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.
I remember wandering into the movie below one afternoon when I was three or four. We lived in St. John’s Congregational Church parsonage/community house in Springfield, Massachusetts where my father was pastor. I woke up from my nap and going down the hall to a big room where the movie was being shown. There I saw a larger then life, green genie coming horrifyingly out of a bottle. For years I could not remember the title of the film. After watching some youtube clips, I can see it had to be “The Thief of Bagdad“. It was released in 1940 and by 1950 it would have been available for showing in darkened rooms full of folding chairs to church groups. I did not stick around after the Genie started coming out of the bottle.
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.
Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr
Claims Hit By NAACP here
Committee Disputes Robinson Statement No Prejudice in Projects
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Taking vigorous exception to statements made by Springfield Housing Authority Chairman John J. Robinson, that there is no segregation in Riverview or Reed Village, Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., chairman of the housing committee of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said last night that the NAACP will take legal action if the segregation “pattern” continues. Such action will result in a test case which would receive national attention, he said.
His statement follows in brief:
“The NAACP has been engaged in investigating the tenant selection and placement policies of the Springfield Housing Authority for more than two years and our preliminary findings indicate the existence of a definite and deliberate policy of racial segregation in tenant placement in both the Riverview and Reed Village apartments,” said Rev. Cleage.
“The Springfield Housing Authority seems to subscribe to exactly the same racial theories as those advanced by some of the residents of Amore Village who stated that they were not prejudiced, but felt that Negroes should live to themselves. The Springfield Housing Authority seems to believe that Negroes and whites living in the same projects must be segregated in separate Negro and white units. The fact that this discriminatory policy existed at Riverview first prompted an NAACP investigation and eventually a conference with the Springfield Housing Authority.
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“The NAACP Housing Committee reported its findings back to the Executive Committee and was unanimously authorized to continue its investigation until the Reed Village segregation pattern had been definitely established, and if such a pattern was continued, to proceed in co-operation with the organization’s Legal Redress Committee to take legal action against the Housing Authority. The NAACP case against segregation in Public Housing will receive full support and cooperation from the National Legal Staff of the NAACP. When and if legal action is taken, Thurgood Marshall of New York, who has already been consulted regarding developments, will be asked to handle the case. Such a development will receive national attention as a test case and for that reason the Housing Committee is proceeding with understandable care in preparing its case.
“The case will again test the principle that separate but equal is an actual impossibility already established by the NAACP on many legal fronts. The NAACP contends that a pattern of segregation as practiced by the Springfield Housing Authority contradicts the non-discriminatory provisions of both the state and national Housing Acts from which the Springfield Housing Authority derives its powers. The Springfield Branch of the NAACP in no way endorses or condones the policies of the Springfield Housing Authority.” From The Springfield Union November 1, 1950
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.
Taking photographs.
My father turned 39 on his birthday, June 13, 1950.
In the final assessment of the “Years of Transition and Trial.” the History of St. John’s Congregational Church says:
“In the five years that Mr. Cleage was at St. John’s he increased the church membership and the value of the church property, and enlarged and expanded the community service activities by establishing the St. John’s Community House at 643 Union Street with a completely equipped settlement house plant.
While in Springfield, Mr. Cleage was active in civic affairs, serving on the Executive Committee, the Legal Redress Committee, and the Housing Committee of the NAACP, and participating in the Round Table of the Conference of Christians and Jews, the YMCA, and the American Red Cross. He inaugurated Sunday Cultural Vesper Services and programs. At one of these, Langston Hughes was presented. Mr. Cleage was also a popular speaker and lecturer on New England college campuses.
With the death of Dr. DeBerry and the departure of Mr. Cleage a turbulent perirod in the history of St. John’s Church came to an end, and once again the church set about the task of finding a new minister, one who, perhaps, could close the breach that still divided the congregation.”
Although much of his time was taken up with the church and community activities, my father found time to make an excellent photographic record of his two daughters time in Springfield. He took so many photographs of my sister and me during our years in Springfield. Before we were born he took many photographs of our mother, Doris Graham Cleage. Afterwards she only appears in a few along with us. Perhaps she didn’t have the time to pose any more. Perhaps we were just so interesting. As I put this series together, I wondered what her thoughts were about it.
This shot was taken in our living room in the parsonage of St. John’s Congregational Church in Springfield, Mass. For years I never noticed my father reflected in the mirror. I looked everywhere for that teapot in later years but it was lost in one of the various moves. It was blue with a gold design over it. The couch was with us for many years. By Christmas of 1950, the cushions had been replaced or recovered with red leather like fabric which is how they were until the couch disappeared from my life. I remember that table, which was also around for a long time. And those little plastic records my sister and I used to play on our parents’ record player and then on our own little phonograph.
My father’s life in photos. Done for his 100 birth anniversary.
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.
Naps were a regular part of my day back then. Usually I fell asleep because I remember several times when I woke up and nobody seemed to be around. Once I wandered down the hall and found the movie “The Thief of Baghdad” being shown. I came in just as the genie was coming out of the bottle and it was quite frightening. I didn’t see the rest of the movie.
Another time I woke up and, again no one was around. This time I heard music and noise outside and went out to find that the church was holding a carnival with rides and I don’t know what else. I think there was even a ferris wheel like the one my sister got for Christmas that year. I seem to have had my nightgown on and was hustled back into the house.
Kris, Dee Dee, Barbara. Pearl was napping
In the photographs at my grandparents in Detroit, Pearl doesn’t appear in some of them and my grandmother wrote on the back and speculated that she must have still been sleeping from her nap.
Dee Dee and Kris have a chat while Pearl makes a get-away and Barbara sleeps
The same happened in Springfield when my cousin Barbara didn’t appear in the photo, my mother guessed she was still asleep from her nap.
The Naughty Little Guest
I remember this little 2 x 3 inch book. The picture I remember is of the writing on the walls that was done by the naughty little guest, who was actually the little goat’s imaginary friend, ie herself.
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 father’s heading in the photo album page of snow photos.
My younger sister Pearl’s only memory of Springfield was of “Snow!!!! I remember looking through the front door glass and seeing snow on the porch all the way down the front walk and drifted against the car!”
I also have a memory of looking out of the door at snow up to the porch.
Winter 1949 Kris (me) and Pearl. Springfield, MASt. John’s in the snow. 1949Pearl and Kristin on Christmas 1950.
Photographs taken on Christmas day are the only ones I have of snow during 1950. There must have been some unphotographed snow earlier in the winter, because we are standing on the remnants.
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.
Springfield Union 9/24/1950 Transcribed below
Mason, Merriam, Mr. Cleage Assail M’Carran Anti-Red Bill, Urge Veto
Opposition to the McCarran Communist-control bill and approval of President Truman’s veto of it were expressed on the radio yesterday by several citizens.
Calls it Undemocratic
Councilman Paul R. Mason called the bill “extremely detrimental to the entire structure of democracy. If in attempting to defeat communism, we employ undemocratic tactics, then democracy is the loser.”
Rev. Albert B. cleage, Jr, minister of St. John’s Congregational Church, said the Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, AFL and several church groups have denounced the bill.
Thornton W. Merriam, dean of Springfield College, said “my love for my country, it’s history and its ideals, prompts me to warn you (citizens of Western Massachusetts) that a great menace hovers over us all. This menace is the McCarran bill.”
Sees Bill Repressive
He called its provisions “repressive and undemocratic” foresees that the liberties “we have considered our birth right for 200 years” would be done away with.
The speakers urged that letters he sent Sens. Lodge and Saltonstall urging them to uphold the veto.
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.
Rev. A. B. Cleage, Jr
Negro Veteran Beaten By Cop, Klein Claims
Police Deny His Charges; NAACP Silent Until Probe Finished
Springfield Union Nov 1, 1950. Pg 26
About 500 flyers charging a Springfield police officer with the brutal beating of a Negro veteran, were circulated yesterday by the Progressive Party of Springfield, according to its chairman, Richard M. Klein.
The flyer charges that Orris Williams was stopped by an officer while going to his car from his house on Monroe St. and taken to a back lot and hit twice in the mouth. The flyer charges that protest have been made to the police chief and nothing has been done.
Deputy Police Chief Francis M. Gallagher stated last night that he had received the protest from Williams and as he does in the case of all such protests, made a through investigation. He said that he had questioned all persons involved and had found no evidence that the officer in question had struck Williams or was in any manner brutal.
Klein stated last night that the matter had been taken to the Legal Redress Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Rev. Albert Cleage, chairman of the Legal Redress Committee of the NAACP stated that he has a statement from Williams, but that the NAACP will make no comment until its investigation is complete.
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.
Looking out of my bedroom window
early in the morning, I would
watch the milk man with his
horse and wagon go down the street
I must have been two because
when my sister was born we moved, and
my bedroom was in the back of the house,
with no window on the street.
He left our milk in a gray tin box on
the back porch. That was in Springfield. Later,
when we moved to Detroit, we had
a milk chute on the side of the house.
It had a little door on the inside and a little door on the
outside so the milkman, who now drove a truck,
could put the milk in and we could get it
out on the other side. On cold winter
mornings, the frozen milk
rose up over the top of the brown bottle.
For years I saved milk caps in a kitchen
drawer. Just saved them, never did anything with them.
After the heroin epidemic came, everybody sealed up
those milk chutes so no skinny thieves could
climb in the house that way.
You can see the tin milk box behind me and my dolls.
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.
Pearl, our mother Doris, Kristin (Me). October 1950. Springfield, Massachusetts
Now and Then
Golden leaves fell in the bushes
overnight brightening my yard.
Behind my eyes,
I walk beside a river
with my mother. Trees all golden.
A dog splashes in the water,
shakes himself .
My four year old self
watches.
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.
Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr on the steps of St. John’s Church.
My father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage, spoke up for peace consistently throughout his life. In 1948 he signed a A Plea for Peace – April 1948. In 1966 he ran for Congress on a platform against the War in Vietnam, Cleage for Congress – 1966 and his church ran a draft counseling program to help those who did not want to go into the military and fight in Vietnam. As I recall, he signed petitions for peace while he was in college in the 1940s, before WW 2, unfortunately I have no documentation and no one is left to ask.
I thought it was interesting that at the same time as Rev. Cleage was opposing war, his cousin was one of the “Negro Troops” in the middle of the war. John Harvey, Jr. was the son of my father’s first cousin, Marie who was the daughter of my grandmother Pearl Reed Cleage‘s sister Sarah Reed Busby.
Newsletter Urges End to War in Korea, UN Seat for China
Dean Merriman, Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. Among Authors of New Peace Movement Publication
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Urging an immediate cease fire movement of Korea by both sides and the seating of “New China” in the United Nations, a group here yesterday launched “a peace movement” by sending out an “information bulletin” quoting excerpts from various magazine and newspaper articles attacking Gen. Douglas MacArthur and President Rhee of South Korea.
The group backing the pamphlet is mad up of Dean Thornton W. Merriam of Springfield College, Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. of Springfield College, Maxwell H. Tasgal, Charles H. Haygood and Prof. Frank A. Warren of Springfield College.
The bulletin claims that the press in America beats the drums for war but in the “avalanche of war propaganda” a voice appears now and then which tells the truth. Among the organs quoted in criticism of Gen MacArthur’s action in Korea and President Rhee are the Associated Press, Catholic Irish Times, Manchester Guardian, The Nation, New York Compass and several radio commentators.
“W e are moving along the road toward casually lists too horrible to envisage.” says the bulletin. “The time is late but it is not too late to halt the slaughter of Americans, of Koreans, of Chinese and of all peoples. Peace in Korea is the first step toward peace throughout the world. Work and fight for peace in Korea.”
The bulletin urges that the citizens make their views known to President Truman, Secretary of State Acheson, and United Nations representative Warren R. Austin. Besides asking for cease fire orders in Korea, citizens should urge, it asserts, that a conference of all parties to the dispute in Korea including North and South Korea and New China be held.
It says that there is great danger the the “little war in Korea.” will turn into “a big war with China.”
Prof. Warren said last night that the movement is “purely local.”
