 Hello and good afternoon everyone. Wonderful, very good. In this age of a lot of Zoom, it is beautiful to be in the room with all of you today, and also to have the folks who are joining us on live stream. We welcome everyone who is participating in today's program. What happened at Benham West? My name is Nikisha Elena Alexis and I am opening the program today. I want to just give an idea of the flow of the time and also some general announcements. So we do have people who are joining us by live stream. As of a few minutes ago, there were 97 people watching. So hopefully more will join us. The program will be recorded. So that means that you who are here can get to watch it again. And those you know who weren't able to be here, of course, can watch it online. And the way to find that link is at ambs.edu slash mlkday. A few house logistics for the people who are here. There are restrooms in this building. They are through the back doors, a right and a quick left for anyone who needs to use the facilities. This facility is the chapel of the sermon on the Mount here at at a Baptist Mennonite biblical seminary in Elkhart. What we'll do today is I will do a welcome. We'll move through welcoming things. I will introduce Dr. Jamie Pitts, who is one of our presenters and my co laborer on this project. And then we will have time just for questions with some of our panelists who are a part of the advisory committee for this project. We will hear and be introduced to them later, whether Charles Walker, Larry app and Oliver Pettis. And then we will have time for you in the room to be able to ask questions or to make comments. And we do have a microphone in the center. If you are tall enough not to touch the microphone that would be great. If you are short enough and need to touch the microphone, we will hand sanitize you afterwards. To open the seminary has what is called a land acknowledgement to acknowledge the fact that we are all of us. Gathered here on the land of the original stewards of this place, the Potawatomi and Miami people. So we will begin with our land acknowledgement. I'll read a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we are hosting this program in honor of. I'll move into a prayer and then I'll say a little bit more about the project. Thank you all so much for joining wherever you are. This is our land acknowledgement. In the past several years, various people, excuse me, we acknowledge that this land is the ancestral land of the Miami. And Potawatomi peoples and other peoples before them. A major Potawatomi trail between Fort Wayne and Chicago actually once crossed the AMBS campus south of this space and split into two sections. One going north to the St. Joseph River and one heading west. From the 1820s through the 1850s, most Potawatomi were systematically displaced by white settlers and government policies supporting settler colonialism. The 1821 Treaty of Chicago resulted in the removal of the Potawatomi from the area that now includes Elkhart. And in 1838, 859 Potawatomi from the Plymouth area were forcibly removed by the state militia. We honor the Potawatomi who have lived in concert with the land throughout the generations. We grieve the actions that forced many from this land and may all who live in and visit this place. Consider the violent legacy of the doctrine of discovery which has been used to seize indigenous lands and oppress their peoples. May telling the truth which is what this program is about today as well. May telling the truth propel us to the work of repair and to relationships grounded in justice and in peace. I want to read this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from his 1963 work, Why We Can't Wait. One aspect of the civil rights struggle that receives little attention is the contribution that it makes to the whole society. The Negro, as was the word he used back then, the Negro in winning rights for himself produces substantial benefits for the nation. Just as a doctor will occasionally reopen a wound because a dangerous infection hovers beneath the half healed surface. The revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place. Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial justice. It will have enlarged the concept of brotherhood and I would add sisterhood to a vision of total interrelatedness. I ask that for those who are praying folks that you would join me in prayer. God we come before you with thanksgiving that it is possible for us to be here in our bodies yes but also in this place yes and among each other yes. May we continue to gather oh God with an eye towards ever more diversity and justice and peace in our midst. May stories like the one we share today of displacement lessen and lessen and lessen and lessen as we do your good work and move into your good future. Amen. We want to start by sharing the trailer for the documentary that is coming actually let me say a little bit about the project because you don't know what this trailer is for. Let me back up. So what happened at Benham West is a surprise. It's a surprise in terms of the story it's a surprise in terms of the fact that the seminary is telling this story. In January 2020 we gathered for a program on African American exclusion in Alcarte it was called repairing the harm. Dr. Ples love lady who is joining us today was one of the speakers Reverend Jean Mays was the other panelists. We were joined by Benjamin Tapper who facilitated a conversation between the elders and then facilitated a conversation over in our lounge. Most Martin Luther King Day Junior programs happen and we feel good about them and then we go home. In this case the sharing of the elders and the conversation that happened we had a hundred and seventy five people show up. We thought that maybe 80 would come. We had about 80 stay for conversation. We thought that maybe 50 would come and there was so much energy around that program and so much richness in the storytelling. Not the storytelling but the history telling that Dr. Love Lady and Reverend Mays shared and one of the things that Reverend Mays said was our stories are being lost. For every elder in the black and African American community that dies here in Alcarte a whole set of stories is lost about a neighborhood that used to exist. That if you didn't know it existed just driving where it used to be you couldn't tell it was there. So between Reverend Mays's sharing which was very stirring we had people even in the lounge saying so what's all what's next what you doing what you doing. The wonder of social media would have it that one of the attendees Jason Moreno who some of you in the community know he said he talked about raved about the program on Facebook. And was sort of like all right well what else is going to happen and there was a tag here and a tag there y'all know people get tagged and stuff. Mary Shirts one of the professors retired professors at the seminary jumped in the conversation tagged Professor Pitts who works at the research arm here at the seminary. You should talk to him. There's probably something he can do. So between myself as the intercultural competence and undoing racism coordinator here at the seminary and Dr. Pitts Jamie Pitts in his role as the director of the Institute of Mennonite studies. We started talking with several people within the community. A little thing called COVID happened. And those conversations paused for several months. In those initial conversations with people like Jason shank with Jason Moreno with Paul Bertha some other people we consulted in the community. We came up with the idea of an oral history can we collect stories of the elders before those stories disappear with them. We had the idea for maybe a book project of books are cool but documentaries are even better. What if we could do that. And we embarked on a very large project that was really over our heads in very many ways and we've been doing a lot of learning over the last two years. In that time we have met with several elders for sometimes hours long conversations about their experience at Ben West. We have consulted with people like the Elkhart Historical Society Civil Rights Heritage Center to figure out how to do this well. We have had major setbacks navigated illness and just done all sorts of things to be able to bring us to the place where we are today. I really could go on in the nuances of the storytelling that could take the whole program. You you can we can talk over coffee sometime if you want to know all the details. But this program then is a continuation of that conversation. It grows out of that 2020 dialogue. It grows out of the just willingness of the elders who have been so generous in telling their story and taking their time and recommending other people to us. We have a lot of people to thank for this project, which will be both a book that we pray to God will come out in February 28 by February 28. And will also be a documentary project that we hope to begin filming, excuse me, hope to begin showing in February and March. So with that, now I will have us look at this three minute clip put together by Oliver Pettis here of Black Lion cinematography, who has been super integral. We could not do this project without him. He had been talked about for years and a lot of people fought against him. And finally, you know, people who gave him the rest of his history is all torn down. So the name of this MBS project is loosely the Elkhart Black History Project. And it is a way of documenting what occurred to the African-American community here in Elkhart when their neighborhood was systematically removed and people had to find a life after that. There's a toll to the absolute difference between yesterday and today. It's hard to even put it in words. Some of the things that were torn down, you need people to understand they did not only tear down a building, they tore down hope, they tore down things. Some of the things that we had, because in the village we had grocery stores, we had, you know, a tavern, we had restaurants, all of those type of things. Even the day you looked at the community in Elkhart, none of those things were there. You know, these stories are passing as the generations pass. And if these stories are allowed to pass, something will only be lost in Elkhart. I think it was Reverend Mays who said it very clearly and explicitly that somebody needs to collect and preserve these stories. Because, you know, black people have been in Elkhart since the 1800s. So it's not like Elkhart wasn't used to seeing black people. The division came as people who came into the town and bought their own biases with the people that probably didn't really do that. And more widely, we really hope that people within the city, as a whole, understand and help change the way more has an impact on them. And so there's a feel and there's a look. And so you don't want to have one without the other in areas that you revitalize. And, you know, I think we're hoping that this project will get in school instead of being that the film will be widened a notch. That this history will be more developed. The truth about our history and the typical parts about our history to us is a huge deal. And it will be a success if they're happy. It's coming together. And we'll make the link available for anyone who wants to watch it on YouTube. It's a little bit echoey in here. But thank you so much for that. At this point, we're going to have Jamie just share. He's done a lot of research. One of the things that we kept finding in people's sharing of the history was that there were sometimes these pieces of information like, what did the city say? And it was sort of like, well, we don't we don't really know what the city said about what they were going to do. Like, or we have some idea about the plans, but it wasn't super clear or who made what decision to do what when some of these some of these pieces of the of the story. Weren't readily available sometimes to folks sometimes people didn't know how certain decisions sort of got made. The other thing was that it's super helpful to have I think a context around what happened in Elkhart because number one it happened in other places within the within the nation. This is not the only story of a predominantly black community that somehow in some way ended up being destroyed, or people being moved out. Okay, we've seen this happen across Indiana we've seen it happen across across time. And so Jamie has done an incredible amount of work to really build a context and a historical historical context around Benham West. More broadly. So I'll just briefly introduce him. I'll sit down and then we'll move to the panel. Jamie Pitts is Associate Professor of Anabaptist Studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. And he's the director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies. He grew up in Texas and has been living in Elkhart since 2012. And it's my joy to be co co laboring with him on this project. Let's welcome Dr. Pitts while we are here. Thank you, Nikisha. It really is an honor to be here with you all and those joining in virtually. Nikisha gave a little bit of the background, the context of my involvement with this project. And yeah, it's been a pleasure and a genuine honor to be able to do this work. So as Nikisha said, I've been doing some of the historical background and part of the way that what you're going to hear will feature in the project beyond me standing and talking about it is some of this will frame some of the historical material that I've been writing will appear in the book and help frame the oral history interviews. And I say that that we're frame really intentionally because the story is being told by the community members. So what I'm trying to do is to help give a little bit of context, but the story is really being told by those who grew up in Benham West or were connected to it otherwise. So my hope is that this historical overview serves that storytelling doesn't distract from it. Nikisha said we'll have some time for questions and comments. I would love to hear other stories. I'd love to hear details that you might remember differently. And whether that's here during the program today or please feel free to follow up with me afterwards. So work in progress. There's a ton of details here and for the sake of not standing and talking at you for the next two hours, tried to condense to some of the most important points. And roughly I'm going to be following the kind of order that we've identified for the book in which we highlight the kind of daily life and experience of community in Benham West. Also the experience of racism that characterized life in Elkhart and continues to in many ways. And then focusing specifically on the clearances of Benham West and what happened, how that happened, and what might come out of that, what might come next, what hopes there are. So around 200 years ago, as Nikisha was talking about in her land acknowledgement, Northern Indiana was largely forest land with some wetlands, and its human inhabitants included members of the Miami, the Potawatomi, and the Shawnee Indigenous nations. And then in the 1830s, most of the region's Indigenous peoples were displaced or removed by white settlers and their governments and militias. African Americans also came to the area during this period, creating homesteads, some of you might be familiar with the Huggert settlement over near South Bend, or finding work in newly established towns. The first African Americans in Elkhart included people such as Robert Seffer, Catherine and George Claiborne, and John Wilson. By the end of the 19th century, Elkhart's small black population regularly featured in the social pages of the Indianapolis Recorder, an African American paper there. And notice this talk about Elkhart's black community visiting, hosting friends, relatives, and pastors from nearby communities in South Bend and Southern Michigan. Employment options were limited for African Americans during these years. Men could work as barbers, and women as domestic helpers. But in 1917, a new kind of job opened for black men, railroad work. During a labor shortage caused by a strike in World War II, the New York Central Railroad Company sent recruiters to the South. African American men from Kentucky, Tennessee, and neighboring states came to Elkhart to work in the railroad foundry in the roundhouse. Many of these men came with, or they soon brought, their families. Prior to 1917, African Americans lived in various parts of Elkhart. There was no recognizable black neighborhood. By 1920, so just a couple years after the railroad recruiting started, the majority of Elkhart's black population was living on St. Joseph Street and the surrounding blocks immediately south of the railroad tracks. Over the following years, a distinctive triangular neighborhood developed bordered by the tracks to the north and Indiana Avenue to the south. Benham Avenue to the east and Oakland Avenue to the west. So if you can see the map, it's really just the small triangle south of the railroad tracks and to the west of Benham. And that language to the west of Benham, that's where of course the title Benham West came for the neighborhood. Many African Americans moved to and stayed in Benham West because that's where their family and friends lived. But it was also one of the only neighborhoods where they were allowed to live by white authorities here in Elkhart. Elkhart's white political and business leaders designed and enforced residential segregation through an array of tactics that prevented African Americans from purchasing or renting homes elsewhere. Real estate brokers, loan officers, insurance evaluators, and white homeowners acted as a kind of front line creating and maintaining segregation. In spite of such racism, however, Benham West African American residents created strong community bonds. Adults looked after each other's children, encouraging them to stay focused on education, respectful of their elders, and presentable in their appearance. The Southside School staffed by Elkhart's only black teachers, including Bessie Brown, Catherine Sims, and Principal Dressilla Mallory. The school prepared Benham West elementary students for growth in intellectual, artistic, and practical tasks. The neighborhood's Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches provided leadership opportunities, social services, and a sense of belonging. And the same can be said of the Booker T. Washington Community Center and its many youth programs, especially under the leadership of Herbert and Ruth Tulson. Cozy Corner Tavern, Mrs. Box's Tourist Home, Barbershops, other black-owned businesses provided services as well as an economic-based independent of white employers. Local branches of the NAACP and from the 1960s, also the Urban League, fought for civil rights, for dignity, and equal access and treatment for African Americans in Elkhart and beyond. In oral history interviews and memoirs, people who grew up in and around Benham West repeatedly referred to it as the village, a community marked by family, faith, and fun. African Americans in Elkhart resisted the racism that confined them to Benham West by creating a village where they could thrive. The hardships caused by racism, however, were very real. Reports of Benham West also described overcrowded housing in serious disrepair with inadequate sanitation and safety features. Racially motivated barriers to moderate and high-income jobs, to educational advancement, and to loans meant there were few resources available to improve Benham West from within. Restrictions on political participation, including voting prior to the 1960s, limited political avenues for addressing the harms caused by decades of segregation. Outside of Benham West, African Americans experienced what surely Gordon Jackson called the white-masked black world phenomenon. Gordon Jackson, who grew up in the 30s and 40s, mostly in the Italian neighborhood north of the railroad tracks, she described how when she and other high-achieving African Americans met and exceeded the highest standards in education, the arts, or athletics, they were still subject to discrimination, exclusion, and relegation of the black world due to the color of their skin. African Americans were reminded of their status by most of Elkhart's white-owned businesses and service providers. Few white-owned restaurants, drug stores, clothing stores, barbershops, churches, social organizations, or even doctor's offices would accept African Americans as employees, customers, or members. While Goshen's history as a sundown town is well-established, Dr. Plez Love Lady suggests that most of Elkhart outside of Benham West could be considered in the same term. It was not safe to be there when the sun went down. Safety was a serious consideration as African Americans experienced violence and harassment from the Elkhart police department, as well as overtly white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. While the Klan's period of public political dominance in Elkhart declined after the 1920s, the Klan continued to terrorize African Americans into the 1960s and 70s. Black residents of Elkhart were also subject to false accusations and suspicion. When a white young woman was raped and murdered in 1945, eyewitness reports led to the arrest of an African American man and a roundup of about 40 Latinos. Anger among whites was so high that African Americans feared a lynching. Yet, it was a white man who came forward and confessed that he had committed the crime. African Americans in Elkhart did not accept racism passively. In 1948, black mothers, ministers, and the NAACP led a protest movement that successfully ended educational segregation and allowed black teachers to work throughout Elkhart schools. This landmark, which occurred six years before the national decision of Brown versus the Board of Education, demanded its school desegregation across the United States. This landmark was celebrated by African Americans throughout Indiana. In the late 1950s and early 60s, Edith Pazley, later president of the NAACP, initiated protests to desegregate Ideal Beach. While St. James AME's Reverend Gelks started a sit-in and picket movement to gain equal access to Elkhart's restaurants and jobs. Yet, racism continued to be a powerful force here in Elkhart. And this is perhaps most visible in the story of urban renewal. After World War II, the federal government began to provide funding for cities to address overcrowded, impoverished urban neighborhoods. In response, city governments across the United States cleared housing and built interstates, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure. Because so many of the people displaced during this period were African American, many came to use the formula urban renewal means Negro removal. Federal and local authorities saw Benham West as the Elkhart neighbor most in need of urban renewal funds. But after the Benham Avenue extension project in 1950 that connected Benham to downtown through the underpass, there was little appetite among local white leaders to continue renewing Benham West. This was for a simple reason that was explicitly and openly discussed at the time. Any renewal project in Benham West would involve relocating African Americans into predominantly white neighborhoods. The white residents of Elkhart did not want that to happen. Once the city finally began to pursue urban renewal projects in the 60s, Benham West was bypassed repeatedly even though it had been identified repeatedly by federal and local authorities as the area most in need of attention. Instead of focusing on Benham West, they first said, let's try a model project at Prairie and Middlebury streets. Maybe then we'll get to Benham West. Then the city said, well, what about downtown? That serves all of the city. Let's start there, not Benham West. What about some industrial areas in Elkhart Avenue? They really need attention. What about the residential area at Lexington and Jackson? For another decade, excuses were offered. The pattern of promise in delay for Benham West was notable. It was noticed, for instance, by Elkhart's first black city councilman, Bill Phillips, who along with other African American leaders began to protest and demand action. The city did construct the Rosedale and Washington Gardens public housing facilities in the 60s, and an open housing ordinance was passed in 1968. By the time that the Benham West renewal project was finally approved in 1969, the city's vision, however, was largely destructive. It would clear rather than rehabilitate Benham West. Residents spoke up, objecting that such a project would create new hardships, particularly for elderly residents, businesses, and churches that would struggle to relocate. Nevertheless, the city continued on its course and pursued funding primarily for a clearance. From 1970 to 1972, Elkhart schools were closed repeatedly because of fighting between black and white students. The fights filled over into the streets as African Americans began to rebel against the ongoing degradation of their community due to racism and segregation. And the segregation, of course, was now technically illegal in the early 70s, but it continued nonetheless. It was in this context that the city finally secured urban renewal funding for Benham West. The federal funding at this stage required the formation of project area committees, what they called PACS. And these PACS were supposed to be located in and directed by residents from each of the renewal areas so that those residents could organize and direct planning for their own neighborhoods. Benham West PAC was initially directed by African American resident Jesse Jackson, but he quickly stepped down to work for the city. In his place came a white rental property owner, Carmen Rodino, who assumed leadership in the PAC in spite of residents' objections. Other Rodino used this position to push for an industry-focused development plan, in other words, a plan that would industrialize most of Benham West. The rest of the PAC members developed an innovative mixed-use plan. This plan, which was approved in 1972 by the city, included zoning for residential business in industrial areas, along with a large park and green spaces buffering the railroad tracks and other busy thoroughfares. One of the city planners examining the plan remarked that if this plan, created by the residents of Benham West, was seen through, Benham West would be a model for the entire city. This plan, which again was intended to provide a template for Benham West's renewal beyond the clearing, it faced strong opposition from the parks department and one city councilman, David Bontrager. The white director of the parks department refused to agree to a plan that would place a park in a neighborhood that, to his mind, was not open to other residents of Elkhart. For his part, Bontrager was the only councilman to vote against the plan, and he soon sent a letter to federal housing authorities complaining about Elkhart's broader renewal efforts. This letter was widely seen as killing the funding that would have supported Benham West's PAC plan. City officials continued to find funding to tear down the houses, though, and the clearance continued between 1972 and 1981. Some residents did resist displacement and legal action was taken to remove them. And it's true, as we've heard, that some residents were pleased with their new homes. People we've interviewed that were happy to be able to move into a new home. And yet, many expressed dissatisfaction over their relocation allowances. There was a sense, again, that the city had over-promised and under-delivered. In 1979, Jesse Jackson and others complained to the city council that the city still had not committed to any positive plan to redevelop Benham West. City authorities only began to address that issue in the 1980s, at which point that old plan that the Benham West residents themselves had developed was never mentioned again. The city invited new plans from a South Bend firm, yet those plans didn't yield proactive development either. Ultimately, the city decided on a course that would involve selling parcels of Benham West to private businesses and let them figure out how to develop the area. This approach continued to characterize the attention given to Benham West by the city through the 80s and 90s. Although in 1987, Mayor Jim Perrin announced a new emphasis on the South Central Core, which included the construction of the Housing Authority and the Tulsen Center buildings in Benham East, the pattern of private sales and little development in Benham West continued. A city official reflecting in the year 2000 on the ongoing failure to develop Benham West acknowledged about urban renewal that cities thought that if you cleared land, renewal would just happen. This pattern of promise, delay and neglect continued. In 1997, the Ulary School, the successor to the South Side School, was demolished in spite of organized resistance from Edith Pasley and other residents. In 2006, the city decided to give the old VFW building on South 6th Street to Ivy Tech, even after neighbors voiced concerns asked that the city listen to the residents. And a plan was put forward, an alternative plan was put forward by the Coalition of Hope. But there were successes during these years and the fights to preserve the old Roosevelt School and to get rid of the mega shredder on Lusher stand out here. Yet the troubling pattern has persisted. Residents own vision for their neighborhood continue to be sidelined. Over the years, including in the oral history interviews conducted as part of this project, past and present residents of Benham West have expressed their hopes, their visions for the neighborhood. In addition to the old PAC plan from 1972, we have record of residents requesting, asking for, declaring their hopes that large parks would still be built there, that a Black History Museum would be developed. An educational center, new residential housing and perhaps especially support for Black businesses to go there. An Elkhart Truth article from 1972, excuse me, 1973 discussed responses among Benham West residents to the failure to receive funding for their neighborhood development plan. The report says that these residents routinely spoke of the plan as a kind of local fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. They often spoke of the plan and King's dream in the same breath. With the loss of funding and the ongoing pattern of neglect, these hopes and visions for renewal, this dream has been delayed. All of us who hope to honor Dr. King's legacy in Elkhart today must begin by listening to these hopes, listening to these visions, listening to this dream, and doing all that we can to make it a reality. Thank you. Thank you very much. One of the things that I just want to piggyback on here, first I'll say my name again, Nikisha Elena Alexis. I don't even know if I introduced myself at the beginning of the program, I know everybody in here so. As we shift to the panel portion of this, the thing that really gets me is how vibrant that whole place was. I mean, all of the businesses that were there. People just, everybody just keeps talking and running a whole list, you know, looties and spots bills and, you know, Shaw's grocery store. And so when, but when you drive through there, there's not, there's not a single sort of marker. There's not, there's nothing that shows that quite frankly, the neighborhood of Bentham West was rivaled to what was going on on the other side of the tracks when you really think about it. Folks figured out how to do development out of necessity in that space. And the generational wealth and the economic power and the economic presence that all is taken away. It's not just that people were moved. Is that you don't have business, you don't have businesses to pass down to your other people. You don't have property to pass down. You don't have homes to pass down. You don't have a very, very, very deep, not only in the heart loss, but a very concrete financial loss and setback that has occurred in that space that needs to be dealt with. So with that, I want to turn it over to our panelists here. I'll let each person introduce themselves. And then we have some questions that we've asked them. And then we'll open it up for questions to the whole group. I want to say that the reason that we have these particular folks here, we have an advisory committee for this project. Jamie and I are under, if you will, the leadership of that, of that committee. If they advise us to do something, we figure out how to do it. So it's very important to say that that committee, that committee is made up of folks like brother Charles. It's made up with Larry app who has skills, lots of skills and documentary making. And Oliver, who is the videographer and the photographer for the project, but also knows a whole lot more than we do and helps us figure that out too. So I'll let you all introduce yourself and then we'll turn to the questions at hand. And you all can be thinking about questions to for the folks who are on live stream. You will be listening in. We don't have a way to collect questions from you. Good afternoon. My name is Charles Walker. And my affiliation with the project is I've been on the rise of committee for probably around two years. I'm a member of St. James E.M. Church. I also serve with a board of directors for the local credit union and I am retired. When I, when he should call to talk to me about this project, I was really going to do is about participate because I think it's very important, you know, for us to document our history, especially, you know, for those of us that are African Americans. One of the things that for me, I was an interviewer and also was interviewed for the project. So I served two roles. And being interviewed, my history here started in 1964. I came to Elkhart in 1964 and I came from the Jim Crow South. And those of you who know what the Jim Crow South is. So my perspective when I came to Elkhart might have been a little bit different because I came here looking for a better opportunity than I had when I lived in Jim Crow South. So but when I found what I found when I came here in 1964, when you look at injustices and racism and all those things compared to when I lived in the south, a little bit different, a little bit more subtle, but some of the same things took place with with me. One of the things that I found when I came here in 1964 and that is all African Americans lived, lived on the south side of Elkhart. So when I started looking for housing, you know, the old term called redlining, we didn't call it that then but that's what it was. You know, realtors would direct you to the south side of the city. And for me, being being a migrant company Elkhart, it was a little bit tougher because I wasn't born and raised here. Finding employment was also a challenge. So, you know, and so it was a challenge for me to find, to find a job. One of the things that Jamie has had spoke about and I want to really thank him and Nikisha for their vision and for their hard work and going and doing this project. That all the things that, you know, that I've seen since I've been here over the years that I've been here in my experience, some things have changed. I was one of the part of a team or committee that was against the redevelopment and been on West. We spoke out against it because we know what it would mean to people. Some people like Jamie talked about their experiences were that with that, taking their homes away and relocating them. I know of older people that had to go in debt, you know, and one of the things that the group that I worked with, I didn't live in the area that was affected was to get people to understand that if the city, if they're going to help you to develop and move to a different area, why can't they develop within your own community and build your own homes and build your own business to improve what you have instead of relocating you. So it was a great opportunity of me and I'll talk a little bit more about my own experiences and what I experienced when I came to Elkhart as we get more into the project. Good afternoon. My name is Larry App and I was born and raised in Elkhart so I've been around here a long time. I was asked to be involved in this project more on a technical level as a consultant. I've made several local documentaries and have some experience doing that and my style is to not bring anything of my own to a project. This is the project is the sum of all of the questions that were asked to the elders, the interviewees and so forth. It's their story. It's your story. It's not mine. And my job is to make sure and respect that purity of the project to make sure that there is no spin or agendas brought to the project. So that's what I bring and a specific, as Dr. Pitts said, this is a two-fold project. There is a book. There will be a book and then there's a video documentary. So I've been involved with the video documentary portion of it specifically to train people how to make interviews. Without good stories, without good interviews, we don't have much to work with and a project can fall flat because of that. So we did some training on that and I think Nikisha did all of the interviews, I think. Okay, that sounds good. Well, I got to listen to the audio of the interviews to make notes for Oliver over here and anyway, they were beautifully done. So I just wanted to say that and so that's what I bring to the project. Good evening. My name is Oliver Pettis. I am the project videographer and photographer. I was asked to join in on this project to introduce visuals and it's been highly appreciated on my part to be a part of this project because as I'm filming and meeting the elders, I get to learn part of the history of what happened here. And you take on a role that it becomes a severity that the story needs to get out to the community. It takes on a different role that you are part of history in the making for these stories to be told. And I just appreciate being part of this project and I am which are my best to produce the visuals that this community needs to see for this project. Thank you all. We asked each person, what did you learn through the project? What about this whole process has surprised you? One of the things I learned about the project and it went back to I came back in 1964. So I also was interviewed to give my own, you know, my own perspective and my own things that I remember by Delcar when I came in for the time that I've been here, but I also was an interviewer. So I had an opportunity to interview some people, older people and one gentleman in particular that I would never forget was in his 70s and I interviewed, had been here all of his life when he was born here. He said an example that when they will go to the store over Harrison Street across the track, they will always go to the back door to get their food. And he never done on him why he was doing that as a kid when he grew up. Well, I came from the Jim Crow south so things there were blatant so I knew what it was. And he said to me until he went south to visit some of his family in the Jim Crow south, then he really knew and he really knew why he was going to the back door was because of the color of his skin. And so that was really a surprise to me. The other thing that I've learned about the project, there are things that Jamie did in his research that I never even fan them. There was, you know, card, it was a part of the card some of the history that's been there. So I was really surprised at that. The thing I've learned also and that is it is important, you know, for us, you know, as for his history, that things were documented. So, you know, the current generation and generations to come will have an opportunity to know what happened in Elkhart during the years that, you know, they grew up and their answers were here. Okay, since my role was more of an indirect role, I learned some things from a different viewpoint probably than some of the rest did about the project. Like I said, the interview process is key. That's really important. And I learned that the people who did the interviews did a tremendous job doing that. And all of you who were interviewed, since I had a chance to listen to the audio tracks of your interviews, you've done a great thing, a really great thing. This is powerful. It's not only important for the people who are here today listening to the video, watching the video, but for people who haven't yet been born. This will last. So I think on this special day, Dr. King would be proud of this project that is going on. It's more important than we might think. As a documentary filmmaker just on local projects, I work by myself because I can't afford anything else. But I've always dreamed of working on a team. And in this case, I've seen bits and pieces of the process and it's been a real joy to work on this team. So thank you for allowing me to do that. For me personally, I've learned a lot of things about the city that I just never knew growing up. I learned why they really, really caught the city of village back then, how tight-knit the community was, how everyone watched everyone's kids, how everybody's house was a safe place to go to, where everyone ran to get candy, where everyone played in the parks. There's the livelihood of the community back then and how many restaurants we had, how many black-owned businesses we had, how it was a center hub for a lot of black entertainment. I just never knew that growing up in my own city. And out of all the history that I've learned going to school here, I never fathomed that there was so much history in the city that I was born in. So that was a major learning experience for me. How did you change from being a part of this project? How did your participation kind of help you see yourself or see Elkhart in a different way? What changed about you doing this? It was a tough one. I hate to think about that. But I think how I changed was as I became more involved in the project and the project progressed, and I think I became more committed and enthusiastic about the outcome. And the outcome is that now we're going to have a documented history of what happened in African-Americans since they came to Elkhart up until the present. And this documentary and also in this book is going to be documented. And it's going to be about the complete history of people that came to Elkhart and what happened in their lives. And I think I've grown with that. And hopefully this project, as far as young people are going to be able to really know and see what happened in Elkhart, not just now, but for generations to come. And also for the whole community, we'll be able to see that also. Since I didn't have a lot of real direct involvement in the project, but working with the team, I didn't see so much change in myself. But I could really see the change in all the team members that are on the project, every one of them. And I know that as a documentary filmmaker, we learn a lot by doing these documentaries and living the story almost. And it's a real honor to be able to share them with the community and the world, really. I also learned listening to the audio interviews and there were lots of hours of audio interviews. I didn't always know who the person was necessarily. I couldn't put a name with a face, but I could hear their stories. And although the interviewees tended to be older, their memories are just as fresh as they were when they were young. I kind of learned about myself that going into this project as a filmmaker, you develop a personal attachment to the stories, I guess, and the notion of everyone's memories. And you take on a part that you are building everyone's story up into a visual process that the community can see. And I became very, very dedicated and obligated to want to be able to tell that story perfectly and give them the perfect platform to be able to tell their story to the community. So it became a process to me that I was very dedicated to accomplish and be able to display to the community. And our last question for the panel and then people can feel free to go to the mic if there are questions in the room is what do you hope? What do you hope comes out of all of this two years of work that we have done together? I guess my hope is that when this project is completed that we will have a documented history of the city of Elkhart. And for African Americans, it will be a document about Elkhart. So when you look at Elkhart now, you look at the history of Elkhart, what took place. As far as black people, we probably don't see very much, but now it's going to be documented. Will there be a book and also a documentary that our young people can look at? It can also be shown in schools and churches and for the community as a whole. I think three things. I think that I hope it is durable that this project that we've assembled has gone into the hearts and the minds of the viewers that see it. And that they've thought about it. The second hope that I have is that viewers will continue the conversation. We're not making this documentary because we like to make documentaries. We'd like to make it matter. And the events that happened at Bentham West, I hope that they will be remembered and avoided in the future through mutual cooperation and understanding, hopefully. And finally, I hope that everyone that sees the documentary or is involved in it will evangelize the film. In other words, promote it. We can make the best documentary in the world if we want, but if nobody sees it, it isn't worth much. And I would say that this project has been, the project process has been documented well enough that it could be used as a model for other communities across the country to do this very thing really. So those are my hopes. My hopes for this project is that it just does something really, really good for the community. I hope it gives the elders some form of closure or a weight off their chest that they got to get their story out. And I hope that this project enables a story to never die. And I hope that not only the elders get the benefit from this documentary, but I think it's very vital that the younger generation envelopes in this documentary as well. Well, you all are brewing your questions and hopefully if there are any in the room, I didn't intend to do this, but what are your hopes for all of the hours of work that you are doing as well? Thanks. I would echo everything that this distinguished panel has shared in terms of their hopes. I would also, I mean, this is essentially the point I was trying to make and how I concluded my historical overview. There are choices that are being made today about how to move forward as a city, whose voices are going to be prioritized in that, and what kind of follow-through is there. And the follow-through is key because this is this pattern that I saw. And that, you know, Larry talked about kind of when you're in the research, you learn things you didn't know before, and I learned a lot of facts. But I also, this pattern just jumped out to me of, hey, from the city, tell us what you want. And then, okay, we're going to do something else. That's what I hope is that pattern breaks by naming it. And that the work, the good work, I think it's being done now to try to think creatively to hear what residents of South Central O'Court want, that the follow-through would really come through. And I mean, I think I'll say to one of my hopes as one of the people working on this project, first of all, is that all of the interviewees who have given so much of their stories and their time to it feel like we did a good job. This thing could go all the way to Sundance and Oprah could invite us in. But if the people here whose stories are recorded, if they don't feel like it actually represents as best as we could what you all shared, then I don't consider it a success. So my hope is that you all find in it something that is meaningful and powerful for you. My second hope is that this helps to name and unveil and maybe shift some things in the way that, as Jaylin was saying, choices are made, not only on the city level but in other areas as well. There is a lot that is happening in the city right now. There's a lot that will be going on in the city. And there is a lot of room and invitation to do something that respects and honors what has already been done by the black community here. One of the elders said it would be so cool to have a museum in that space. You know, somebody else said it'd be so great to have places for education and training. Some way of commemorating what was done with what is being built, something that could represent the past that was there. So there's a lot of people who have a lot of ideas that are still alive and I hope that some of their ideas are listened to as well.