Category Archives: Springfield, MA

D – Democracy & Doris

1950 Census, A-Z Challenge 2022, News Items, Springfield, MA

This is my ninth year of blogging the A to Z Challenge. Everyday I will share something about my family’s life during 1950. This was a year that the USA federal census was taken and the first one that I appear in. At the end of each post I will share a book from my childhood collection.

My mother helping me hold my many dolls. Notice that Pearl always has only one doll.

Democracy is Not ‘Separate’

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To the Editor of The Union:

Sir: In answer to “Home Owner” whose letter appeared June 21, there are three things I would point out. First, Americans believe in democracy, which means equality for all people — not separate equality, but plain and simple equality.

Second, no matter which way you look at it, Negroes are people just like other people. If at times they seem different, it is because misguided people like you have forced them to live under “separate” subhuman conditions.

Third, from coast to coast in the North of this country Negro people and white people live, work, play and worship together in happiness and in peace because there are Americans who believe in democracy, Christianity and love, and are big enough to live by them.

Doris Graham Cleage
Springfield

Below is the letter my mother was responding to.

The Race Problem and Housing

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To the Editor of The Union:

Sir: In regard to the colored people buying homes among the white home owners, would first say, personally, I have nothing against them, for there are many fine folk among these people; but is it fair and right to us homeowners, who have worked to keep up our own homes, pay taxes, and make improvements within the laws of this city?

Do we have no voice in this matter, when we are being forced out? Would the city fathers, who advocate the merging of the two races here in this city, wish to live in the same neighborhood?

In a neighborhood supposed to be made up of happy congenial people, would the colored people be happy among us, and would we be? I have no doubt we would not. Our only alternative will be to sell to them, and try to start over. Why doesn’t the city build proper housing conditions for them in a district of their own? Is it too late?

Would like to hear how other home owners feel concerning this problem.

HOME OWNER

Springfield

_________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, as a three year old, I was oblivious.

The Surprise Doll.

B – Basketball

1950 Census, A-Z Challenge 2022, Springfield, MA

This is my ninth year of blogging the A to Z Challenge. Everyday I will share something about my family’s life during 1950. This was a year that the USA federal census was taken and the first one that I appear in. At the end of each post I will share a book from my childhood collection.

Did you know that Basketball was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts by Dr. James Naismith while working at the local YMCA? You can hear him talk about it in the short interview below.

When my father was pastor of St. John’s Congregational Church from 1945-1951, he had an active youth program, with boys basketball being an important component.

“Cleage’s work was appraised in retrospect by the church historians in the commemorative volume The History of St. John’s Congregational Church in 1962, more than a decade after he returned to Detroit. At the outset of Cleage’s ministry at St. John’s, it was noted:

‘Mr. Cleage soon inaugurated a strong youth program for the church. Membership in St. John’s Pilgrim Fellowship and College Forum was greatly sought after, and lectures of these groups grew each week. Included among the popular activities begun by Mr. Cleage were the junior and senior dramatic workshops.

Lindsay B. Johnson Jr. and Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr.

A vigorous church athletic program that produced winning basketball teams coached by Mr. Cleage and Mr. Lindsay B. Johnson Jr., was another product of the new minister’s youth program. During this period, a Brownie Scout group was organized under the leadership of Miss Adele Pickens, a Springfield school-teacher.'”

From Prophet of the Black Nation by Hiley H. Ward ©1969 United Church Press, pg 65.

Kristin catching the ball. July 1950.

Although I didn’t play basketball, I did play catch.

Baby Bunny

A – Announcing 1950!

1950 Census, A-Z Challenge 2022, Cleages, Springfield, MA

This is my ninth year of blogging the A to Z Challenge. Everyday I will share something about my family’s life during 1950. This was a year that the USA federal census was taken and the first one that I appear in. At the end of each post I will share a book from my childhood collection.

Me in 1950, arms spread in the backyard on Union street.

Amazingly, the 1950 Census will be the first one I will personally appear in! I have spent years looking through old census records and trying to piece together the lives of my Ancestors. When I realized that the 1950 census would be released on April 1 this year, I was pretty excited that now I would get to see what picture the census gives of a year I know. Although I was only three when that census was taken in April, 1950, I remember and I recall those days. Sort of. With the help of news articles and photographs I will go through my family’s life in 1950 during this A to Z Challenge.

Although the news items show that my family was active and aware of what was happening at the time, I was blissfully unaware as I lived my young life. I was living through that simpler time everyone remembers as the past, but the adults were living through lives that were as complex as any. And so it goes.

A poem I wrote six years ago about this photo.

I was almost four
 swirling
in the backyard. My
life beginning.

August 2016 sitting at my 
desk
writing
listening to Sati. The 
ceiling fan creaks
around my husband's voice on
the phone.

Outside cars pass.
A Year on the Farm