My father took many photographs that now help me document my family’s life. There are photographs houses, street scenes and my mother in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Springfield, MA he took pictures of my sister, my mother, me and along with those of St. John’s Congregational Church and members. For the first few years after we moved back to Detroit, there were photos and then, he stopped taking pictures.
Taking photographs – 1940s.
A few months ago I noticed that my father took no more photographs of our family after we moved from 2212 Atkinson to 2254 Chicago Blvd. Pictures taken during that time were not taken at home. We were at one of my grandparents houses, or in Idlewild. And the photographer was not my father, my mother or other family members were. I wondered what happened during that time that made him stop.
In 1953, at the time we moved from Atkinson to the house on Chicago, there had just been a church split and my father, a minister, was involved in building a new church from the ground up, something he hadn’t done before. This involved finding a church building and raising the money to purchase it. New members had to be found and a program that would get those new members involved and feeling a part of the church, had to be developed. There were constant meetings at our house, a combination parsonage/church activity building. And my parent’s marriage was ending. My parents separated in 1954. Maybe, on top of everything else, his camera broke and he couldn’t afford to replace it because he kept donating his salary back to the church.
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You can see some of the photographs my father took in these earlier posts:
Today is my uncle Henry Wadsworth Cleage’s birthday. He was born on March 22, 1916 in Detroit Michigan. If he had not died on June 15, 1996, he would have been 97 today. In honor of his birthday I decided to run another one of his short stories. He wrote it in March of 1947 and sent it out to an agency but it wasn’t published. He also wrote a longer and slightly different version of this story. There was, however, no mention of a camera and that is the prompt for this weeks Sepia Saturday.
Henry and Hugh examine a camera.
Me, Detective
By Henry Cleage
“Rural Detective Agency routes Thief” was in great big letters and underneath was the picture of the old man Lucas’s cat wearing the false teeth. Then there was a little article about Sam and me. I was humiliated. I jammed the magazine in my pocket and went up to the office. The office is over the drugstore.
I opened the door and started towards my desk. I was almost there when I fell over the tripod. It was sulking in the shadows the better to destroy me. I staggered on to the desk and sat there trying to organize myself.
Finally my mind was made up. Whoever heard of a detective agency with a darkroom? I would just have to force Sam to stop fooling with them cameras and stick to business. I couldn’t stand the strain and the indignity any longer. It was getting so bad I was getting a fixation about cameras. I could smell one a block away, and the smell didn’t do my blood pressure any good either. After all, who was running the joint anyway? I was in a state when Sam finally wandered in.
“Hello Dan.”. he said. He was loaded down with a camera almost as big as he was. He’s just about five foot six himself but he’s all energy and foolishness. Oh, he’s a good boy all right. I don’t mean to say that he ain’t been a big help and all that, but after… Just because he was the one who got us our license and set up the office don’t mean he can run around with a camera all the time. Besides it was only because he happened to know Sidney Jones’s daughter in the university where he was taking some fool course in photography that he was able to get the license.
But take that university business. Ain’t that just like him? If I wanted to be a photographer I would just grab a camera and start snapping pictures. But he’s got to go at it the hard way. He’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide. If he wants anything, he’ll bust hell wide open to get it. I didn’t even speak to him when he walks in. He wanders around awhile tring not to get in my way, but I’m right there looking him dead in the eye.
At last I speak. “Sam”, I says, “What do you think is wrong with the business?”
“Geez” answers Sam “I think it’s wonderful.”
Now, ain’t he a ninny? “Wonderful?” I gasp. “How can you say that when we ain’t had no business since old man Lucas lost his false teeth?”
”I don’t think we can expect a great volume of business, ever.” Says Sam. “That’s why I’m developing a sideline. With photography and our detective business, we ought to do alright.”
“How come we can’t expect a lot of business?” I says, stung to the quick by this fresh evidence of unamericanism.
“Why, the town is too small.” Says Sam innocently, his wide eyes even wider.
“Well”, I says “I think we can do more business if a certain one of us would tend to business and let our hobbies go.”
Sam seemed shocked. “But, I think my camera work can be a help in the business.” he said.
Ain’t he a ninny though?
“Did the camera help in the Lucas False Teeth Case?” I roared.
“The picture I got of the cat wearing the teeth did.” Replied Sam. “We sold it to the magazine for a hundred bucks.”
“Did the camera help in the Lucas False Teeth Case?” I repeated.
“I found the teeth.” Sam had the indecency to say.
“Did the camera find the teeth?” I scored.
“No.” Sam admitted.
I rose to my full six feet and glared down at Sam, sitting at his desk. “Then admit you are wasting time with them gadgets.”
For a minute I thought I had him, but he’s stubborn. He looked pained for a minute and then scratched his head. He don’t like to argue. That’s what I was counting on.
“I don’t think the camera has had a fair test.” He says.
I am almost exasperated but just then the phone rings and I grab it. It’s old man Jones’ daughter herself. She wants an appointment right away. She gets it.
“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do.” I says, turning back to Sam. “I want to be fair about this thing so we’ll make a bargain.” I look at him like I’m giving him the chance of a lifetime. “That is if you got the nerve, the faith of your convictions.”
“What is it?” asks Sam.
“If you can use your camera in some legitimate way in our next case, I’ll keep my mouth shut. If you can’t, you’ll get down to business and forget it.”
Sam starts to protest but I come in fast.
“Oh?” I says “Welching?” I shake my head disgustedly. “Just a kid who don’t want to give up his toys.”
This gets Sam where he lives. He hates to be called a kid. That’s what I counted on.
“All right.” He says, his face tight and confused, “I’ll go along with you.”
I got him, I got him, I got him! Geez, what a sucker. I don’t know why, but I can get away with anything on him. With other guys, he is as shrewd as the next one, but with me, he is putty.
Things are still pretty tense in the office that evening when Miss Jones comes in. She is a looker all right. A tall well stacked dame with plenty of everything that makes the world go around.
When she sees Sam, she almost picks him up and puts him in her lap. It seems they were regular old buddies at school. Sam seems pretty fond of her too. They act like two old college buddies. Disgustin’.
“How is the demon photographer?” she hollers, laughing like mad.
“How’s the philosopher?” says Sam, grinning like an ape.
They kid each other around like two guys. I look at this chick again. It’s amazing. Usually a big shot chick with as much on the ball as this one, is got a lot of agony and such. You know what I mean. I figure this chick must be a problem to someone. I can imagine her pulling almost as many silly ones as Sam. I clear my throat and bring the meeting to order.
She’s really got a problem. It seems that in her studies at school she comes across something pretty interesting in the way of the law of averages. And being the girl she is, she shoots right out to Whitey’s Roadhouse to see if the books are right. They ain’t. One thing follows another and before all is said and done, she gives an I.O.U. Now, for some peculiar reason, Whitey don’t want to give her back the I.O.U. even for the money.
“Well”, I says, “Why worry?” This chick must have a screw loose, I think to myself. I would take the money and call it a good deal.
“Her father is running for mayor on the reform ticket.” Says Sam.
“What’s that got to do with it?” I shouts, very much put out by Sam’s habit of bringing up non-essentials.
“Petey Grace, the mayor’s handyman called me today and advised me to see that daddy did not choose to run or he would publish a Photostat of the I.O.U. in the paper.” She says.
That Sam, I think to myself. Always showing off. How in the world does he think we can get an I.O.U. if the guy don’t want to give it? Besides, that Whitey bunch ain’t no boys to get too gay with. And he’s in with the mayor too. That’s a hard combination to beat. It ain’t like finding old man Lucas’s false teeth.
I’m just on the verge of telling her that we are pretty well tied up, when I get a flash of genius. This is just the case for showing Sam the folly of his ways. It’s got to be strictly hush-hush, see. The last thing you could use in a case like this is a camera. I turn back to Jones with a suave smile.
“The way I see it”, I says, “the whole thing has got to be strictly hush-hush.”
“Definitely.” Says Jones, tossing her blond curls with a certain twist of her shoulders.
“No pictures or nothing.” I insist.
“Heavens no.”, replies Jones. “That would discredit the reform ticket.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I say, standing up and bowing like they do in the movies when the interview is over.
Sam is pretty quiet after Jones leaves. I am pretty quiet too. She carries quite a thrust, that girl does.
“Dan.” Says Sam.
“Huh?”
“That bargain,” he says.
“Yea?”
“Of course we can’t use this case as a test.”
“And why not?” I come back indignant.
“It ain’t a normal case.” Says Sam.
“There ain’t no such thing as a normal case.” I says.
“The bargain is unfair anyway.” Says Sam.
“Oh!” I says. “Baby wants to back down.”
Sam stalks out of the door. I am dancing with glee, myself. Sam knows he is licked. He is so beat he walks out with only one camera, that little one with the light on it. How can I lose? It’s open and shut. I look around at all the photo junk Sam will have to cart out of here. Why with all that stuff out, I can get a bigger desk. One like them big shots got. Then I can get my bluff in on clients when they come in.
The twelfth hour found me doggedly making my way to Whitey’s Roadhouse. It’s on Latham Road, about ten miles north of town. Ordinarily I would have made it in half an hour. Indeed in even less! The fact is, the gas pedal on my 1936 Ford sticks, sometimes up and sometimes down. Tonight it sticks up and so instead of traveling approximately 80 miles per hour, as I sometimes do, I was traveling ten miles an hour as I sometimes do.
When I finally reached the club, it was all dark. I looked at my watch. Two thirty AM! I kicked the gas pedal so it would know just who was to blame for my unseemly arrival. The pedal, in perverse retaliation, became unstuck at that precise moment and the car, roaring like a lion, charged headlong into a large black limousine then leaving the driveway and pummeled it to a standstill. So authoritatively did my car get in it’s licks that the limousine backed up in hurried confusion and swooshed off into the darkness. But not before I caught a glimpse of Petey and the mayor.
Strange, I said to myself as I pried my ribs from around the knob on my steering wheel. I drove on to the door.
When I walked in the door, I realized that I had taken quite a beating from that steering knob, particularly that spot on my chest where that knob had hit. I stopped a moment in the dark to gingerly touch the bruise.
Immediately a short jug-headed individual who was looming out of the darkness skidded to a halt with his hands waving wildly in the air.
“Don’t shoot, boss!” he said. “The joint’s yours.”
I tried to gather my fumbling wits together but I didn’t do so good. “Turn around,” I growled “and take me to Whitey.” I kept my hand on my chest because I knew he thought I had a gun.
So there we go, across the lobby and down a very discouraging hallway. It felt like I was getting in deeper and deeper with every step. I was in such a state, I wished I could see old Sam, cameras and all. I want him so bad that for a minute I figure I can smell them cameras, even out here. They don’t smell half bad now, but I had to stop dreaming ‘cause jughead stops in front of the last door. I tell him to knock. Then I hear voices inside.
“Did you hear that?” says the first.
“Who, me?” asks the second.
Finally the obscenities quieted and the second voice was prevailed upon to see to the knocking. A guy who looks like the brother of the guy I am trailing opens the door and looks at my boy with considerable disgust.
“What the hell you knocking f…” then he sees the shape of things and waves the air with his hands too.
“A stick up!” grated Whitey who was cowering behind his desk in amazement. To him, the whole thing was like the tail wagging the rat. But a rat is fast.
I’m having myself a time. I got the corners of my mouth turned down like a regular tough guy and I’m looking them over through narrowed eyes. And then I hear the noise. It’ just a little creak but I know it’s the door behind me. Quick as a wink, I wheel towards the door, but I don’t see a thing. Then I turn quick to keep whitey under control, but I am too late. Whitey’s hand darts to the switch on the desk lamp, turns it off and continues on towards my head. Somehow or other there is a gun in it when it point at my head.
Undignified as I must have looked I dived for the back of the desk and the protection it would give me. The crash of the gun seemed to unhinge all the brains that I have. Light and more light seemed to blast the room with almost as much authority as the noise of the gun. It was all so unheard of, that the last I remember is the smell of that photo junk and that light.
The mumble of voices welcomed me back amongst the living. I looked about wildly. I was in my room and Sam was giving orders to the landlady. It seemed he wanted a bucket of hot water and a tub of ice cubes.
“Oh no you don’t.” I shouted hysterically.
Sam dashed over to the bed and looked at me professionally. He had a certain air about him and I didn’t like it.
“What happened?” I asked suspiciously.
“Well,” said Sam “after you dived into the desk and knocked yourself out, they gave me the I.O.U.”
“Yeah!” I hollered, scared that he would see how happy I was, but everything was so mellow. We got the note and Sam has got to give up the camera. Everything is breaking my way. “Where did they find you?” I ask, not that I give a darn but just to make conversation.
“I was there.” Says Sam.
A horrible feeling comes over me.
“If it wasn’t for the picture, we wouldn’t have got it.” Sam is swaggering, even though standing still.” I followed you in there and when Whitey shoots you through the hat, I get a picture. After you knock yourself out, he finds out you ain’t out to hijack the joint, so he is glad to forget the whole thing if I give him my roll of film.”
Sam takes out a cigarette and lights it, all the time looking at me like an owl. “Anything I can do for you before I go?” he says. “I got to develop some pictures.”
I have laid out my April A – Z Challenge posts using a calendar. My over all theme will be, as usual, my family history. I have a mix of Individuals who I will profile, names and careers that I will trace through the family, a family mystery and my kindergarten career. On Sundays I will do the Sepia Saturday challenge a day late.
Although I have my month planned out, I have not written any of the posts ahead of time. I may get a few done but probably I will be writing and posting as I go along. Of course I will visit other blogs to see the different ways the challenge is handled.
Click to see other bloggers participating in The Big Reveal.
In March of 1953, a disagreement between my father, then known as Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., pastor of St. Mark’s Community, United Presbyterian Church and a group of members who were not happy with the direction he was was taking the church, came to a head. My father and 300 members of the congregation resigned and founded St. Mark’s Community Church, which several months later became Central Congregational Church and in the 1960s became the Shrine of the Black Madonna.
The split within the church also precipitated a family split. The ties between my grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. and his brother Henry Cleage were broken. The close relationship they shared throughout their lives, was gone. My sister didn’t know she had a cousin Shelton Hill (Uncle Henry’s grandson) until he introduced himself when they were classmates at Northwestern High School.
The Cleage siblings: left to right front; Albert, Josephine, Edward. Back left Henry. Back right Jacob
My grandfather Albert B. Cleage Sr. was the youngest of five siblings. He and his brother Henry were always close. They helped organize Witherspoon United Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis and worked together to open the black YMCA there. During the 1930s and 1940s, they lived several blocks away on Detroit’s old West Side and saw each other almost daily.
After my father, Albert B. Cleage Jr. (later known as Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman) was ordained in 1943, he served as pastor of churches in Lexington, KY, San Francisco, CA and Springfield, MA. During those years he often wrote home asking his family to help him find a church in Detroit. More than once he mentioned getting his Uncle Henry to help.
In 1951 a group representing the United Presbyterian Church, including Albert Sr. and his brother Henry, organized St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church. It was located on 12th Street near Atkinson. My father was called to be the pastor. They started with 90 members and increased to over 300 during the following two years.
Uncle Henry and my father were both strong minded men. By the spring of 1953, they had reached an impasse over who was in charge and whether the focus of the church should be on its own members or on the larger community. An emotional church meeting in March 1953 caused a split between both the church members and the brothers, Albert Sr. and Henry.
In 1956 my grandfather Albert was very sick with cancer when the family heard that Uncle Henry was quite ill and in the hospital. Soon after they heard that Uncle Henry had died. They wondered if they should tell their father. He was so sick and they didn’t know how it would affect him. In the end, they didn’t have to. My grandfather was lying in bed and said “Henry died, didn’t he?” They said he had. Grandfather said, “I thought so.” They never figured out how he knew.
My grandfather was too sick to go to the funeral. Afterwards, Uncle Henry’s family had the funeral procession drive by my grandparent’s house on Atkinson. The cars drove past very slowly. It was a gesture toward the healing of a rift that began with the church fight in 1953.
Henry William Cleage died April 10, 1956. My grandfather Albert Buford Cleage Sr. died a year later on April 4, 1957. Both are buried in Detroit Memorial Cemetery in McComb County, Michigan.
Today’s post is about the Michigan Freedom Now Party. My photographs were taken during the first convention, which took place in Detroit in September 1964. It was held at Central Congregational Church, now the Shrine of the Black Madonna. To read an interview with Henry Cleage about organizing the party and what happened during the election, click this link – Freedom Now Party,.
Freedom Now Party Convention.
On the far left, back of my sister’s head and the back of my head. Standing in the checked shirt is Oscar Hand. Behind Mr. Hand, in the white shirt, is Richard Henry (later Imari Obadele) Writing on the wall is Leontine Smith. Against the wall in the white dress is Annabelle Washington. I cannot name the others.
Henry Cleage reading platform. Grace Lee Boggs in left corner.
Preamble to the Freedom Now Party Platform
Four of the many candidates on the Michigan Freedom Now Party slate. From left to right: Loy Cohen, secretary of state; James Jackson, lieutenant governor ; Albert Cleage (later Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman), govenor and Milton Henry (later Gaide Abiodun Obadele), representative of the 14th Congressional District.
Fannie Mae Turner Graham would be 112 today if she had not died in 1977. This photograph was taken in my grandparent’s backyard during a trip home to Detroit from Springfield, Massachusetts in 1948.
My grandmother Fannie, my grandfather Mershell and my mother Doris. I am standing on the table. 1948 – Detroit, Michigan.
My grandmother, Nanny is looking at me and smiling while I stand on the little table. My grandmother was 60 years old, 6 years younger than I am today. I turned 2 in August of that year. This was my first visit to Detroit. My grandmother came to help my mother when I was born, but she hadn’t seen me since. This was my grandfather’s first time seeing me.
My mother was several months pregnant with my sister Pearl. We traveled by train. When I got back to Springfield, I came down with a case of roseola. There were no lasting effects for me or for my yet to be born sister.
Black star line of Ghana in Rotterdam 22nd March 1980. Afram River <- click to see original photo.
The articles below originally appeared in the official organ of the Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL), Now! News of Detroit and the World. It was published by Imari Obadeli, known as Richard Henry, at the time. It was printed at Cleage Printers, my uncle Hugh’s and Henry’s printing shop. The first article was written by my aunt Barbara Cleage Martin, who was Barbara Smith in 1964.
The only think I really remember about the Freedom School, which I attended between high school graduation and entering college, is the visit to the ship, the Afram River and the gift certificate to Vaughn’s Bookstore that my sister and I received for being #1 students. I don’t know what we did that made us outstanding.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the rest of the article, but I know that Marcus Garvey organized the first Black Star Line. You can read more about it here – The Black Star Line.
Freedom School posed photograph 1964.
I don’t have a photograph of myself with the Afram River. What were they thinking? We should have all been lined up next to the ship and photographed. It would have been a great photograph. This is the only photograph I have of myself that summer. I am seated on the left, front. Next to me is my cousin Dale Evans. The other seated person on the right is the twin of the young man standing next to my father on the right. Their sister is behind the seated twin. I can’t remember their names or the name of the other youth on that side. On the other side of my father (reading the book and then known as Rev. Albert B. Cleage, JR) is my cousin, Ernie. Next to him is my sister Pearl. I can’t remember the name of the person behind me on the end but I know she became an actor for at least awhile.
Today would be my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage’s 127th birthday. She was born in 1886 in Lebanon, KY and died in 1982 at the age of 96 in Idlewild, Michigan. Here is a photograph taken in 1929, on the side of the house on Scotten Ave. in Detroit. My grandmother was 43. Anna was 5 and Gladys was 7.
Back in November of 2011 I wrote Moving – Springfield to Detroit 1951 for Sepia Saturday 102. I mentioned that I remembered the little girls in the photograph, but I couldn’t remember their names. Well, I found them!
Moving day (note the boxed up stuff behind me) L to R: Kristin (me), Lynn, Sherrie, Pearl and in the back is Mrs. Johnson. I still have the rocking chair back there.
Left to right – Kristin (me), Lynn, Sherrie and Pearl
During February, I was working on a post about turtles I have owned, when I came across the photograph below.
Mr. and Mrs. Funn with me (Kristin) in front and my mother in the middle holding sister Pearl.
I recognized them as the Funns and realized that the other man’s name that I remembered from Springfield, “Lindsey”,must be the name of the father of the girls in the photographs. How could I find the last name? I decided to Google “Lindsey St. John’s Congregational Church, Springfield, MA”. The first item that came up gave me his last name, Johnson. I Googled “Lindsey Johnson, Springfield, MA” and came up with several articles. This was them! Sherrie was the oldest daughter, the one who poured milk in my dinner on that day so long ago. Below are some of the articles I found and some photographs of the Johnsons and also an article about Mr. Funn. Goggle and newspapers – it’s hard to beat them sometimes.
Articles about Lindsey Johnson and family. The house they talk about is the one I visited with my father in the winter 1968. Click to enlarge and read.
To see more posts about boxes and other things, click!
