 That's why we're learning about history. Hi. Welcome to this month's Our Community Stories. This series is a part of learning about the communities that make up our great city of Durham and learning about the stories and history behind each of those communities. Durham is a place of diverse cultures, experiences, and perspectives. In our rich history, some stories have been inaccurate, hidden, or forgotten. And the series is a dedicated space for sharing histories from Durham's marginalized and underrepresented communities. These stories help us build a fuller understanding of how the Bull City came to be what it is today. They help us understand more about the diverse cultures and communities that we still have with us. And they inspire us to imagine a future where everyone feels safe, supported, and valued. This month, we're learning about McDougal Terrace. This is still a very active and large part of Durham presently. And so I'm so excited to have had the opportunity to learn about the history and be able to share this time with you all. This series is brought to you by the City of Durham, our Neighborhood Improvement Services Department. And this is a part of the community engagement team and our work around equitable community engagement. You can learn more about our team and the work that we're doing and access to our past, our community stories, and so many other things on our website DurhamCommunityEngagement.org. And also on our Facebook page, Durham Community Engagement. And now for the reason why we're all here, I will turn over to today's speakers, starting with Ms. Constance Wright. Hello, everybody. And thank you for coming to hear our community story about McDougal Terrace. The story of McDougal Terrace, I wanted to tell, because when we started with the community stories, I actually live in Braggtown now. And we started with the story. Well, we didn't start with the story, but we did the story on Braggtown. But as I was talking to Laura and other people, I was always telling them how we grew up in McDougal Terrace back in the 50s and 60s. And how then it was a great community to live in, neighbors, new neighbors. People looked out for each other. Teachers looked out for you. The community business leaders, they looked out for you. And it was just a good place to be. Although, a lot of times, I was asking Alton a little bit earlier, did you think he would pull? I was asking, Vonn, did he think he was pulled? They were always saying, we will pull, but we didn't. I didn't feel it. They didn't feel it. So, and I'm sure a lot of other people that live there did not feel it. McDougal Terrace was a place to live, but have a come up, to come up and come out. Not to stay there forever. So on our panel, my name at that time was Constance Gerald. My brother was Marvin Gerald. My mom and dad, Vanda and Bella Gerald. And we stayed at first in the 24 building, 24E. And that's our picture that you see on the front of the announcement. And we moved from there to what they called the new project, because that was the second phase of McDougal that was built to 59G Wabash. But during my entire time, we moved out when I was 12. But I always came back because that's where my friends were. And that's just where I felt at home. So given that, the introduction will be for Alton Joyner and for Von Brunson. And they will, we will all start, you know, just talking, just conversating. People that are in the chat, if you have things that you want to say, you know, or have memories of McDougal or your experience with McDougal or anything, just chime in in the chat. And there will be Q&A questions and answers at the end of the program. So now I will tell you a little bit about the history of McDougal Terrace. McDougal Terrace is named after Richard L. McDougal, who was a businessman and landowner. And he also was a part of the, not mutual savings alone, but he started a savings alone company here in Durham. But his plight was always to have something better as far as living conditions for African-Americans. And although he died in 1949 and the McDougal Terrace was built in 1954, he had a lot to do with us getting McDougal Terrace and better living conditions. My brother always used to say, you know, in McDougal Terrace, you had three hots in a cot, which meant you had three hot meals, warm living conditions. You know, and you had somewhere to sleep instead of having to sleep out in the cold or whatever. And what he did, he fought for us to have better living conditions. Although he passed early, they passed the housing bill in 1949, and that allowed for McDougal Terrace, which was the Black community, and few gardens, which was the white public housing to be built here. So that's the picture that you see on the screen of Mr. McDougal. And the other picture that you see is the proximity of McDougal Terrace from North Carolina, then it was North Carolina College. You see how small the campus was at that time. But that's the proximity, the buildings that you see in the background, that's McDougal Terrace. And I like to tell people, you know, when we were little coming up, you know, everything was so situated, you could walk wherever you needed to go. There was bus service, but you could also walk and go to different places downtown. You know, Hattie, all of these different places, Central, North Carolina College, Pearson Town, anywhere you wanted to go, West End, everything was like in a nice proximity where you could walk, get your exercise, and everything. So that's a little bit of the history. This part Alton can tell you about because this is the part that, this is the area that he stayed. Good morning. I'd have the holidays to everybody out there. I'm honored to be a member of this panel when Constance gave me a shout out. She didn't have to twist my arm in order for me to accept the invitation. I consider it a real pleasure. I'm a lifetime advocate for MacDougal and residence established more than 60 years now of relationships, friendships, et cetera, et cetera. And when I set some goals for myself, at the end of this presentation, I'd like for a few things to happen. One is that we remain friends and neighbors and support each other for the remainder of our lives. And two, I want to dispel some of the myths about MacDougal Terrace. Okay. Three, I'd like for the current residence of MacDougal Terrace to benefit from this exchange. What you're looking at is Apartment 1A, which was actually the third unit that I would occupy in MacDougal. We arrived in MacDougal Terrace along with people from all over the city in 1954. We lived at 8E Wabash. People came from West End, North Durham, the bottom, Hattie, and all over the place. And we all got together there and we became a community. And I'll extend that community to the peripheral streets, such as Bacon Street, Rosewood, Ridgeway, Plum Street. All of those people were part of the MacDougal experience. And so I consider them a part of the MacDougal community. Okay. And as we go forward, the first myth was that MacDougal Terrace was all about housing. And while housing was a major component, as Constance shared with you, the vision of R.L. MacDougal, housing was not the only component. The aspects of life from the executive branch of government would have every executive department contribute to, in some way, to the project of moving people up in economic status. So you had every branch of the executive department including Department of Interior. That's why we have parks. We had parks in the MacDougal Terrace community and across the street. If you look down below in that picture, that was a recreation area and behind that was the spray pool. All of that was compliments of the Department of Interior. You had a hospital or medical facility, some place near any housing project was a medical facility. And of course, for us that was Lincoln Hospital, you had great schools, Department of Education. The transportation department had a lot to do with the traffic configuration in MacDougal, even down to the point that our handicapped residents were all situated near the bus line where they had a short stint to catch the bus. And most of those handicapped people, I know on Simon Street, there were three blind residents, the Washington's, the Barrett's, and the Barrett's. And they were all on Simon Street near the bus transportation. And so every department, because the idea was that if you were going to escalate economically, then you would have to have more than a shelter over your head. And I think the myth is that the project was for people who couldn't afford to do any better and who would stay there the rest of their lives untrue. The Veterans Department, veterans had first preference for entry into MacDougal. If the veteran was deceased, obviously his wife would have a preference. And so again, every department, you name it from commerce to housing and urban development. Was represented in what was called a project. A project has a goal. And the goal was that we would move upward because we're gonna have lower rent, which gave you an opportunity to save, invest, et cetera, et cetera. I think a better experiment, and that's what most people consider the projects an experiment. And an experiment would have been to leave people as they were because we had a self-sustaining community in Durham that I think would have been more interesting than what we have here. Now, MacDougal was an advocate for better housing and Truman as well. But in a lot of years I would talk to contemporaries around the country who lived in public housing. In Atlanta, for example, where I am now, the first housing project was in 1942. And in discussion with another colleague from Montgomery, Alabama, we were discussing the floor plan of MacDougal Terrence. And they said this is the exact floor plan they had in Atlanta and in Montgomery. You know, I found that interesting. At any rate, at the conclusion of this, I would like for people to understand that MacDougal was a very successful project because from there came so many successful people whose mindset was steered on by the mindset of management in 1954. And after we're gonna kind of move on a little bit in the pictures that you all are seeing now are some of the people that I grew up with. You see my brother Marvin Vaughn and that's Sonny Harris right there. And that's Sonny, Frank, my brother Marvin again and Leroy Johnson. And that's myself again and my brother. But all of these people, we still stay in touch with. And that's the beauty of what we were doing when we were growing up in MacDougal Terrence. There were many, many more. But, and I was talking to one of my real good friends, Rita Rogers, and we were going through some of her pictures. And what was so ironic is we had pictures of, you know, family members and everything, but we didn't have any pictures of the landmark. So, but you will see some of the pictures of the landmarks of MacDougal Terrence as we go on. But these are just some of the things that we did. You know, you see our wagons, tri-circles, and this is our Sunday best with Vaughn, Marvin and Sonny. And then I guess this was a Sunday afternoon or whatever. But yeah, MacDougal, I have real farm members of MacDougal and I'm sure a lot of people do. I saw somebody put it in the arm chat that, you know, they took the office, the library away from MacDougal Terrence. But they took a lot of things away from MacDougal Terrence since we were going because when we were living over there, we had three parks. We had the library, we also had TA grade and we'll go on, you know, to talk more about that too. And you see pictures of the library here and that's out and standing in front of the, what we used to call the office and the library. So yeah, so that's some of the things that we did over there and a lot more that you will hear about. So the next slide, Laura. Vaughn, do you have anything you want to talk about? Yeah, I'm glad to. Hello, everybody. My name is Vaughn Brunson. I first decided at 24D Ridgeway and then we laid a move to 27D. And I don't remember exact year that we moved into MacDougal Terrence, but we moved there from Fairwood Street Project and I entered the first grade. So I went to the first grade when I was five. So I will say in 1953-54, we moved to MacDougal Terrence. And what you're looking at now is a TA grade, which was an integral part of my upbringing. There I learned from Mr. Miseroof Knox, who were also, they lived in the area and they were instrumental in developing a lot of us. And also you see the spray pool there. A spray pool was a cooling off center in the summertime. We also use it as a skating rink too. We skate there on Christmas, during Christmas day. It was my family stressed education as most all families during that time. We also participated in marches and protests. Our neighbor, who was my godmother, Ms. Roo Jones, she worked at the Carolina Theater, which was segregated at the time. We sit at the top and the other people, they sit at the Caucasian sit at the bottom. I had such a rich upbringing in the MacDougal Terrence. Henry Smith was, he had a grocery store, a black guy had a, other than Malone, Henry had a truck, he would come and sell vegetable fruit, fresh vegetable fruits and wild melons. He allowed us to work for him, knocking on doors. Also, Henry Bakes had a service station up on Austin Avenue and Glen Street. And he allowed us to come up there and do certain things. And he was a very, very, very good guy. And R. Kelly Bryant, then we had a baseball coach, Mr. Paul Koenigge, who took vast amount of interest in our community and helped us in so many ways that I can't, I mean, he was like a father to those who didn't have a father. R. Kelly Bryant, he took us on, he took us up to Virginia to count trips and the amount of support that we had in that community. And I wanted to think about Alison's mother. Alison's mother was an activist. She was instrumental in the voting, Ms. Fisher, Ms. Reno Fisher. She was very instrumental in registration. I can see her now with that clipboard in her hand. This is over 50 years ago. She had that clipboard in her hand. And I also remember Vivily, Ms. Jackie Parker. She's not on here, Jackie Williams, but her mother was also very instrumental in making sure that people voted. And they got people out to register. I'm gonna stop right here, but I'm not finished because I want, I'd like to move on because we, we, in McDougal Tures, we, we excelled. We excelled in, in sports. We excelled in education. Matter of fact, we had a, I'm sorry, I got a lot going on. Sorry about that. We excelled in sports education. And Johnny, Johnny Williams, he was a city council member for us. He represented, so what McDougal Tures has now is not our experience. The community was very, very instrumental in supporting all of our wants and our needs. I'm saying in the past, Reverend Douglas Moore, who later became a city council member here in Washington, DC. That's where I reside now. He had Asbury Temple Methodist Church. He laid out a spiritual path for many of us. And I can talk, how can you go on? Cause I, Hillside High School, I'm looking in there. Our roots are deep. And Constance asked me about being poor. Now that was a state of mind. That wasn't a state of, to me, that's never been a state of comfort. I was always rich in spirit. So what McDougal Tures gave me, I could always feed myself. So I'm gonna stop right there for a minute. Well, that was probably the best it could be stated. It was a state of mind. And I shared with Constance that my answer to her question about being poor, that I never thought I was poor because we were actually trained at home to delay gratification. Meanwhile, you had a lot of hard work to do. And so we were rich as well. And we never compared ourselves to anybody. So we knew that generations later, the hard work would pay off, or at least we bet our quarter on that. Couple stories about you mentioned Smith's store. And Malone's. And Constance mentioned earlier about Mr. Malone teaching her a few things. But Mr. Malone taught me a good lesson. And that is not to steal. I had my eyes set on an apple in Mr. Malone's store. And I must have been around seven. And I must have broadcast my intentions in my eyes because I kept looking at the apples. Finally, I built up enough courage to go over, grab the apple, put it underneath my shirt. And I walked out of the store and Mr. Malone stopped me. He says, give me my apple or pay for it. I was speechless, I was frozen. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. He took the apple away and he says, don't come in my store anymore. So I go home and as soon as I get home, my mother sends me to the store to pick up a few things. I can't go in the store. So I ended up going to Smith's, which was about a five minute walk up the hill. But when I didn't return home in time, I got a whipping for being late. And every time she sent me to the store, I'd have to go to Smith's. And sometimes Smith didn't have what Malone had. Smith had more produce and I couldn't get a canned good from Smith's. So I got a whipping every time I went to the store. Finally, I decided I'll apologize to Mr. Malone so he would allow me access back to his store. So he taught me not to steal that the pillage could be severe. That's my Malone and Smith story. On the screen now you have a picture of the no book store. Well, the no book store didn't start on Fever Street. No book store started on Diller Street and Bruce Bridges, who later became Dr. Bruce Bridges and taught at many institutions in the area. He started right beside Jackie Parker who had a consignment store and a thrift store right next to him. And this was in the early 80s. This was in the early 80s that they had. I didn't know that you could get a business license until when I went to see their stores and they were in business. So we produced not only educators, we produced a lot of business people from that magnitude with tears. My brother, Ron, Bruce, he was in business for over 50 years with, he had different auto shops and he's still now still in business as we speak today. And I can't begin to tell you about the affolings who came out of, out of Mac-Dude, they're just too vast. So why don't you name a few of them? We had like five quarterbacks who all courted back from North Carolina Central University. We had Bud Lyons, the Lyons family. We had Earl Burnett, we had Johnny Williams. Oh, I can't think, so many of those guys played really good sport guys. Yeah, Charles Roames, yeah, Charles Roames. They're the pictures, they call him T-Tot, but there's Rodney Rogers. Yeah, it was a lot. He came out of Mac-Dude with tears and he played for the, he played in the game. He came out of Mac-Dude with tears and he played in the National Basketball Association for 14 years. He's played 14 years there. So we have June Hearns, Albert Daniels, so many other people that came out of, the Rogers brothers, they played football. There were so many athletes, so many educators. I remember Shirley Ward, she was a, what's the academic award you get when you're young in high school? And who's who, they were in who's who of America? So I've been keeping up with Mac-Dude with tears for a long time. And what you have there now is now what was the seed planted in us. I'm looking at Ms. Fielder's Joyner, very successful in her arena. And I want to say this, I want to say this right quick, I want to, I want to thank each, it's 101 participants including us on here. I really want to thank you guys for showing a great interest in this, because you can be doing so many other things now. And if you have any questions, could you put them in the chat, if I can answer them, I'd serve a will. Absolutely. And Von, you know, it's funny you mentioned Jackie Williams, Parker and Bruce operating next door to each other they were right across the street from each other in Mac-Dude. Bruce was in two building and I think Jackie was over in three on the other side of Ridgeway. That's right. And I forgot, I forgot to mention this, Al. We, Mac-Dude with tears produced the first African-American police chief in Durham, North Carolina. Jackie Mac-Dude. Absolutely. He was the first, he started off as a firefighter and an EMS. And then he became the police chief and had a very successful tenure there. Hey, Von, you mentioned Earl Burnett. Earl Burnett was probably the first guy I would say was an entrepreneur. I remember Earl Burnett, most of you who are listening would probably agree with me. The ice cream truck, Earl Burnett drove the ice cream truck through Mac-Dude and you could hear the music playing blocks away which gave you time to try to get some money out of your parents so as you get some ice cream and Earl operated that truck for quite some time. In fact, a guy by the name of Sonny, was a firefighter. He was a firefighter. Sonny had a place that was prior fire department, fire station up on Mangum Street. It was abandoned. I ended up living next door to that fire station years later. And that's where he housed his ice cream truck. He was a firefighter. He lived with anybody other than himself in his life. He may have, but I don't remember. But many entrepreneurs that we looked up to, in the older days, you talk about Tinson McCoy with McCoy and I think who made his mark in New York during the same. All kinds of entrepreneurs, people around the community, Tom Wilkins, who was a tinkerer and an engineering mindset went on to build a multimillion-dollar telecom company that still exists today after 30-something years in business. And that's, that's the way it is. Arthur Johnson from Rosewood. Arthur is a executive vice president for Boeing cooperation and has done very well. In fact, I may see Arthur later on this evening. Who else? Oh, my God. Thank you. From around MacDougall and in MacDougall. And I thought it worth mentioning that. I know one of the, one Sidney James, y'all remember him? Sidney James truck. A lot of the people around there, Mr. Mr. Smith, you know, they used to come over there and sell their goods from the trucks. You know, people to have where you call it, yeah, trucks that you could go and you can buy candy from, you know, or produce. I remember one time somebody, I don't know who it was, but they came around selling chickens and just rang the chickens, had to pull the chickens flying all around, but people would actually buy the chickens from the truck. And I remember one of the types of things that we did, I want to go back to Ms. McKessick. She, for me, they started the first, you know, pre-school in MacDougall Terries at TA Grady and I was one of their first students to go there. It was Ms. McKessick and Ms. Knox that were our teachers. And then, you know, at that recreation center, we had like dances and different things that we could go and do at the recreation center. People hung out there. And so, yeah, we had a lot of people sold candy from their houses to make ends meet, you know, to have, we called it a side hustle. I guess that's what we call it now, but then it was a way to make a way out of no way. Who was selling candy at Constance? One of the lady, and I didn't know her name, but she stayed on Salma Street. One of the blind lady, she stayed right there on Salma Street. Ms. Washington. They sold, she sold. No, that was Mr. Barrett. I think that's what she did. They stayed on that corner house. Mr. Barrett used to open up the office, but he had a little place there behind the Masonous Stop where he sold candy on Sundays. Yeah. I know he sold candy. I went to, because I bought some. Yeah. But I'm trying to figure who was selling candy out of their house. That was where it was. It was in there. I'm not doubting your word, but I never knew. Yeah. I remember that because the lady, it was actually a lady and she was, and I don't, because it was like you say several people on that road, but I know she was blind and she knew what kind of money we were giving her and everything. So she stayed right there on that corner of, and if I'm not mistaken, it was in the same building that Bruce stayed in. So, you know, but yeah, like I said, you know, we had the three parks we had that we could go to you know, you go to people's houses and the parents wouldn't care about you being there because most of the time you outside, you didn't have to worry about, you know, ducking bullets or anything. You were just outside playing, having fun at somebody's house. So those are the types of things that we did. I know Malone's grocery store, I was telling them with Malone's Miss Malone taught me how to make a dollar out of a quarter. I'll just say it like that because I could take a quarter and just go buy snacks that will last, you know, at least almost two weeks. That's how slow I ate, but anyway, so those are the types of things that we grew up with. If you got in trouble, you know, your neighbors with chest eyes, you will tell you, you know, no, you know, you're not doing that right. Some people said they got hooked by their neighbors. I never did get hooked by my neighbor, but I, my mama knew what was going on by the time I got home. But it was just a, it was just a big family atmosphere. If you didn't know the person directly, you either went to school with them. We had safety patrol, we had the band. We had all kinds of activities when we got to middle school, junior high school, white teens for the girls and boys had different things, but when we got to hillside, that was when they had all the trades, you know, carpentry, brick mason, you learn to trade in school. So that helped with a lot of success too. Because when you came out of high school, you could come out of high school making money. But I don't know. Hey, Constance, if you look at that picture there, Miss Rogers talk about community pride. Now, take a look at that picture in the background, you'll see landscaping. Right. And everybody. Talk about that. And grew flowers, cut grass. And of course you could go down to the mason shop and sign out and lawnmower, push more, push more and some edgers. And you took them back. You took care of your, of your, of your line. And so there was so much pride in the neighborhood. Now, some people objected to the fact that there were periodic inspections of the units in MacDougal. I personally thought that was a good thing because it kept people on their toes and you know, I just thought that was a part of the part of management. Some people took offense to that. That's okay. But still, we took care of it. The guys, and you mentioned safety, you could go out and play. That don't get me wrong. There were some tough guys in MacDougal. But they were respectful. They drank their wine, but they made sure that if respectable people came by, they hit such. And, and they looked out for us. You mentioned the bodies. It was a pokey Bible. That told me, and he, and he said it this way, he says book become a jitterbug, right? Book, you don't need to be out here in the streets. Get too smart for that. I never forgot that. And that's advice from guys who, who were older and who saw what was down the road. And they took care of us. Okay. What you're seeing now is a slide of a protest. Now, my family. We had moved by the time this beginning to happen. But I can see that. That these protesters were. We're vigilant about having fair housing. Because the first thing it says unfair. So we always had. We always had a community of activists. And as Alison said, we are highlighting a lot of successes. We also had a lot of failures. And, and those people were not looked down upon. They were always treated fairly in a community. And we love them as we love those who had gone on because make do with chairs produced to doctors. When I was growing up. And a host of other. There's a question in the chat was, well, how can, how can all this stuff be improved now? I'm going to have to get off because my granddaughter is making too much noise. No, no, no, she's fine. So there's, there's, there's a question of how can, how can the conditions improve in Mac do with tears? And I don't know, I don't know. I mean that, that there's been a lot. I know I read a story about the carbon monoxide. You know, and I know there's a, there's a movement in America to knock down carbon monoxide. And I know there's a movement in America to, to, to, to, to get rid of all housing projects. And I've heard that. I've heard over the years that central was interested in buying, buying and leveling the grounds over there. So displacement has always been the first thing because urban, urban renewal tried to do it. Displacement has always been the first answer. But, but, but for us, I think it was education. The activists activism in MacDougal. When I look at that picture there, I try to date things sometimes based on music and, and fashion. And looking at that brother's shirt, I would say that happened prior to 1970. I see a pork pie hat on that gentleman's head back there. So, and I don't know whether I was around then, but I do remember Ms. Ann Atwater, which, which starred in the recent movie documentary about Durham. I remember my mother. I remember Mrs. Rogers. I remember those Howard Fuller and Ben Ruffin and all those guys. Who, who started what was called United Durham Incorporated. And what they were trying to do was to invest in the food chain. And by selling stock to neighbors for a dollar per share. And so the answer to one of your questions about improvement. We have to go into some economic arenas. And one of them that I've been studying recently and advocating more of is insurance. And that when people have children, the first gift you might want to give those children is an insurance policy. And for the price of one little outfit, one little cute outfit, you could pay a monthly premium. Where there's a company called Gerber life insurance. Gerber have a program where you could buy $50,000 policy at birth. And at age 18, it turns into $100,000 and building up cash value. So that's one way of improving because the project as we knew it is over. It hasn't been managed in in decades. It has been just a place to live. A shelter over one's head there was no we had management. CC Cobb managed. The first inhabitant of Magduga Terrace. And you either loved him or you hated him. But he did. I think what was his job. As a matter of fact, I want to cut back and walk back. The first inhabitants. And I was talking to Mr. Cobb's daughter, junior. The first inhabitant. Of Magduga Terrace was the Roberts family. They were the first residents of Magduga Terrace. And Mr. Cobb gave them a chance to select any unit they wanted. To live in. And they did. They did very well. Thank you so much, Mr. Joyner. We really appreciate. You. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You, Your conversations, your thoughts, your memories. And I really liked the answer to that question. We're concerning economics. But I wanted to ask a question. Since you talked about. Mr Cobb and. And how he managed. So what kind of relationship did you have with the management? You said some people didn't like him. Well, the truth of the matter is Mr. Cobb was a lifetime resident of Darrell. So he'd grown up with these gentlemen and ladies who were the first residents. And so he knew where they were coming from. They were coming from some poor conditions, et cetera, et cetera. The federal government had stipulations on people living in public housing. And some of those stipulations were rather severe. Many people don't even realize that at the age of 18, unless a child went on to higher education, they really had to get a job and leave the house or they were there illegally. That was enforced through Mr. Cobb. People came from backgrounds where there was a lot of domestic issues. Mr. Cobb didn't tolerate that. If there were a fight on Friday night, it made it back to Mr. Cobb's desk by Monday morning. And he would call them in for a conference. You won't find that today. Today, I haven't seen it. I've heard of shootings and all kinds of nonsense in MacDougatteries. And in fact, the day I took those pictures there of my apartment, that tree there was a little small tree when we moved in. You can see now the roots have burst through the ground. But when I took those pictures, I also spoke with the law enforcement officer who was patrolling the area. And he saw me parked in front of the office building there. Now, I was driving the Mercedes Benz. That's not the point. But he saw me as maybe an outside negative resource. What was I doing there in MacDougatteries when I was minding my own business. But what I did, I struck up a conversation with the officer about enforcement in MacDougal. And I suggested to him that he build relationships with these people. They are people. They are humans. Another misconception was that MacDougal was a tough place to live. It first occurred to me when I enrolled at North Carolina Central in 1969. And in 69, as a freshman, I've been going to that campus all my life. But I went to freshman orientation, where we were told places not to go. One of them was MacDougatteries for fear that you may get robbed. But that was not the case. No one in MacDougatteries would rob a student. But that was the attitude pervaded to the outside. You could come into MacDougal and shop, wash your clothes, get your hair cut, whatever you had to do, and no one would bother you. But that was the message that we sent to other people. Of course, we did mischief. I mean, none of us ever paid to go into a football game at O'Kelly. And to my knowledge, I never paid to get into a concert in the MacDougal gymnasium. But we call that mischief. Yes, thank you for that. If I came back to MacDougal, came back to Durham for a North Carolina Central University football game, I can find all of the homeboys sitting in the top of the stadium on the visitor's side at the 50-yard line. I know they're going to be there. Because that's where we sat when we were kids. Awesome. Thank you. We have another question. Yes, sir. You answered that question very good. I have another one for you. I have several. But the next question is, I know that you have a really tight-knit group. Do you or any of the residents that are formerly from MacDougal Terrace, do you have a reunion or do you meet and gather together annually or at any time since you've left North Carolina? I'll answer that. Reunion, we've had one. I think we had one that was organized and planned by the Daniels family. Not Bernice, yeah, Albert and Alberta organized the reunion at the Civic Center about 20 years ago or more, which was very nice. But I am in constant contact with Vaughn, with Tom Wilkins, his brother Roddy. But normally these days, we meet on the golf course. Awesome. OK. Well, we all used to caddy back in the day. And so that's where we meet today. And we couldn't play golf back then legally. So I had one last question before we wrap up. You talked about how the word project was being misused. But you talked about the concept that MacDougal had, because it had so many, like you said, you had a spray garden. There was a barbershop there. There was a hospital nearby. I noticed that somehow that concept has, what's the word I'm going to use? It is active. And it's actually popping up in so many communities around the country where they have a school. Do any of you have any thoughts on that? Because it seems to me that that concept that was so long ago is now coming up again. Well, it starts in the home. Cheryl. And if it's not being mentioned at home, then you're at the mercy of the streets. And our day, we had discussions. I'm one of eight siblings. And we had discussions. Matter of fact, when dinner was served, we were all eating together. And if you missed your meal, you may miss your leftover. But we talked about things. There was constant learning and reinforcement of reality in the house. We weren't just left to the devices of the village. So I think today that component is missing not only in public housing, but in most households today. People don't talk enough about the things that matter. These are crucial conversations that people have to have. If you're parenting, if you're mentoring, if you're thinking of getting married and starting a family, there are things that you have to discuss. And if you don't, you're taking a chance. Vanya, you may want to add something to that. Actually, I'm so sorry, but we have run out of time. Some questions that we could maybe answer later. But thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I'll turn it back over to Laura. Hi, Cheryl. Thanks. Yeah, I can wrap up really quickly for the recording. And we can stop and maybe still take a few more questions after the recording if people have a few minutes to stay. So thank you, as always, to today's speakers. Constance Wright is still living in Durham and I talk with her regularly. And she was so instrumental in helping to bring on Alton and Vaughn and also connect us with some other people who weren't able to join us today's speakers. And I have it listed as youth speakers, because you're always youth, I guess. That was left over from the last slide. Sorry, I haven't edited that. But today's speakers, I say this every time. But every time, it's just a great wealth of knowledge and an hour is not nearly enough. So hopefully we'll find ways if you're watching this recording on YouTube or on Facebook or even on the Durham television network, if you'll contact us or leave a comment to hear from this community and you want to connect with people that we've spoken about today, please let us know. Because I think this is a great space to continue connecting the communities that we're featuring. Just to promote, we do record all of these. You may be watching a recording now. At the bottom of the slide, you'll see all of the other communities that we featured so far. And I just wanted to spotlight one this time. In July, we had the Algonquin Club on a story about the Algonquin Club, which was where the WD Hill Recreation Center is now. But that's a great history and story to watch if you haven't had a chance to see it. And then coming up next month, we will be featuring the Wheels Fun Park. And that will be Friday, January 28. If you have stories from this community that you want to share or photos, please let us know. You can sign up for the event as always at DurhamCommunityEngagement.org and learn more about our events there. And you should also be able to see this on our Facebook page Durham Community Engagement. Thank you.