 I'm Michael Johnson I was born and raised here in Alexander, Virginia back in November the 13th, 1956 to be exact. I've also went to public school here pretty much stay here my whole life. You know right now I work for the Department of Recreation as the community outreach slash excuse me safe place coordinator. I went to Charles Houston to sit here at elementary school uh prior to my family moving up here and then my brothers well remember I was nine my younger brother and sister was eight you know and I had a couple of older brothers and uh when we moved up here from Queen Street I live right across the street from uh was on Queen and uh West where Jefferson Houston sat down it was a school called Jefferson High School all white set up on the hill and we used to always look over there with just all white students. Well this was where my father had grown up as a kid so this was his uh neighborhood too. You know it was a little different back then you know it was different when I grew up but yeah this is the neighborhood he come out of also so he just moved back into a familiar setting you know and uh my father was a groundskeeper my mother was a cook at uh the famous Dixie Pig restaurant and she she's worked there for like about 40 years I believe but my mother was the only person I knew that could well the only one I know in my family that could cook and bake and didn't need a recipe or you just tell her you know you tell her what you wanted and she could just get it done you know uh so then from there I went over to Parker Gray which was located uh it was Parker Gray Middle School and that was for 7th and 8th grade and that was on Madison Street and it was the first time I've ever seen a white teacher you know and it wasn't one of it was about like six or seven so we weren't really used to white teachers you know because when we left Charles Houston I'll never forget uh the superintendent we used to have what they called May Day and it was right out here on this parking lot but it was you know a big big parking lot there and with the schools in here and we practiced for like a month to do these dances around the I call it a lollipop pole whatever and little skits and the guy walked came down the steps because he used to be a back step to Charles Houston uh he came down the step walk to the parking lot look turned around went right back out and we was like as kids we knew like I would say dad you know because back then I was cussing too but I would have said the D word you know and I was like wow he didn't even acknowledge us you know we just get books that they used to send down here and people my age could tell you that they went here in other schools the books was like Jack and Jill fun with uh Dick and Jane like that but either the front cover was ripped off or the word monkey was written in there or I mean but we that's what we had to work with you know and that's what those teachers back then I I truly honor them because they set the pace for a lot of us because my father was born here but he couldn't go past sixth grade you know his father couldn't go to school at all and you know his grandfather definitely better than I've been reading or writing back in them days you know so those are the type of things that always was in me burning you know why people are treated this way but you know it's cool you know we're surviving it but this place here was uh it's like second ground to me I guess you because I get choked up talking about it because the lessons I learned here and once we went over the park of gray uh it was hard for them to transition into us because if I was a minute late because I couldn't get my lock open if I did that three times in one week I got suspended for a week you know and going through all that I was going through uh the race rides that happened when the guy Gibson got killed at the 7-eleven I was young you know and trying to put that together you know first of all you know uh the race relations uh in this city hadn't improved that much you know what I mean the black state on that side the white state on that side and then we're talking about later on in the 70s when we started really mingling it up but uh no back then from my perspective the problem was that most of the whites just couldn't accept us you know we was told to love everybody regardless you know and my mother used to say it's good people that's white it's good people that's black and she used to point out the different colors so that's what I grew up in you know like now a lot of these kids not coming up like that but that's why I thank my mom and so much but yeah but once we got over there and dealing with their system it was like uh why are we here so a lot of guys that did well in elementary school they started turning the driving out because by the time we got to the eighth or ninth grade I think I had lost like six buddies that I used to hang with you know from elementary to middle school got disinterested in school back to your original question uh Mr. Gibson he got killed in the 7-11 and the guy planted the knife on him so that sparked off some racial tension but the tension was already here because blacks were still being treated subhuman you know seriously and I know a lot of people don't want to hear the truth but that's what it is the truth and got your you know what some of them had came to Martin Luther King Malcolm X so they were ready to go anyway me being younger than them I'm watching them like whoa okay well this is what it's all about you know uh and they're harrowing power to the people I wanted to find out what that was about but that one sparked that uh the burning and the rock throwing and all that you know and that's I think that might have been the first time that the whites and Alexander was like hold up you know we got to start paying attention to them over here because ain't nobody going to want to come here and make this an all-american city and I'm just trying to make sure I help them keep it as an all-american city just by standing up to the promise that you may you know uh just like the constitution what have you right bill of rights hey you know that's what it's all about and I truly believe in it you know well with Robinson library was a library uh we wouldn't go into the library you know uh it did when I was about 12 it became what we call a counseling center you know I'll reach to the youth in this area and I think the first time we set foot in uh any library I know of me going out on Queen Street I might have been in the fifth grade you know really that's just what's the place we didn't go you know and uh we didn't understand the importance of that one of the gentlemen uh Williams he has a relative still here I mean that lives here because they grew up here uh Bubbie his grandfather married one of my grand my great grandfather's sisters so that's how we became cousins cousins with the Evans not knowing that when we went in there when I was 10 years old not knowing that it even occurred because nobody said anything about it you might hear a little bit of and that's why I think some of our parents kept us from there uh because they said well don't go around on that Queen Street library and when we tell them we went out to the library don't go around there you get in some trouble that's all they used to say because they came through that because my father was born in uh 1922 in you know here in Alexander so I know he's seen all that you know and they used to tell us little things like that but that library uh we may have made it off limits to ourselves mentally because you know things we heard but there was nobody really trying to invite us in either you know so it is what it is you know let me give you the classroom yeah Charles Euston let's start there because I never went to kindergarten so we're gonna get that one out of the way right couldn't afford that Charles Euston had deaths that had probably been there since it was first built some of the chalk boys was crap even though the teachers had to take the chalk to write on the boards I'm left handed every death was right handed you know so I had to learn to write upside down you know uh the rooms were like old cabins seriously I kid you not it was on this site Charles Euston right here yeah I uh no when I went here with the six and then you went over the transition over to Parker Gray Middle School from there but uh we didn't have the best equipment you know but they taught us how to spell our name it taught us how to if you had a phone to dial your number and count learn how to count the basics and a lot of them always said something about keep reading keep reading they would throw stuff at you to read you know but they didn't have a lot to work with they didn't and I think we got everything that it was either broke or they was ready to throw it in the in the dump junkyard somewhere you know uh very seldom the only thing I was seeing that was new when I was going to school here that was in the sixth grade because they just saw us they just separated the girls you know when they take you out and they show you all one film about purity and they show them in the other film that's the only time I saw a new projector you know because everything else was either chalkboard or those big old numbers on the flip chart you know or animals designs on flip okay I'll start from uh how I got there my mom I used to drive with a real member brother that we would take her to the doctor or something like this I used to come past there you know uh right before she retired and she would always say it's an old cemetery over there and uh it's been abandoned or something she said Michael your grandfather in them is over there something like yeah okay and I was about 34 when she told me that right my mother died going on four years ago on mother's day and six months after her death no maybe it was like four months after I went to that cemetery and I was looking and looking how messed up it was and then I took another month or maybe a month and a half to find my great grandfather Warner Johnson who my dad was named after and then find records to say that my grandfather Albert Johnson who died September uh the third 1956 I was born November the 13th 1956 so I never got to meet him and when I saw that it was like whoa wait a minute and then I looked and I'm like hold up it's a whole lot of more headstones so I started walking around mapping out of my head names for some reason and no this is a true story I know it sounds a little far-fetched but that's how it went to me and it's like what do you call them epiphanies that's what it was and it's like why am I doing this but I just got to walking around so then I started looking at the dates on the grave headstone then I'm looking at the condition and then I went down and it had flooded and they just set me off and I came back and it the water was still there and then when it rained again it flooded and I said something wrong here and then there was this white gentleman and I hope he don't mind me mentioning his name named James Blackman he said I saw you out here two years ago you're still coming out here and I told him the story he said wow any help I can be let me know so I said oh wow that's cool he said because this he said this ain't right you know so that project right now and it's still we're having dialogue so looking at what was going on at Douglas and looking at what wasn't taking place I said hey you know what I gotta bring the group I help start the sRG social responsibility group and get some help and I got told them it's like a kid drowning I don't care what hand reaches out to save you when you drown and you grab the hand whether it's pink green white black blue you grab that hand that's life that's what I reach for and everybody like I said they just came together we want to work with uh Alexandria Historical Association in the city to even help them raise money the social responsibility group we put that together because we saw uh uptick in young people getting involved in uh legal system you know guns and fights and so forth so we started that group say well how can we be uh instead of finger pointers how can we be an asset to help other city agencies and nonprofits so we came up with their name and then I worked also with the five fighters and friends in the rescue so we do we do coats backpacks turkeys toys you know along with a guy Keith Burns who's from here two times Superbowl champion with the Denver Broncos uh then we worked closely with the sheriff department you know uh with their program they also had police department you know uh with some of their youth outreach program um so some years ago about nine years ago I would say now these agencies really wasn't working together uh I'm a boast and say I kind of like brought them together because people are there you know because people are territory around here that's the other half of our problems you know and then um I was doing something in the school pathways to manhood uh working with some of those young men that was on the border but you could pull back uh did that uh so just about anything in this community they want to volunteer for I try to help out you know I try to help everybody you know regardless