract:

Ed Gillen reflects and talks about his views on race and the Civil Rights. He was in transportation for the military shortly after the Korean War ended, for 3 years. He talks about where he lived and how he grew up in an ethnic neighborhood. Where the only biases were between different European ethnic groups like Italians, and the Irish. He ends the discussion on his view of the recent events dealing with police officers killing unarmed black men, and how that can be connected to race.

Research:

The Korean War began in June 25,1950 and ended in July of 1953. Casualties reached up to the 5 millions by the end of the war. Unlike WWII and the Vietnam War, the Korean War got little media attention in the U.S. The most popular representation of the war is the TV series “M*A*S*H.”   The U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb ever only 5 years earlier in Japan. Once the Korean War started, many assumed that an atomic weapon would be used in the conflict. 

Sources:

www.mentalfloss.com

www.history.com/topics/korean-war   

YouTube: The Cold War: Crash Courses U.S. History #37 

Transcript:

Interview with ED GILLEN

MAY 9 2015

E: I'm just gonna start with just asking you when you were born and stuff like that. Then we'll start getting into like, the meat of it. So... whats your name?

P: Ed Gillen

E: When were you born?

P: November 2, 1935. I'm not thinking I'm just talking.

E: Ha ha. So my first question is, do you actually know what the Civil Rights Movement was?

P: I remember a lot of them, yeah.

E: Where were you at the time, around 1960? When it was really starting to become a topic of discussion?

P: 1960.... Many years ago..I was 35, married, two children.. I think I was living in ah..Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

E: Lancaster, Pennsylvania?

P: Yeah.

E: Were you in the country or were you serving?

P: Uh, I was out of the service at that time.

E: Um..what did you actually do while in the service?

P: OK, I graduated college in 1958. Went into the air force for 3 years and in that time I spent about a year in Korea and uh spent a lot of time in Japan, because I was in transportation.

E: So you weren't in any of the fighting or anything?

P: No. No it was pretty much over by then, the Korean War was over..

E: OK... So I know that, at least to my knowledge, like back in that time there was a lot of segregation...What was your perspective on race, just like then? Were you cool with segregation or were you like, you know we should treat everyone equally?

P: Well being up north, I wasn't really around it at all. And uhh yeah, I went to a public high school and we lived in ethnic neighborhoods back then. It was like the Polish neighborhoods, the Irish neighborhoods, the Italian, Hispanic, and there didn't seem to be a black neighborhood around at all. (So you weren't really around segregation?) No but the public schools had all the kids from all the races and there never seemed to be any problem or I would think of, you know, no one seemed to be against each other.

E: So it was like everyone was the same?

P: Yeah, it seemed to be.

E: So you didn't grow up with, aw this race is bad, and stuff like that? (No) Did you ever feel like any of that stuff ever affected you, or were you completely isolated?

P: I was isolated from it, or just it just never came up.

E: It was like everyone is the same. Cool, so have you ever been in the south, during that time? Did you ever see segregation?  

P: Well, I remember when during college, we use to go for spring break, down to Miami. (Yeah) And so there would be four or five guys that would pile onto a car. drive down there and when we would drive through Georgia to get to Florida, we would past a lot of the segregated parts. We would stop off at a gas station, we would be seeing signs like uh, colored water fountain. That kind of things.

E: Seeing that, did it ever bother you or did you not pay any mind to it?

P: ...I didn't pay any mind to it.

E: Alright, how did you feel towards the civil rights, were you for it, were you against it, or were you just neutral?

P: I'm just like today, very neutral about..everything. Ha ha ha. I don't make raise and I don't even watch the news anymore, I just wanna keep my head in the sand, kinda thing. Just uhh let everybody get by in the world.

E: You were in pretty neutral territory all throughout your life.

P: Yeah, I never....That was way before any kind of agitation on college campuses, for anything like the Vietnam War and things like that. I was basically out of all that. When i went to college you had to wear a shirt and tie and a suit jacket. The seniors, they would wear hats because they were ready to get a job.

E: You were in service, but you weren't in the fighting, at all.

P: When I was in the Air National Guard, the Atlantic City Air National Guard I was there for about 4 years. And I liked that because it was one weekend a month in Atlantic City, and I enjoyed that. But then what happened when the "Pueblo" got captured president Johnson activated the Atlantic City Air National Guard. And uh activated our unit, and I went to Korea another year. Ha ha ha ha. I went to a Korea air base, lived in tents and.. just like Mash. We were very similar to a Mash unit. Lived in tents, worked in tents, except that they were the ones during the war. We were just there during, just to be there. We were the tac-fighter squad but we had no airplanes to support. They took the airplanes and sent them to Vietnam. They sent 25 pilots, and they sent men to school, learning to fly another aircraft. An then the 900 work troops, which I was one of those went to a Korea air base just to sit there, in case war broke out. we would be there in place, and they would send us airplanes to support.

E: They had you ready.

P: They had us ready, then after a year they deactivated the Air National Guard. And then I left the Air National Guard, I didn't want to re-up again.

E: Now I know that, I forget exactly, but you got in your truck and just went all over America.

P: Yeah, that was when I retired.

E: What year was it?

P: 1969...no wait take it back. Ha ha... I was 69 when it happened, so it was 10 years ago.

E: So like 2005?

P: Yes, 2005.

E: OK that's too soon, we need to go back some more. OK so I know that you lived in Germany for awhile.

P: I spent two years in Germany, my wife and I. (This was before..) This was just before I retired, I was about 62 or 63 and uh they moved uh I had a problem of moving our plant to Mexico. And then we closed up the plant in Pennsylvania. And I didn't want to go to Mexico or Gastonia, North Carolina, where we had a plant. SO uh they said, why don't you go to our parent company in Germany for 2 years, and work on a computer system they were installing a SAP, which is a German software manufacturer. So I sent two years and I came back, after two years and just hung around for a while, then retired.

E: So, um do you think that the way you grew up, like your childhood, just made you not have any bias against any race?

P: Back then the biases that I saw there the Polish against the Italians and the Italians against the Irish. It was Pre-Hispanic, it was all the European ethnic groups and they really didn't get along.

E: Yeah, so that's really the only bias you saw?

P: All our fighting was between (each other).

E: So you never saw like whites against blacks?

P: No, there weren't any blacks around cus we lived in ethnic neighborhoods. Elisabeth, New Jersey had Peter's Town which was Italian, Curry Head which was Irish and The Port which was Polish and uh some other groups in here ha ha ha. Yeah it was European bias or bigotry, European bigotry.

E: So you never got to see the full scale of what was going on.

P: No, it just never seemed to be that way.

E: With the stuff happening in the South, and MLK, did you ever hear about it and..?

P: Well you would read about it in the papers, but it was so far from us up here in Pennsylvania..

E: You never even felt like you were affected by it.

P: Exactly right. It's like now a days the way the media is, something happens in Afghanistan or some country you never heard of, Crackistan or something like that it makes the news. Back then I just never payed attention to it one way or the other.

E: Yeah, now uh....you're white, you're Caucasian, do you feel like just over all, and when you were traveling, have you ever felt like you had a stereotype placed on you, by another race?

P: No nope, never never...No matter where I went, Tokyo, Korea, anywhere I never felt out of place.

E: You got raised right. You didn't have to go through any of that. (I didn't have to, no.) You got it easy.

P: Well back then, I think, white people had no difficulties accept if you were in the Irish or the Italian neighborhood. You gotta watch (haha) cus there were small gangs back then. But the gangs were not violent gangs, it was more talk and then two guys would fight.

E: It was only like fist fights, because nowadays someone will pull out a gun and kill someone.

P: No that never happened.

E: Now with the, I don't know if you heard about it, but the stuff that happened in Ferguson and Baltimore right now, with the guy getting killed because of spinal injuries while under custody, and how a lot of people are linking that to race and every thing (Well it probably was.) Do you feel (I'm sure it was.)...you sure?

P: Yes, I'm sure it was, well you know there is no doubt in my mind that a black person with white cops, although some of them where different races too I think, I think the Mayor is gonna charge 6 policemen with murder. Yeah, and I think the mentality of cops isn't quite right to anybody. I think, you know the other one with the guy was running down the way and the cop shot him. (The was the thing in Ferguson) Yeah, there's been a lot of things like that.

E: Do you feel like we're just downgrading from what we've accomplished back in the day, when it was really serious, like when there was a lot of segregation? Do you think we're going back to that?

P: Well I think almost every ethnic group had fight to get ahead. Like when the Irish were digging the Erie Canal, I mean they were the lowest of the low, I mean they were lower than the Chinese. Cus they just thought the Irish people drank and uhh that was it. (Drank and fought.) So the Irish eventually became cops and I think they took it out on people who they thought were lower status.

E: That's actually just what I was about to ask you. Cus like with stuff happening now, do you think that cops back in the day had a similar thing?

P: Well look at ancient history, there was always some group beaten up on another group.

E: Yeah, well mostly it would be a group of authority too. Like a guard beating on the poor.

P: The ones who had the power were the ones beaten up on the ones without the power. There's no doubt about that.

E: Do you think that that's just always how it is throughout history.

P: Yeah, and uh given time the circumstances change, it'll be a different group if you know what I mean. (Yeah) During the war it was the Japaneses. You know what they did to them in California, they put them in concentration camps just because they thought that they still had allegiance to Japan.   

E: Well I think this concludes it.

P: Yeah ha ha good luck.

E: Yeah thank you. Well thank you for letting me interview you and all that.

Abstract:

My grandmother reflects on life growing up , while she faced discrimination and many other obstacles that crossed her path. In the interview, she begins by sharing her own experiences that she faced back as a child. Also in the interview she shares, an memorable event that played a huge role in her life and others.

Research:

On July 23, 1953, City Councilman Raymond Pace Alexander called for the admission of African-American students to Girard College, the North Philadelphia boarding school for boys that didn't have a father. Almost fifteen years later in June 1968, Alexander joined fellow civil rights activist Cecil B. Moore at a rally celebrating the end of the school’s segregated admissions policy. On that day, Alexander and Moore reflected on the evolution of strategies, objectives, and leadership within the modern civil rights movement. As historian Matthew J. Countryman rightly observes, “the modern civil rights movement was as much a product of the black experience of racial oppression in the urban North as it was of life in the segregated South” and those experiences keenly shaped how the effort to desegregate Girard College unfolded through the 1950s and 1960s. This was an important memorable event for my grandmother in which she will never forget.

Sources: http://northerncity.library.temple.edu/content/collections/desegregation-girard-college/what-interpretative-essay

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/05/01/celebrating-50-years-since-protesters-help-open-door-to-black-students-at-girard-college/

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?marker Id=1-A-369

Transcript:

1. Did you have any experiences with discrimination?

• “Yes, as a child I grew up in South Carolina, everyday was discrimination because as a child, how you were treated, most thought that was the way of life.”

2. How do you feel about the role race play in society?

• “It shouldn't be a role that race plays, everyone should be equal.”

3. What do you remember from the Civil Rights Movement?

• “I remember Cecil B.Moore fighting to have Girard college accept black students.”

4. Do you think that racism is an important issue for children to be aware of?

• “Its very important , because prejudice is a learnt behavior it's taught first in the home.”

5. What do you think is the best way to oppose/end racism?

• “By treating everyone equal, not by the color of their skin or were they came from.”

6. Did the civil rights movement affect you and if so how?

• “It affect me because it gave me a greater desire to not live an oppressed live although I was labeled as an oppressed people.”

7. Why do you think racism is still going on in the 21st century?

• “As long as there is hate, disrespect, and ignorance it will always go on.”

8. What are your feelings towards racism?

• “It makes me sad, and it's painful.”

9. Which time period do you think race had the most positive impact?

• “Time periods differ, when anything positive came out, in the society of division , there were a impact , being the 60s , 80s, and even now, there were an impact.”

10. From your perspective how does Race and discrimination differ?

• “because society continue to label people as minorities, people of color are looked at as less valued and not on an equal level.”

Abstract

In this interview Clifton Mabry, a 68 year old man from High Point, North Carolina, reflects on his life and important events that happened in his life during the 60’s. He also touches on some of the events from the Civil Rights Movement and how it affected his life in mostly positive ways. This interview doesn’t really touch on key components of the Civil Rights Movements because it is told from the point of view of Northerner, but it does get into significant events that occurred.

Research

Emmett Till was brought up in this interview. Emmett Till was a fourteen year old boy that was murdered and tortured for flirting with a white woman. His accused killers were put on trail, but were acquitted by an all white male jury. His death sent shockwaves and opened eyes across the world because he was nothing, but a child who was ignorant to the fact that behaving the way he did would be problematic. Mentioned previously, his accused killers did eventually admit to killing Till, but were never put on for retrial.

Something else that was mentioned in the interview was the riots on Columbia Avenue. These riots began when two Philadelphia police officers responded to a domestic dispute at 22nd and Columbia. The dispute ended up drawing a crowd that attacked the police officers with bricks and various forms of debris, but the officers didn’t get attacked because of their efforts to stop the dispute, but because of rumors and misleading information. The misleading information was that a white police officer beat a pregnant black woman to death. Looters took over stores, crime rates skyrocketed, and business were lost or destroyed. Once the riots were over and North Philadelphia was restored the long lasting effects of the riots began to take place.

The murders of two white males and a black male was another thing mentioned in the interview. The three men killed were Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney. These three men were on there way back from a trip to Philadelphia. While on their way back deputy sheriff/KKK member Cecil Price pulled the trio over for speeding. He held the men in custody while the rest of the Klan set up for the murder. Once the Klan finished they were let go. Later down the road the trio was closed in by two Klan cars and the three were shot in their heads and put into hand made graves.

Sources

Emmett Till

Columbia Ave. Riots

Abstract: In this Interview, the interviewee, Mrs. Rios, tells us about her childhood during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. She recounts many events she remembers from her childhood and gives us insight on how her life was during this time. Mrs. Rios also shares with the interviewer, her son, a memory she has of the death of president Kennedy. Then further into the interview she begins to tell us about her views on what life has become know and how the world has changed so much since the 60’s. This interview talks more about the interviewee’s life during her time as a child and some of her experiences growing up during the Civil Rights era.

Research: In 1954, in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, the supreme court had outlawed the existence of legal segregation within public schools. This then led to the integration of African Americans and whites into the same schools. This was a pivotal point in the integration of races in the United States. In 1963, the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was the youngest president to be elected and the youngest to be assassinated. Before his death the Civil Rights Act was created but not passed due to his death. In 1964, while in the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson, it is passed in honor of JFK. My mother, the interviewee, life had begun after the Supreme Court choice in the Brown vs. Board of Education trial. She went to school when schools were being integrated and according to her memory her school was not entirely integrated. She also remembers the death of JFK and realizes the profound impact it had on people.

Sources:

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/may-17-1954-supreme-court-rules-racial-segregation-schools-unconstitutional , https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/johnfkennedy , http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-Movement.aspx?p=3 ,

In Bold - Interviewer

In Italics - Interviewee

So who are you and when were you born?

My Name is Daisy Nilda Rios, born in Mercer County, Trenton, New Jersey

When?

May 11th, 1958

So, where did you grow up?

I grew up in a city called Trenton, New Jersey.

Describe it for me.

Trenton, New Jersey in the area where I was born and raised, was considered, mostly, the majority, 99% was black.

Did you know allot of white people around there?

Just a few at school.

But, No where else?

Where my dad and mom use to work at, at the hospital.

Where those the only interactions you’ve ever had with white people?

Yes.

So there wasn’t a lot of mixing or… ?

99% were black and hispanic.

Tell me what was school like for you.

School For me?

Yea.

It was go to school, come back home, home, back to school, school, back home.

Did you guys, was there any racial barriers that kind of came between your school?

Well also my school was the majority, were a lot of black people, I can’t recall any memories of my childhood, going to school.

Did your parents ever let you guys interact with any other races?

As a (incomprehensible) we were raised, well we were not allowed to be outside, like the generation now a days it’s mostly, “Mom can I go outside.”, Which in reality, when I was growing up we were not allowed to interact outside the home. It was always going to school and coming back home and never going outside and playtime. My parents were really strict on this.

So did your parents let you play, well if they did let you play, did they ever let you play with the black kids?

Yes we had a few kids that we were, the little bit of time we had outside was the black play (incomprehensible), we liked the double dutch thing, it was very popular then. And jump rope, but we did get a chance to play.

In all your time growing up can you name any of them?

Remember names? No

Do you remember how they were like?

They were all about my age as we were growing up, ten, eleven, twelves, mostly girls. We weren’t allowed to play with any boys, and recall names? I don’t remember.

Would you have considered yourself, kind of segregated from everyone else?

I wouldn’t say segregated, it was just the way were raised,

Like accustomed too?

Accustomed too, it was just a habit that we all grew into, the same custom you know.

Did you know anyone who was in support of the Civil rights movement at the time?

I guess my parents were.
Your parents?
My parents.

Tell me about your parents and their relationships, considering race.

Everyone got along with each other, you know back then there were no problems, like discrimination and bullying and stuff like that it was always like that you go to school and come straight home and if you were working, you go to work, and come straight home.

When you were younger how did you see the Civil rights movement, how did you understand it?

I didn’t really understand it.
Like what was going on?

What was going on, and all I know is when Kennedy got shot, I saw my mother got really upset, like someone really close to her really died, and it was like on the news, it was like you know like, it was very crazy, at that point.

When kennedy died you like five years old, correct?

Five or six years old. I just remember my mom seeing the news on the TV and she went ballistic, she was like really, they were really, back in that time, really heart broken when that happened.

Do you know why?

No

Since then do you think your views on race have changed?

My views, on race? No, we have the blacks, we have the hispanics, we have the orientals, we have a few whites, No problems, I think that I can interact with whatever nationality you might be.

So I guess that will conclude this interview.

I was going to say that my biggest trip was to go the state fair, that was our pleasure and fun that we had every year.

Ok, so before we end this, How was the state fair?

The state fair was like a big concert going, that was our only family outgoing trip that we always do, it was a long walk, we always had to walk, but the state fair was like wow, it is like a carnival to us here now a days, but over there when we were raised the state fair was like a big thing to us, you know seeing all of the animals and stuff like that, what you guys consider know to be a carnival now it’s just a carnival.

Yeah, It is just like no big deal.  

It’s no big deal.

I will ask my final question, did you witness any discrimination or experience any discrimination?

My father getting beat up, would that be considered? The only thing that I can say, that I saw with my own eyes, was when my dad was coming home from work one night and it was like four guys beat him up.

Do you know why?

Well I guess, they were trying to rob him. And steal his money and he was just coming home from work.

Do you know what race the people who were trying to rob him were?

I wanna say black. It was four black guys. But other than that, I say that we don't have the advantages that the race and childhood have now. You know, you can go outside, you can go with friends and stuff, we didn’t have that pleasure at home, we couldn’t even watch TV, we had one hour on a friday to watch Television, but other than that we weren't allowed to watch TV.

Do you have anything else you wanna add?

Like back in the day, like when I was being raised we didn’t know what bullying is, what it is now. Discrimination what their calling discrimination now. We didn’t know those big words at the time we were being raised. So, my point now is like everything has a name to it now. Back in the day we didn’t have a name for it. You know, being bullied.

You kind of just saw it as it is?

Yea we just, Oh they’re having a fight cuz before you were able to fight one on one. Not now, it’s a whole gang coming to beat you up or stuff like that but as naming, we didn’t know bullying and discrimination or having problems with races and stuff like that. It all has a name now. It didn’t have a name back then, or didn’t know the names of it. Yea you know you fight and it was always one on one, a couple days late you made up. It’s like, not now they want to shoot you or kill you and stuff like that all with violence and stuff, it wasn’t like that before. So my conclusion is, people need to communicate with each other and trying to avoid and be truthful if you are being bullied say you’re being bullied.

So just paybacking off of that, do you think there’s more I guess kind of racial violence between now and back then?

Now, there is a lot. A lot more than back then.

Its worse or?

Its worse now. Like I said we never had a name, when you was getting beat up or when the kids were picking on you at school because we called it just picking on you but it was never like bullying and getting beat up and stuff like that. It was just a normal fight. We going to fight, one on one. It’s not like now with knives and guns and stuff like that. Its way different now.

I guess we’re done here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for letting me have this opportunity mother. (Laughter)

1) Describe your project. A description of my project is my dream house for this technology class.

2) What did you learn while completing this project? While completing this project i learned how i want my dream house to look, and i learned how to create it in 3-d.

3) What was the hardest part about completing this project? The hardest part of completing this project would have to be actually making more floors i think after that i was good with everything.

4) What was the most fun/exciting part? The most fun part of this project was making the house i mean it's nothing better than watching your dreams come true.

5) If you were to do this project over again, what would you do differently? If i had to do this project differently i would probably have saved all of my work and made sure that the website saved my work.

http://www.homestyler.com/designprofile/0f42bff1-4fa3-46b0-abfe-36888ffe2ed8

http://www.homestyler.com/designprofile/7dedd01f-13b2-4f9c-8995-eb8d352f954d

http://www.homestyler.com/designprofile/9cec0ca7-c7fb-46ba-858f-306000eeb2da

​1) Describe your project.

I made a duct tape purse of one of my favorite cartoon characters named Nibbler from the show futurama. It is made just based on his face and everything is made out of duct tape.The purse strap is the only thing not entirely out of duct tape and is in fact an old jump rope covered in duct tape.

2) What did you learn while completing this project?                                                                      

 I learned that duct tape can be hard to predict how it will react and how flexible and adaptable it really is.              

3) What was the hardest part about completing this project? 

The hardest part of this project was figuring out how I was going to cut the pieces and make them into the shape that I wanted.

4) What was the most fun/exciting part?                                                          

  The most exciting part was when I finished the bag and got to see all the hard work that I did finally paid off. I really liked my final product.