Flint Community Schools (ft Norm Bryant)

Arthur Busch 0:07

Hello, this is Arthur Bush, and you're listening to Radio Free Flint. Thank you for joining us today. Joining us for our episode today is Norm Bryant, who is the founder of the Greater Flint African American Sports Hall of Fame for black athletes in the Flint area. The Hall of Fame will soon find its permanent home in the Burston Field House, according to Mayor Sheldon Neely. Norm Bryant is also the founder and former owner of the historic Bryant's barber shop. As a founder, Norm was the first president of the Greater Flint African Sports Hall of Fame, where he served a 10-year term from 1983 to 1993. He was a two a two-sport star at Northern High School in Flint. Played both football and track. In 1953, Norman ran on the state record Medley relay team and track. In 1953, Norm also played the Saginaw Valley football championship team. He was the captain of the 1954 Northern High School track team. Norm also has been a barber as well after his career with General Motors, where he was a supervisor. His barbershop has been in existence over three decades. Bryan's barbershop has not been just a place to get your hair cut. It's been a destination for great debates and conversation. Actors, athletes, and U.S. senators have dropped by, all documented in the dozens of pictures on display in his barbershop today. Norm Bryant is a respected community leader. Norm Bryant's life and his contributions to the flip community have been enormous. He's been a community builder, someone who seeks uh to try to bring everybody together for the good of our community. Without any further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Norman Bryant. Hello, Norm Bryant. Uh welcome to Radio Free Flint. I'm honored to have you as my guest. Uh you've been a longtime friend of mine, and I'm sure today uh you're gonna uh share some wisdom for us and also uh tell us some old stories. So welcome. Thank you. You know, t tell us a little bit about how you you know how you ended up in Flint.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

On the North End, on the St. John Street area, off of Vermont Street. My father, he worked for uh he first started working at Summerfield and then he used to do his own work. He used during World War II. He had jump, we used to go up north and get a lot of junk, he used to sell a lot of junk. I see. He was pretty much his own entrepreneur, you know. He did his own.

Arthur Busch 2:54

And your mom?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

My mother worked at Hurley Hospital. Well, I had a I had a good upbringing because I had a closely knitted family, okay? My dad, when he used to go up north and get junk, and then from some departments up north, I used to take me up north to get junk. So I learned how to work at an early age. From the north end of Flint on Vermont Street, we moved over to the south side of Flint. We moved in certain, it was only certain parts of the city of Flint that blacks could live in anyway. So we were very limited to where we could move to. I have a picture in my, I mean a paper in my basement right now from the Flint Durham in the 1950s, early 50s. It says always where color could black could buy a house was where it said color. If it didn't say colored, you couldn't buy in that area. So they had us pretty much boxed in to where they wanted to send the cigarette Flint. That's how I began to view Flint as being segregated. Uh that was a hard struggle, but that happened.

Arthur Busch 3:52

How would you describe Floyd McCree? He was the first mayor of Flint that was African American.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Well, Floyd was a very I I looked up to Floyd. Matter of fact, I had worked on his comp on his campaign when he became the first black councilman. We had all white councilmen, and that we're beginning in the third war. We had a guy by the name of Cardelling. He was a white guy. All the councilmen, nine councilmen, all nine white councilmen. They were all white. What made Floyd so good? And just like I tell people all the time, you know, we have good people in office right now. I have nothing against them, probably real good. But what made him so exceptional is he came out of the UAW. Floyd was uh he was a sharp committeeman, he knew how to bargain, he knew how to negotiate, very articulate, and could call a meeting. Very good. He brought all of those talents downtown to City Hall with him. And that's how he was that's reading, that's what made it so great, as far as I was concerned. That's the way I look at it, okay? But people that go to City Hall now, they don't have these qualities coming down. All they have is the axe to grind and an agenda, okay? They don't have those qualities. But back then, we had to have those qualities because that's what made Floyd so great when he worked at the New York Factory, they put all the blacks in the boundary. And that made us what we that's that's what made Floyd what he was. Along with Fred Tucker, along with Eddie Little, all of these guys were shop commitments, okay? That made a big difference in our government. We knew what to do and we knew how to get over. And I I I I respected all those guys. They were sort of like a mentor to me because I looked up to them, okay? What school did you go to? Graduated from Northern High School.

Arthur Busch 5:38

Well, as you were going through school, you said you never saw a black teacher.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I never had a black teacher, I'll say that. Oh. I never really, really saw one, really. No, in school, not in school, nothing. Marion Williams. She was the first black school teacher back in 1942. We came to play in 1943.

Arthur Busch 5:57

Now, your neighborhood was it in it wasn't integrated, right? It was just blacks.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yes, it was. Yeah, it was integrated because it was uh holly thickly settled with Polish. If your name ended with an S-E-I scheme, you were Polish, okay? And I I we lived in the Polish area. Matter of fact, my brother had a Polish friend. Matter of fact, my brother could speak a little Polish, okay? See, the Polish were immigrants, so they came over. So when the people from the South came up, they put us over there with the immigrants, okay? And that's one of the reasons why Norman had such great football teams because now B. Houston took the Polish, the black Hungarians, and the Slavs and put them all on one team, okay? We learned how to work together, play together, okay? But my coach was Bert Smith. And Bert was really a good coach. Uh Bert really was the reason I got to go to college.

Arthur Busch 6:49

Now you went to northern high school. What kind of student were you?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Well, see, back in those days, the problem was that they held black facts. They had me on a general curriculum, that's that's not a college preparatory curriculum, okay? They didn't prepare me for college, but after I started playing ball and decided that I wanted to continue to play ball, I wasn't ready even to go to college, but the fact that I was able to get a scholarship, I got a chance to go, I took innings one-on-one at high school enemies before I could take some college suits. They all they want to do is get out of you, what they could get out of you in terms of what you could produce in sports. They didn't care about your education. They want to be easy because they want to have a good team.

Arthur Busch 7:31

Norm, you graduated from Flint Northern. You played football, and I think you ran track, right? Right, right, right. You were a part of us, I think you won a state championship, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah, we did. We won state championship in 1953. That's just how much talent that they had in the athletic school district. When I went to high school, first year of high school, we went to state. Frank Manley Jr. played on the on the on the basketball team. We went to the state, we lost the Muskegon Heights by a few seconds. We lost about one point. And then in football, we lost one game. And then that same summer, we won the state championship in track. So we had all kinds of talent. We had talent. There wasn't no interhand about our talent.

Arthur Busch 8:17

Your talent was so good that you won a record uh in the state medley in track, which uh we did. And they set a state record. Who was he had a guy by the name of Leon Burton?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

He had the nation in Russian and football in 1957. The year that he graduated, he had the fourth fastest time in the 1808 Lohu, okay.

Arthur Busch 8:42

What position did you play in football?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Play a half at.

Arthur Busch 8:46

Who was in the backfield with you?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Played with I Johnson and then my senior yeah, played with Tony Burton. He was in that movie Rocky. Yeah, he started in that movie as a Rocky as his trainer. So you were always a leader.

Arthur Busch 9:02

You were the captain of that track team in 1954. I see you've been doing a little research, man. You were a leader right in high school, probably before that, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Well, we had yeah, we had a lot of fun in them days, yeah. And it wasn't easy to get guys together, you know, because that's that was our outlet playing ball, you know. We would leave the we would leave the house in the morning and then come back home to late that evening, you know, pick up games and whatever, you know.

Arthur Busch 9:27

And you went to um Arizona State University, which is located in uh Tempe, Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Tempe, Arizona.

Arthur Busch 9:34

Tell us about how that happened, how how you were getting recruited and and how you made a decision to go so far away from home.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I had a full ride to all black college in Arkansas, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Arkansas EM, and they supplied everything, books, laundry, and everything. And the month of August, they called me and told me that they couldn't give me anything. I'd have to get the alumni to sponsor me, and I didn't know any alumni in the case. So I'm sitting there, thought I was going to college, and it looked like I wasn't gonna be able to go to college. So I called Leon Burton, and Leon said, call coach and see what he can do for you. So he told me to call Bert Smith at that time. He was my first high school coach, but then they they gave him a job in Michigan State. So I I called Coach I told him, I told him exactly what happened. I told him how I got uh, you know, that they left me hanging the hospital right there and I couldn't get anything. He said, wait a moment, let me call. He said, Dan Devine just got the head coaching job at Arizona State. Let me call around there and see what I can do for you. So he called Dan Devine, and uh he told me all the scoutships was gone, boo, boo. He told me, he said, I get taken your own reboard stuff for you in your books. So I said, Well, I'll just try that. I'd say, what the heck? So we had they taught me in the we go down there, and man, I say that was a long drive, a long way from home. So we go down there and I only left down there a year, so I had to come back and flint. You went and I went to work for Dynamotus.

Arthur Busch 11:11

You went there other uh players from Flint that went out there, other athletes that Burton now he did he stay around and play?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Oh yeah, he stayed around and played. Matter of fact, he led the nation in the room in 1957. Yeah.

Arthur Busch 11:26

You came back to Flint and uh you signed up to work in one of the factories. Uh which one was that?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, right. Civil A V8 Engine factories. V8 engine I don't pass side road. Gave me a job as a general supervisor GM.

Arthur Busch 11:42

Were you ever involved in the union before that time?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was involved in union before then. See, back in those days, I what they do is when they put you on salary, they a lot of times they put union people on salary because they knew the contract, you know. Matter of fact, I was in the union um uh in in March of 1965. I was slated to go to Alabama Selma and to march across to Edmund Fett's Bridge, you know. But my father died the same week. I was always reading that indo. I had a picture of um CL uh Reverend C. L. Franklin. I got a picture of uh Jerome Kavanaugh, who was uh was the mayor at that time. And uh, I think it was a black police chief. I can't think of what his name is. I got a picture all up there. I was right down in that well.

Arthur Busch 12:27

And you so you participated in marches in the six civil rights marches in the 60s.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Oh yeah, oh yeah, man.

Arthur Busch 12:35

And what about uh Flint housing uh protests and all that?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Harold Hayden was the chairman of our shop committee out there, the lead engine plan was there. A lot of union people were there, I was there, but not physically just involved, but I was there at that you know at the city and I was there, you know.

Arthur Busch 12:52

You in uh this factory for 30 30 years, 31 years, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

31 years and three months.

Arthur Busch 13:02

You came to Flint, your family came when that was in what 1943 or something around there?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

1943, 1943, right.

Arthur Busch 13:10

And then you got married. You got married in 1957. I see, and you marry your wife's your wife Kay, uh her family had uh quite a history in Flint as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Strong history in Flint. Some of the first settlers in Flint. Matter of fact, our great grandfather, Albert Harris, had the first barbershop on the corner of Kerslan Saginaw in 1870. He came here with one of the officers of the uh the Union Army.

Arthur Busch 13:42

Eventually you had four children.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yes.

Arthur Busch 13:47

All girls, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

All girls. Like Cody Bryant, all girls.

Arthur Busch 13:52

Now you and you met a lot of people in the Union locally that you kept lifelong friendships with.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Arthur Busch 14:00

Sylvester Broome.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, Sylvester Broome, Earl Crompton, Alex Ott. Oh yeah, and uh Florida Cree, a lot of a lot of yeah, a lot of people. Here it is. These guys came through to UAW, so they they had something going for them, okay? Well, when I retired, I went back to barber college and got my barber's license, okay. See, on my on my father's side, it was all barbers, okay? And on my mother's side, it was all bricklayers, okay? And uh my grandfather, he taught me about a lay a little brick, but the time I retired, I was too old to get in that three. But cutting hair was pretty simple for me, okay? And back in 1870, matter of fact, he was also a member of Court Street Methodist Church, but he had to sit in the balcony because they wouldn't let blacks sit on the first floor.

Arthur Busch 14:50

And then did he eventually go to another church?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Oh, they built a church called Quinn Chapel AME Methodist Church. First black AME church in Flint. And so when I got ready to go to Barber College, I went down to the barber's college down there, and he knew he knew the owner of the college, so I went talking to him, and he told me he said, you know, all you gotta do is fill out these papers and we'll get you in on it, you know, like that. It took me one year to complete the course. Well, when I got out of school, I just looked around for a place. It was a lot of empty place up on Cloud Road. I found a place up there. I said, be pretty nice. Back during the years, Cloud Road was a thriving area up in that area. Okay, so I got the place. The place was been vacant for years, so we got a good price on it. So, well, yeah, my brother was a barber. Matter of fact, he was barbering before I did. He cut half about, my brother cut half about over 50 years, man.

Arthur Busch 15:44

You know, a lot of white Americans watch the movie barbershop. You know, uh, you know, most of the people that went to that barbershop, I assume, were African Americans.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah, they were all African Americans. I had white people, yeah. I had white people coming. But the bottom line is that the bottom type is a place where people can kind of relieve the attention and and and and express their views and ideas and and and and and we talk about all the problems but never solve any, okay?

Arthur Busch 16:11

Yeah, it's a place to exchange information, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Right, right, right. And make contact. Yeah, pretty pretty much so, pretty much so. Yeah. See, when my wife, great grandfather, cut hair, he cut most of white people's hair, you know. And actually, white hair is easier to cut than black. It is, it is, yeah.

Arthur Busch 16:33

That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Black hair cut what we call a fade and the tapers. It takes skill for that. I got to blend your hair in.

Arthur Busch 16:41

Some of these haircuts today are getting pretty fancy.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Oh, yeah. I can't handle these haircuts today. You gotta be kind half the time they got dreadlocks and wigs on, okay?

Arthur Busch 16:51

Uh I see. They're pretty artistic, some of them. Their head's a work of art.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Well, uh, you know, I mean, each, you know, each each generation has his own style, and you know, but you know, that's one side of the time.

Arthur Busch 17:04

So, how'd you like cutting hair?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I mean, what Oh yeah, I I I enjoy cutting hair. It was relaxing to me, and I get the chance. See, one thing about it, when you get a guy in your chair and you get him relaxed, and you tell you things that probably would cheer with a whole lot of other people, especially while he's in your chair, you know. Especially if you got him relaxed to the point where he has some confidence in your listening, and that's what you do. You become a good listener, you know.

Arthur Busch 17:30

Your barber shop's called historic. Now I looked up the website uh and they're referring to it as a historic barber shop.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Two, he leaves my pictures up there that I had up there. Three, you had to keep the barbers that I had there so they may could maintain the job. And number four, I get a free haircut every time I come in.

Arthur Busch 17:51

You've got a free haircut, eh? Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Oh, yeah, I get a free haircut. They take care of me when I go up there.

Arthur Busch 17:57

What's that young man's name?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

His name is uh Jesse McIntosh.

Arthur Busch 18:02

You uh did get involved in public life.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Uh I ran for the school board to to become a member of the school board because the school system financially was having problems. So they cut out what they call middle school sports, okay? And Fred Sports was just going downhill, and I became, matter of fact, I was president of the board for two years. When I became a member of that school board, you for each meeting you get, you know, you get paid speed, you know. So what I did is I challenged my school board members rather than pick a salary. I didn't pick a salary for for six years, I didn't pick a salary, okay? And I gave it all to middle school sports, okay? And now that was that was in 1991 when I went on, saying I gave the middle school sports. Takes three to five years in order to see the results of this stuff. So '91 I went on. In 1995, Flint Northern won the state champion in wrestling, and they won the state championship in girls' basketball and boys basketball. So, you know, I I I I felt good about that, you know, because I made a contribution. I never made a penny on that school board about one penny.

Arthur Busch 19:14

Your work with the school board involved building coalitions and working well with others.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Right. And uh and we we made some changes, you know, what we won't know on that board.

Arthur Busch 19:24

During that experience, uh Flint began to lose tax base because uh the city's tax base began to shrink with General Motors leaving.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, well, see, that was the key. A lot of people don't understand the, you know, they they they keep hollering about the lottery, you know, the school shouldn't have a lot of money because of the lottery, but that's not the case. See, what happened was when they brought that lottery in our money had to put in the job fund to help make up the difference of what they lost, okay. Now, if they had to maintain the money that they would give the school on top of the lottery, we've been in good shape, okay? We've been in good shape, but that wasn't the case. When when uh when General Moders left Flint, property value went down, so they dropped the value of the properties, okay. But happened, General Motors sued the city and the school district had to give up money too because they overcharged them. See, I was there when when Matt Burley was the first black superintendent to come to Flint. I worked under Nat Burley in our school, worked after uh James Reed.

unknown 20:28

He was the second black superintendent to Canada.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

James Reed. We had some good people. We had some good people.

Arthur Busch 20:37

Now you were also involved in county government.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Oh yeah. I was on the Gen Content Bill Accord, and when we got that county jail on that, see the whole jail had rats and roaches and everything else. So the jail itself really not large enough. We should have been allowed to build a jail, but we didn't. And the bottom line was this is that we thought that possibly we could make money on that jail to help us out because of people needing space in the county, you know. But the crime went up so high, the crime went up so high in the French area, we couldn't we didn't have the rules of rent, man. We didn't have them. And then when it came down to the uh sea county billing authority on the McCree billing downtown, we ended up undertaking that seat. Okay. Well, we undertook that McCree bill that they put all the county facilities in there. If people had to come in from Grand Breaking around to the city of Plant, they didn't want to come to Pent. The only way that we got that billing to be in existence is we had to negotiate with the with Grand Bank that we built up a new courthouse out there, a new uh courthouse. That's the only way we were able to get that building built in Transfer.

unknown 22:00

I I know I know what to get out.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

They always they would have each you may have trips for the accountant millennials come on, you know. I went to one trip the whole while I was there, and that's when they had the trip to Phoenix, Arizona, and uh that was like a homecoming for me.

Arthur Busch 22:16

Remember I was with you.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

We had a hell of a you and Archie Halper.

Arthur Busch 22:22

We had a hell of a good time. Uh God rest his soul, Archie.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Some of the guys on the football team came back, they had a legal reunion, man. I got ten to see some of my buddies, man.

Arthur Busch 22:32

I remember that. I attended it with you. That was a great time. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah, we had we had we had a good time, man.

Arthur Busch 22:38

You did uh so your your tenure with the with the county board uh with the county building authority, you oversaw the bonding and and supervised some of the construction aspects, funding of it. Right, right. And uh so the battle with the courts, as you were saying, is the suburban courts, the central court, which was uh a large a large occupant of a proposed occupant of the McCree Courts and Human Services Center in downtown Flint, that that was formally in Burton. So the lease on that building ran out, and then uh it was decided to to uh take the Montgomery Wards building and make it uh courthouse, basically.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Right. And see another thing too, uh we had to make sure too while I was on the board to see the contractors for that, we had to make sure. See, a lot of times they give these jobs in contract, but we had to make sure that no contractor would get that job unless he had a firm detection program where he can have some blacks, okay. That was one of the main issues that we that got to got that job then, you know. So we we had to, you know, we had to stay on top of that. All right. My thing is that we need to make sure that we look out for specific lists, okay? And that's just the reason I was telling them about their history. That's one of the reasons I'm real adamant about see when I was on the school board, all right, we had 47 schools in the school district. Now they only got eleven. But that's one reason I'm so adamant about teaching black history, making it mandatory to be taught in the only school.

Arthur Busch 24:26

Well, because you've always been a history man uh in Flint, and that's uh one of the reasons why you're so beloved in the Flint area, is because you have been the keeper of a lot of history for not just the Flint black community, but for the entire community. What what spurred your interest in history so much?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Well, let me tell you what really deal. See, my mother was educated in the South. She graduated from Paul Lawrence Pun Ba High School. And when we used to have history in school, she said, they don't teach you guys black history like they taught us. But my mother is the one that really, I guess I took that after her. But she said, they don't teach y'all history like they did they did us in the South, you know. And it was a reason for that, too, why they got kept this history, because they didn't want us to know about ourselves, you know, about our background, you know, because really we have a lot, everybody has a lot to offer, you know. And I found that out when I played ball, you know, I played with different history. We all played together, but we depended on each other. We found out that we had more in common with each other than we had differences, okay? Do you think we never found that out if you don't you don't know people, okay?

Arthur Busch 25:42

Do you think that was the reason why you later became such a good uh a good board member? And you know, you were a leader on these boards. I mean, these are citywide and countywide. I mean, they involve all the public.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

I think probably it was because I I had a I had a person that came up to me. The person was uh was an attorney on the board. And when they elected me as president, he came up to me and said, You can't handle this group, you know, you know, like because she was she was an attorney, you know, she had the degree in it. And so after that, the same person came back to me, she said, Noah, I think you better be president again because you all want to keep us together. You know, I mean, but she came to me and told me that, you know, but the bottom line is that I don't care how much education you do. That that little practice, nothing what you hang on the wall, it's what you do that makes a difference, huh?

Arthur Busch 26:41

Well, you certainly have uh have proven over a long period of time your ability to work with uh all races and uh for the better of the community.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

We can all work together. It's all about knowledge. And I remember when I was in the fourth grade in Dewey School, and I tell this to people all the time. I learned that Jacob Smith was the first white settler in the Flint school. I mean, in the Flint area. He had a trading post down on Grant Travis and the Flint representative, okay. But he may have a Chippewa India. But you see, I didn't, he I didn't learn anything about my white folks, you know, what all they done is, you know, being black. The only way we're gonna get out of the situation we in uh this country, we gotta educate ourselves out of it. It's simple, it's real simple. The reason we are in this situation right now is because the Constitution of the United States needs surgery, okay? When I I I had a knee, a knee replacement because I broke a tenon in my knee. I had a knee replacement. I got a metal knee in there now. I gotta replace it, okay? This country is broke, okay? It's broke. And the only way we're gonna get out of this thing is that we have to have a surrogate on the constitution. So when they did the constitution over 200 years ago, black folks weren't even considered a person, three-fifths of a person. And not only that, they say all men are created equal. But when they do surrogate in the Constitution, they take that three-fifths out. And what they need to do is put in that said, all people are equal. All equals are equal, okay? See, a lot of times it's like uh collectors, people like that, who the black man works. But see, when they come north, you can discover they take those jobs, you know. Oh, there's all kind of black brick mayors in the south. You can find another one. But they put those jobs. See, when blacks came from the north to the from the south to the north, they came to city because they really didn't have any anything to bring other than the families.

Arthur Busch 28:47

When you look back at the city's history, one of the mayors was actually elected by uh Floyd McCree was elected by a council that was predominantly white. You know, and the city was not majority uh black. He ran against a white police chief. What happened there was a group of people, uh black and white, came together and supported this new guy, James Sharp, who went on to beat him. It seems like the generation of politicians today, they don't seem to have the same level of either insight or experience in building the coalitions that are necessary to advance the cause of the of the city.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

And and you might have a very valid point there, because the younger generation didn't go through what we had to go through. The the best way to form a coalition, you got to get out and knock on doors. That's the old way to politics, you know. You can't bring people in from outside to try to generate, uh, to try to get get votes to generate. And I and I think what happened is that this is what we do. And we'll go out and get somebody that's I know when they had Jesse Jackson come to town, Jesse Jackson is probably he's probably out of the loop right now. But I know you had to pay them to come in there. To me, personally, I'd take that money, I'd knock on some doors, man. You know what I'm saying? You got to get the people interested that's in your community.

Arthur Busch 30:12

In order to make the city of Flint work, you have to have people form a coalition and and work together. And you you talked about we had that division and we were able to overcome it by asking ourselves what's in the best interest of our government and our city.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

And don't get me wrong, a lot of these young folks they don't understand that from the standpoint. They're looking at what's good for them. And unless you build that coalition, because see, one of the things I used to do, and I learned this the hard way. I used to take my my board members. I lunch over silence, I take them to lunch over there, and we talk about stuff, you know. But when I went in that meeting, I know pretty much way which way my my vote was gonna fall, you know. It's a hundred and sixty six years old city, okay? And now that 166 years, we've only had four black bears, okay? And I look at it like this. When when James Sharp became the first elected mayor, I had animals at that city to care. He renamed what's Clark, Max Brandon's clock. And Max Brandon was the first charter vice president of the African-American Sports Hall of Fame, okay? If you are a black mayor in the city of Flint, you need to do something for your legacy. Now, to me, that's a legacy, but you need to do something. And I told him, I said, I'm not told him, I said, you need to do something for your legacy, man. Because Saginaw Street West, you don't find no parks at Flint. I don't care how long you're mayor, you might not be there for one time, but leave something. That's all I'm saying. Leave something.

Arthur Busch 31:41

You're well known in the community for essentially being the father of the Greater Flint African-American Sports Hall of Fame. You started the Greater Flint African Sports Hall of Fame, and you've recognized the accomplishments of many of these uh men who grew up in Flint and uh learned their trade, basically, in the playgrounds of the city and in the gyms of our schools. What was it that what was it that I mean burned so passionately about you to get involved and do this project? I mean, it's been going on for I don't know how many years, 30 or 40 years.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

39 years. But see here's the thing, all right. When they organized the Greatest Sports Area Hall of Fame, I looked at some of the people they were putting in that Hall of Fame, no black, and they put this guy in from Owassa. And I, when I was back in the 50s Owassa was in the Segano Valley. We beat them second and nothing, they dropped out of the valley. Where are my people at? And that's what that's what gave me interesting thing, you know. Put putting the Hall of Fame. And you know one thing about it, uh, what's so good about now? I don't know how true this is, but this guy told me this. I organized the Hall of Fame. And I had a guy come to me, he said, you know what? He said, you know, I I went over to the other Hall of Fame.

Arthur Busch 33:01

Uh, over these 39 years, I mean, to keep something like it wasn't like you had some big government money behind you to try to keep this in gear. I mean, you've attracted a lot of support from uh our community, both black and white, to continue that effort.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

But you know what thing I you know what thing I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm gonna tell you who really, I'm gonna tell you who really helps. Her block doesn't really have time a lot. Herb done a lot. And then my my my oldest brother, you know, he was a professor on U of M. He's given a lot of donations, you know, to it. We can see the results of our work right now. Uh usually when we induct an inductee, we hang his big plaque in the library over there, and we give them a small plaque, a personal plaque, okay?

Arthur Busch 33:45

You do a banquet every year where these uh young men come uh who honor.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Right, right, right. We we can do one last year and we're not gonna do one this year because of COVID. But but we do do that every year. Our talent now is just about driving up and play. We just don't have nothing anymore.

Arthur Busch 34:01

What do you attribute that? What do you attribute that to?

SPEAKER_01 34:04

They attribute that to try to schools and people leaving out the city. When I went to school line, somebody from Lexing, Kentucky sent us something on online about they want to organize a Black Harbor thing down there, you know. And you know, we told them, we're willing to help, you know. That's what we go online. You go online and see everything we've done, you know. And we're willing to help. So, you know, maybe that might inspire somebody to do something. You play. If you were good at sport, you played all sports. You played all three of them. Now they uh all these kids now do is the is the they'll pick a sport, you know, football or basketball or track and run it all year. But we just we did it all.

Arthur Busch 34:44

You've obviously you've recognized dozens of people for their contributions to athletics in the Flint area. Tell me the top three best athletes overall. I mean, I don't care what sport. The top three best that are that are uh in your hall of fame.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I'd have to, of course, the the younger generation is different, but I'd have to go back to them. I'd say one of the one of the best ball players that have come up, man, the ball outside was Bill Hamilton. He played all three sports, and it was good in all three. He was in the uh he was in the Group Trotters uh farm game uh in uh Bill Lewis Punch. And then I played another, another another guy that I looked up to. I used to he used to train me a lot. It was Leroy Bowling, pound for pound. Now he wasn't all he wasn't all around, he was just tracking football. But this guy, palm for pound, he was about the most powerful man I ever seen in my life. I I don't believe he weighed a hundred uh in college, 160 pounds, something wet. But he would go around and he he'd go and block a line instead of hitting a highback, he'd block a line and weighing close to 200 pounds and turn his heels up. He he just gets them in the room. And then you had and then he and you had a lot of you know, of course, this is back in my time. He had a lot of one guy that he never even he never even went to college. Today it was Joe Kors, and he was all he went to Plint Central. He was all around. And you had guys like Jesse Thomas. We had some good guys now now, and I'm quite sure you had well people, athletes come after you, but this was back during my time.

Arthur Busch 36:15

I'll name you a couple in a different category. You know, like how the NFL always has a Sportsman of the Year award for community service. My top award for that goes to Reggie Williams, splint Southwestern High School class of 1972.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

And I think I went to school with his mother.

Arthur Busch 36:33

I went to school with his mother, and I think I'd share at number two with uh Mo P Morris Peterson. Mo P, right? He has uh done an amazing job. That young man has done an amazing job sharing generously with uh others in our community and other communities, and he has been an exemplary representative of the city of Flint, as has Reggie Williams. They went on, Reggie particularly went on to be a star in business.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Uh yeah, Disneyland. He was down at Disneyland, but it was one heck of a one heck of a ball player.

Arthur Busch 37:07

He just wrote a book, uh Resilient by Nature is his name of his book. He just wrote it. So if anybody wants to get a copy of that book, I suggest you get a hold of me at Radio Free Flint. I'm gonna put his book up on my website so people can see it.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Okay. Uh but it's no, you got some good names. Those are good names, right? Yeah, well, there's you know, uh, you come in a different area now, dear, but that those are good names. Well, I think one of the things that really made me successful is the fact that I had some people, a good support group around me through my church. And the other thing, too, is you might see the My Foundation used to have a tremendous program here in Flint, man. And I think out of the My Foundation opened the door for me in sports. And I think my foundation, and plus I I think I have some role models too. Listen in my church group, there's a lot of people that, you know, they were we were just like a community, you know. They they put their arms around me and they kept me going. I'm working on in my church right now. I'm trying to create a museum of people that made history that made flick pay because see when I come along, all right? It wasn't hard to be the first black because black didn't have positions like they got down. It wasn't hard. In my church out of Metropolitan, the first black counselor fought in McCreed, first black mayor fought in McCreek, he went to Metropolitan. First black male carrier came out of Metropolitan, first black parent came uh the police force made so J. Matter of fact, when I was when I was coming up, you didn't even have a black, you didn't have the black cops. Really, can see no black cops, man.

Arthur Busch 38:41

That concludes our show for today. We appreciate you joining us. And I'd hope that you get a chance to visit our website at www.radiofreeflint.media. That's www.radiofreflint.media, where you can find all of our podcasts, videos, uh, articles, or blogs, and other stuff. Uh, again, this is Arthur Bush. Uh, we've been with Norm Bryant. Uh, thank you, and we'll see you next time.