May 11, 2020
A Career in Journalism In a Place Like No Other
So is it fake news or just the facts you don't want to hear or accept? Do headlines belie the news story? What is the future of local news coverage in Michigan. Our guest is Rhonda Sanders who worked as a journalist for 40 years in the Flint area. She was a beat reporter, neighborhood reporter and a columnist for the Flint Journal most of her career. In 1995, she authored a book about Flint's African American Community the Bronze Pillars: An Oral History of African Americans in Flint. Her coverage of Flint's neighborhoods was legendary. Over her career she became one of the most respected journalist in the region. Her insights into how news is covered, her views on journalism today and the future of journalism are worthy of consideration. It is refreshing to learn about the inside of a newsroom and what most motivates journalists.Rhonda Sanders is now retired and living in Flint, Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and worked her entire career in journalism. She was a beloved figure in the neighborhoods of the metro Flint area and her columns shined a bright light on the problems and the accomplishments of the people of Flint. A copy of the book "The Bronze Pillars: An Oral History of Flint's African American Community" can be obtained by clicking the link below:https://www.amazon.com/Bronze-pillars-history-African-Americans-Flint/dp/0964983206Review of Rhonda Sanders' book the Bronze Pillars. http://annaclark.net/reading-list-rhonda-sanders-bronze-pillars/--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/radiofreeflint/message
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello, you're listening to Arthur Bush, and this is Radio Free Flint.
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And today we have a great show.
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We have Rhonda Sanders who uh for uh 40 years served as a journalist in the Flint area.
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And uh she's also uh an author of a book called Bronze Pillars and Oral History of Flint's African American community.
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And uh she has a lot to say about Flint over the years.
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Most of you have probably read a few things she's had to say about Flint in the surrounding area, and so today uh it's her chance to tell us a little bit about her story, her background, and uh without interrupting her her show, uh I'm gonna turn it over to her.
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Rhonda, uh welcome, and I'm so glad that you decided uh to uh participate.
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Good afternoon.
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Good afternoon, my pleasure.
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Rhonda, uh you've been a reporter for uh some 12 years, uh or excuse me, 40 years, and uh during that time uh you've seen you've seen a lot of uh of change in the community that you covered.
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And one of the things that you uh wrote uh actually wrote two goodbye stories.
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Uh uh one when you left the Flint Journal um back in, I believe it was 2007, and then one here recently when you left reporting altogether working for the uh the View from Grand Blanc uh in 2018.
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But in in in your um in your story, I mean in your letter to the community basically, you you uh you recounted a big history of the things that you had covered, and it it was quite an amazing, quite an amazing uh amount of history had passed during your time there.
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Um why don't you tell us a little bit about your experience in Flint just in general, what what your work was at the Flint Journal, and maybe then when you went to work for the View in Grand Blanc.
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Well, um I guess I I I have to kind of dig deep here because you know I'm an old lady now and my memory is not as good as it used to be, but I I came to Flint in 1980 to uh work for the journal.
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And originally I was assigned um as a suburban reporter and for about a year, and then uh I went to I was reassigned to Metro because that's when I started my couple.
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They wanted to cover um the energy at the time I wanted to cover neighborhoods better than they had to cover.
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So he specifically assigned me um to cover from the neighborhoods, and so I um I just really wanted to go around at that time the neighborhoods were very active in the there were a lot of um what do you call neighborhood associations and um clubs and other groups like that that were very active in the community.
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And so basically I just went around to their meetings and met everybody, and whenever there was a problem in the neighborhood, people would know to call me and um you know there were problems with abandoned houses and um other things, and so they would call me and I would bring attention to the fact that there was a problem and the city would usually go right away and and do something about it.
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So uh I remember when I left Metro to go to Tempo after I was in Metro for 10 years, and during that time I think I covered uh neighborhoods and social services, which included you know like NAACP and um um what's the name of that other group?
00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:18.639
Um I guess that my memory the urban league?
00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:20.800
The urban league, yes, thank you.
00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:22.480
Yes, you know, groups like that.
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I you know was responsible for covering those as well.
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And so I remember when I left, uh I got a lot of uh the journal got a lot of phone calls because people were upset because I was their neighborhood reporter and they didn't know who they're gonna be able to call once I went to tempo and actually there wasn't anybody else assigned to that beat after after I moved to Tempo.
00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:46.639
So you know I'm not sure I guess be Yeah.
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In your in your goodbye letter to the people of Genesee County, uh you described uh uh rather interestingly, uh an article about the uh publication, the Bridge Magazine publication, which is a nonprofit organization.
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I'm not sure where it's based out of Midland, I believe.
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And it uh it covered a story about Flint Township uh not wanting to be associated with the city of Flint.
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Uh and uh oh yeah, okay.
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Now I remember that, yeah.
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And and the headline as as you reported at the time was Flint Township tells the world, please don't confuse us with Flint.
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Of course, over many years there was an effort to try to change the name of Flint Township, which never was successful.
00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:48.560
Um I I actually lived in Flint Township at one point in my life.
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Um and you said that you were covering a local meeting of the Flint Township uh uh uh board of supervisors, or what do they call it?
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Township board, and there was uh a protest there uh which uh uh you indicated the uh the article had been uh disparaged by the protesters.
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Why don't you tell us your experience at that meeting?
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I I found that a fascinating uh observation.
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Well, as as best as I can recall, I remember the reporter was actually there and took questions.
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And I remember actually coming to her defense when I actually had an opportunity to read the article because you know a lot of people don't understand how journalism works.
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And and sometimes they misinterpret what they read.
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And when I read her article, I didn't find it offensive.
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Um there were some things said maybe that people would rather had not been said, but it wasn't it wasn't um untrue.
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It was factual, and and I know that she was probably still is a very good reporter, so I just thought that you know it was sort of a knee-jerk reaction that people kind of overreacted to what she was trying to say in the article.
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And in in your in your letter, you said the protesters had labeled the article racist because it cited poverty rates and racial makeup of the city and the township and exactly uh both of those and all those things were factual.
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She didn't make them up, they were factual.
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Those were actual facts about French Township, like them or not.
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You know, that's what that's what I was trying to defend, that people were, you know, and how could you know it be necessarily, I guess you can be black on black racist, but she was a black reporter.
00:07:41.279 --> 00:07:51.519
It wasn't like, you know, a lot of times, you know, it's a it's uh, you know, a white reporter or something, and they they say that they have a biased viewpoint, but she was actually a black reporter.
00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:58.639
So I'm not sure whether racism Yeah, and also a a veteran as you pointed out, and experienced.
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Yeah.
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And I think a lot of people were shocked because they assumed it was a white reporter.
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Because, you know, Bridge magazine, not a lot of black people write for Bridge magazine.
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But um when she actually was there in person and they saw her, it was like it took a lot of uh, you know, the ammunition out of the argument because, you know, and she defended herself fairly well at, you know, the uh the meeting.
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It it was I can remember a lot of people being very surprised when, you know, they stood to say when she stood and said, I am that reporter, she was actually present.
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Yeah, and and what's interesting about it is she was using statistics uh to describe both the township and the city, which happened to come from the United States Department of the Census.
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Exactly.
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And they like I said, they were actual facts.
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Now, you know, the fact that you may not like it is a different issue, but it was as I said, uh it was a factual article.
00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:58.240
Yeah, and and what you said in that that was I thought was pretty poignant.
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Uh you said, quote, trust me, you have to be pretty thick skinned to be a journalist.
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Quote, kill the messenger, unquote, is a long-standing response to people getting factual news they don't agree with or don't want to hear.
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News they don't uh agree with or don't want to hear.
00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:28.000
And I thought you you uh summarized not just that moment, but what appears to be happening in this moment.
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:34.559
And could you elaborate on that a little more in terms of what what that means?
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What you're uh what you saw was it all I guess maybe the question out performed a little better.
00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:49.679
Um when you started as a journalist, uh, how many ever years before this was 35 years or more before?
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Did you see a time when people took on actual facts that were pretty much not to be disputed or impossible to dispute?
00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:05.279
And then they'd argue them anyway, that they didn't want to hear those.
00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:10.879
Is this something we've always had, or is this just something that's happened in the last few years?
00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:15.039
I personally think it's something that's always been there.
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It's just not as as uh pronounced as it is now.
00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:24.000
Uh people just feel more comfortable about, you know, we've got this whole fake news perception now.
00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:32.799
And I really I was just talking to somebody the other day and take offense at that because as you said earlier, you know, I trained to be a journalist.
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I was taught how to get the facts and to be accurate and to be fair.
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And that was something that I endeavored to do, endeavored to do my entire career.
00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:54.480
And I know a lot of other journalists, some of the people we talked about from this recording that I worked with as a journal who were fair and honest reporters and would take offense to being um being labeled fake news.
00:10:54.559 --> 00:11:12.159
But there are so many people out there now who aren't putting out fake news, it confuses people, and they don't understand how journalism works, and that as I said in that article, some of it just because you don't want to hear it doesn't mean well you disagree with it, even though how can you argue with sense of data?
00:11:12.399 --> 00:11:29.840
You know, it's it it is what it is, and people have not learned how to agree to disagree, and so the newspaper has become a target, and it's just it's probably a lot harder to be a front-line journalist now than it was in most during most of my career.
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But trust me, I hit my share of people who would call and bless me out about something that they read that they didn't like.
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Um not a lot, because I always try to be fair, tell both sides of the story, and to be accurate.
00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:46.480
And like I said, there were some people who are just not going to agree with you, especially my column.
00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:54.799
That was probably where I got the most slack because you know, people don't people don't just if they don't agree with you, then it's it's game on.
00:11:54.960 --> 00:12:04.799
So I never I never would have dreamed that a day would come now that you know the newspapers would be uh disparaged to the point that they are.
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Good quality journalism.
00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:10.000
It's it's pretty people need that now more than ever.
00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:12.159
Yeah, I agree with you there a hundred percent.
00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:29.120
Uh even though I must say uh I spent you know a fair part of my life, more than twenty years in in uh in politics, and a good part of that, nearly twenty years in elective office.
00:12:29.279 --> 00:12:40.000
And uh I I must say I didn't always like the tone or the some angles on the yeah, that's a fair argument, yeah.
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I used to didn't I used to had a hard time, it took me a long time to get used to this, or basically ignore it, which was to to not hold the headline against a reporter, because we would find quite often, quite often the facts of this of the reporting was accurate, but they you know they you know characterized the story in some way that I don't even think the reporter agreed with.
00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:07.840
How'd that work anyway?
00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:09.840
I was always curious about that.
00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:16.480
Pretty much just like you said, there were editors who that was their job to put stand on things.
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And I had a lot of battles of my own where I disagreed with uh the headline, and and uh my policy always was when people called to complain, I would say, I don't write headlines, I'll let you speak to the person who wrote the headline.
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Did you have a problem with the article?
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And they would say no, because like I said, I always tried to be fair and accurate, and I said I can let you speak with the person who wrote the um headline, and so the editors would get upset with me sometimes because that was my policy.
00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:49.039
It's like I didn't do this.
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You did this, and so this is your mess.
00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:52.960
You should clean it up.
00:13:53.279 --> 00:14:09.279
Now you you also indicated that just uh about the time you started your career in 1980, that General Motors uh as you quote as I quote you here, you said when I arrived in Flint, the General Motors job exodus had just begun.
00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:18.240
Those good paying jobs benefited generate generations of area residents, and it's been an uphill climb to replace them, unquote.
00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:47.840
Uh that period of time that you served in reporting, uh you know, you can look at it from a lot of angles, but uh you you covered a city that uh was a historic city in many respects, and then you've watched its decline um over a long period of time, and and probably the most uh you know the most serious of the declines, several of them through that period of time.
00:14:48.879 --> 00:15:02.080
Um what's your take on that in terms of if you have any insight into it as a as a reporter, uh into how uh the the newsroom covers this?
00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:08.480
I mean, is it just a daily drumbeat of this uh of this disaster that's unfolding?
00:15:08.559 --> 00:15:10.000
Or how how did you decide?
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:19.600
I mean, you were on the other side in many of these stories of trying to show, put a good, you know, to try to show that there is normal life in Flint, Michigan.
00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:32.720
Well, to be honest, I can't speak at all for now because I know that the uh reporting staff, for example, that the journal is is is nowhere near what it was back then.
00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:36.240
So there are more people to cover more things and to dig deeper.
00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:48.080
And now I I'm not sure how large their staff is, but um, you know, they're not covering um a tenth as much as we probably did back in the day.
00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:50.159
They just don't have the manpower.
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:51.200
What effect do you think?
00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:53.039
What do you affect go ahead?
00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:54.159
I'm sorry.
00:15:55.039 --> 00:16:06.720
But um, you know, as far as what we tried to do back then, like I said, there were enough of us that we were assigned, you know, there was a there was a Flint Township reporter, there was a Grand Blake reporter, there was a City Hall reporter, you know, there was a courts reporter.
00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:12.080
Um, you know, everybody had, you know, a specific area to cover, and they concentrated just on that.
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:22.879
And so it was your job to go out and dig up news and and and make contacts and and and and generate sources, people who would, you know, call you and let you know what was going on in the community.
00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:28.639
And so that was pretty much how you know we covered everything.
00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:34.159
Well you uh God forbid that you miss God forbid that you missed something and channel twelve got it.
00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:36.720
You'd never get into that.
00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.600
You know, it was always your job to be first.
00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:56.480
Yeah, that that insatiable need to be first is was always perplexing to me because I kept reminding the reporters that you can only watch one TV channel at a time, although today I guess people watch more than one.
00:16:57.200 --> 00:17:09.599
But at least for most of my career as a as a person who gave a lot of interviews on television, uh you know, they would go crazy about who could be the first one to know the story.
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:11.119
Like you're gonna find out 10 minutes.
00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:12.319
Oh, I mean, what can I tell you?
00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:17.839
You know, you take a lot of pride in that, in being first, you know, on having a front page article, on being first.
00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:36.079
I mean, I mean, some of the old Channel 12 folks might not like me saying this, but we used to laugh about that sometimes in the newsroom where we go to cover an event and the channel 20 or some of the other uh channels would be there, the news stations would be there too, and they would have an article on their clipboard.
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:44.319
They were using that article to source their reporting, and we always get a get a kick out of that because like I said, most of the time we were first.
00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:46.640
We just prided ourselves on that.
00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:49.359
That's what being a good journalist is all about.
00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:55.599
Getting out there and getting the news, breaking the news is basically what it was about.
00:17:55.839 --> 00:18:09.920
And one of the things that uh you you recalled in in your letter was that the the brew haha over Roger and me and the film's portrayal of Flint as an economically devastated city.
00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:18.160
Um how do how do you look at that through the lens of history now in terms of Michael Moore?
00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:23.920
You know, I I haven't really given that much thought um at the time.
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:34.079
I know a lot of people were outraged, and um the the uh characterization of the city probably is even more accurate today than it was then.
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:40.079
You know, I think he probably did uh you know sensationalize a lot of what was going on at that time.
00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:43.039
It was nowhere near that bad off.
00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:47.119
But you know that was his his perspective.
00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:50.880
So his perspective gave it that much thought.
00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:55.440
I just remember a lot of people writing letters, and you know, a lot of people used to get upset too every year.
00:18:55.680 --> 00:19:04.400
Every year, I think it was Money Magazine would come out with this this ranking of the worst cities in America, and Flint was always right at right at the top.
00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:08.240
So uh that would generate a lot of community anger as well.
00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:28.400
So you know, you um I don't want to debate Michael Moore here particularly, but I I do want to say this one thing that there are journalists who do have uh and and I don't, you know, he's a film documentarian, I sort.
00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:46.319
I'm not sure that's the same as a journalist or not, but uh his point of view was that General Motors was leaving Flint and he showed the tower there by the neighborhood where I grew up at Fisher Body number one plant where the water tower was coming down.
00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.759
And and in fact, that plant did close.
00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:53.440
In fact, that plant's still hanging on for some reason.
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:57.920
The building is it's been redone, but it's basically a shot.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:07.200
Yeah, it's sort of a show of itself, but uh they've tried to make the best use they can of it.
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:22.160
But ultimately, ultimately uh you as a journalist um have to have a thick skin and and you have experienced kill the messenger syndrome before yourself.
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:46.240
And uh I guess when I look back at Roger and me, and I'm not sure if we looked at that movie and looked past some of the points of emphasis, uh, we'd have all that much disagreement with what happened because the devastation to Flint was actually worse than what I could have ever imagined uh at the time in 1989 when that movie came out.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:58.319
Uh uh but I you know through the lens of history, your work is judged, and you are the I mean, at least uh in terms of the Flint area, the Flint Journal was the newspaper record.
00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:08.480
So when I want to look up something that happened a long time ago, you know, that's generally where people will go 50 years from now to see what happened.
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.759
How does that responsibility bear on you?
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:33.200
Knowing that as I as I said, I always I can't speak for everybody, but I always try to be fair and accurate, and I think that as far as I'm concerned, anything that I wrote uh should stand you know the the uh the weight of time that um it it was true then, it's true now.
00:21:34.079 --> 00:22:03.200
Now you uh had uh um an interesting uh history in terms of working in uh several areas of of journal and within the newspaper business, uh whether it was a beat reporter or uh doing work for tempo, which was more of a society and what I call society and culture, arts and city life kind of uh uh stories.
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:17.039
Uh your work in in covering some of these uh things has taken you into a really deep interest in the history of uh African Americans in the Flint area.
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:19.119
Am I right about that?
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:25.279
Uh I don't know about deep.
00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:32.799
I mean, because uh I am African American, Flint is not a huge city, you tend to, you know, people tend to know you, you tend to know them, you know.
00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:39.440
You go to the black churches, you go to the uh the black events, you know, uh the Martin Luther King dinners and what have you.
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:48.400
So in that respect, I guess, you know, I was well known, but I don't know if I would necessarily say, you know, because I came here from somewhere else.
00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:49.680
I came here for my job.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:55.440
I didn't come here because I had relatives here or because, you know, I was had any particular interest in the city of Flint.
00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:01.359
It's just I graduated from college, I needed a job, and the Flint Journal offered me a job, and that's how I landed here.
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:06.799
So, you know, um, you know, I I made friends here and you know, I made a life here, I'm still here.
00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:16.240
Uh, but um I wouldn't, you know, necessarily say I was, you know, like deeply ingrained in the African American culture.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:34.960
Well, you wrote a book called uh Bronze Pillars, uh uh which was an uh oral history of the African American community in Flint, and in that book uh you and that book, as I recall, was released sometime in the nineties, I can't remember, early nineties.
00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:41.279
Which by the way is still for sale on Amazon if you'd like to buy it.
00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:51.839
Uh but in 1995, I remember buying that book along with a few others, because I was sick and I had to stay in bed for several weeks.
00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:58.160
And uh and I read that book and I was just uh awed at what you had uncovered.
00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:05.680
Tell us a little bit about your book and what what's the you know what's the gist of it and why you wrote it.
00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:13.279
Okay, that's an interesting story because actually that book was kind of an assignment.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:21.680
I um as I said, you know, uh one of uh few African American reporters at the journal.
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:25.119
And when this project came along, it was started by Sloan Museum.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:39.359
And actually there was a Sloan um employee who actually did the majority of the interviews, and then they came to the journal because they wanted a professional to write it and to, you know, make sure that everything was as it should be.
00:24:39.599 --> 00:25:00.000
And the journal editor asked me if actually there was originally another reporter who was um supposed to do it, another African-American reporter, but he got another job and was getting ready to leave, and so they looked for the next person that they thought would be able to do a good job, and so the editors called me in and asked me if I would take it over.
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:28.799
And that's how that's how I became the author of Broad Skillers because you know they they they uh had um the editors had um you know worked on an agreement with Floyd Museum to co-publish the book, and uh I basically just inherited all of those interviews, most of them I think it's about 70-80, and uh someone else who actually did the work which made my job a lot harder because I prefer to do my own interviews, I think most journalists do.
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:50.480
And so I had to work with the material that was given to me, but um you know, uh a a big part of the book was just sitting down to listen to all the tapes that she had already made, and then tried to assemble it into some kind of order and and and break it down into chapters and also to supplement a lot of what was not in those interviews from the journal's archives and at that time.
00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:52.880
Um, an extensive library.
00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:58.480
And um especially I was just thinking about that the other day, um, the sports chapter take the point.
00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:01.440
Sports was probably my least favorite subject.
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:06.960
And um what I had from those interviews was just a list of names.
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:12.240
This person was the greatest baseball player in 1962, this one was the greatest basketball player.
00:26:12.480 --> 00:26:13.359
All I had was a name.
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.119
I didn't have any, you know, statistics about this person, nothing.
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:28.559
And so I had to go to the journal's archives and dig out all the uh the f the files that we had on those different people and cobble together their history and their story in order to write that sports chapter.
00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:39.200
Well, one of the things that you did that impressed me, and I think it's well worth well worth hearing about, you pieced together the migrations that occurred in Flint.
00:26:39.759 --> 00:26:50.880
And our you know, Radio uh Free Flint is dedicated not just to Flint but to blue-collar culture all across uh the Midwest.
00:26:52.640 --> 00:27:08.240
And uh one of the things you described in this was something I had never heard, and I was raised in Flint, uh, was the the way the waves of migration, uh how uh how those how the people got here to begin with.
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:12.160
And and and you described that.
00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:23.680
Could you tell just briefly, we're running short of time here, but could you just explain a little bit about the what you know, start maybe at the turn of the century when people began coming to Flint for work.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:27.119
Oh, that that's it in a nutshell.
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:29.599
You know, most of the time those people they told their own stories.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:33.680
They they uh they talked about what year they came, when they used to live on in the St.
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:40.720
John area, um, you know, at a time when you know Flint was segregated, there was only certain places where the African American Americans could live.
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:50.880
And so, you know, a lot of the people just told their own personal stories about w when they remember coming and where they remember living and who lived next door and and what have you.
00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:59.599
Um and some of that information, there was a book prior to my book called um it was written by a man named Melvin Banner.
00:27:59.759 --> 00:28:10.960
I can't remember the name of the book now, but it was probably um it was an African American history book, and there was a lot of information in there about the early settlers, the early black settlers in Flint.
00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:14.960
Like I said, I can't remember the name of the book now, but the author was Melvin Banner.
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:20.000
He was a historian, and so a lot of the stuff about the migration came from that book, you know.
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:31.440
I think again, like I said, I relied heavily, and that book was in the journal's library, so I relied heavily on material that you know was already uh in the library, pre-published.
00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:38.319
So Rhonda tell the story about the ways, you know, pe some people came in the 30s, everybody came for General Motors' jobs pretty much, you know.
00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:44.640
One of the things you described wasn't just black people uh coming to Flint, but white people as well.
00:28:44.720 --> 00:28:48.160
And of course there were thousands of tens of thousands of both.
00:28:48.400 --> 00:29:05.279
Uh and you indicated in that uh book, uh your book, and most of it was by way of s of summarizing uh uh that the there was a wave that came in the twenties, as I recall, uh from Appalachian.
00:29:05.599 --> 00:29:06.079
Probably, yeah.
00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:07.680
I know there was a big one in the fifties.
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:17.440
I can't remember in all the details now, like I said, but uh I remember Melbourne Banner exactly for example talked about the very first African American settlers in Flint.
00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:18.160
Uh-huh.
00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:24.000
And uh and I know that you know there was a you know of the original push was like as you said, maybe around the twenties.
00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:27.200
I remember most people talking about the forties and the fifties though.
00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:33.519
I think a lot of the people I talked to, uh, that was when when they came or their parents came and brought them or whatever.
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:44.480
One of the things that you did in that book was you began to talk about race relations in the city, and it's and and you began to discuss in the book the segregated housing.
00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:57.359
And some people have have said that, you know, we can add this to the number of uh uh disparaging things that have been said about Flynn, that it's one of the most segregated uh cities in the nation uh in terms of its housing.
00:29:57.599 --> 00:30:22.640
Uh and uh and you began in that book, you laid basically a foundation to discuss that, which uh which was interesting because you described this migration of auto workers people who came from Appalachia, Kentucky, and and uh places like this to uh to the Flint area and settled, most of them settled on the east side of Flint, as I recall.
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:24.160
Is that that's right?
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:28.640
Or do you record vaguely I you know again?
00:30:28.720 --> 00:30:32.000
Like I said, I have to point out again that the book is an oral history.
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:34.640
So it's other people telling their story to me.
00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:50.240
And uh most of the information that I got was was a c conglomeration of, or most of what I wrote rather, was a conglomeration of what different people had said about certain areas, certain neighborhoods, schools, race relations, what have you.
00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:54.400
It you know, it's not me really having insight into any of this stuff.
00:30:54.559 --> 00:31:08.240
It was what people who were interviewed remembered about what their neighborhood was like, who their neighbors were, uh, where they could or could not go, when their parents came, what kind of jobs were available in the shops, that kind of thing.
00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:11.119
And one of the one of the things that you talked about, the St.
00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:24.480
John neighborhood, you s the interviews uh focused in on people who were raised in that area, the African Americans, and then there was uh a neighborhood in the south end of Flint as well.
00:31:25.599 --> 00:31:26.880
Yeah, Sugar Hill.
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:27.440
Uh-huh.
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:29.519
And then it's called Sugar Hill.
00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:33.359
That's where the more affluent African Americans uh were able to move.
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:37.119
Uh I think probably starting the late fifties or early sixties.
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:49.920
And then the the uh the thing that I thought was particularly uh uh uh uh insightful in this book, you might not see it as that way, but I certainly did.
00:31:50.319 --> 00:32:05.519
And that is that uh the the people who described this migration of auto workers uh in the twenties describe people who came from a part of America uh uh where they had very little contact.
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.519
Uh uh excuse me, it's the other way around.
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:19.599
People who had been in Flint for a long time, uh white the white migrants in the 20s, they had been here and there were very few blacks during that period of time, right?
00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:22.240
Yeah, how I remember, yeah.
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:33.759
And then and then there was a great black migr migration, African-American population swelled in Flint uh uh uh in the 50s, 40s and 50s after the war.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:54.720
And so and so what what we were left to conclude by, and I think you concluded this uh that those who had come earlier, the white people that came, had very little if any contact with blacks because they were raised in a city that was mostly white.
00:32:56.720 --> 00:33:12.000
And you at the time in that book, as I recall, you pointed out that those that had come in the first wave of migration were not, you know, they just weren't as accepting of people different than themselves.
00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:15.279
Do you recall me to be honest with you?
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:23.920
I don't remember that part, but if it was in if it's in the book, it's because somebody uh somebody who was interviewed remembered it that way and described it that way.
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