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"collection_name": "Duluth African American Oral History Project (UMD)",
"collection_name_s": "Duluth African American Oral History Project (UMD)",
"collection_description": "The Duluth African American Oral History Project was initiated by the board of Clayton Jackson, McGhie Memorial, Inc. to aid in the documentation of the history of Duluth’s African American community. The funding came from a Legacy Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. The African American Oral History Project includes interviews designed to document particular aspects of Duluth’s history and/or important local institutions, such as the Institute for Afro-American Awareness, the local branch of NAACP, St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, Calvary Baptist Church and the Juneteenth Celebration committee, as well as document African American life more generally. The interviews were conducted between November 2016 and February 2017.
Taken as a group, these interviews were conducted in order to document the many aspects of life in Duluth, particularly as experienced by African Americans. Business people, educators, laborers, commercial seamen, fire fighters, military veterans, civil employees, community activists and other civic leaders of various kinds, as well as regular folks, were interviewed. Some interviews are brief, lasting 60 minutes or less; others are more extensive, lasting up to three or more hours. The interviewees talk about their parents, their upbringing (often outside Duluth), their experiences in school, their careers, and their achievements. They discuss everyday life as well as the big events in the history they lived. The interviewees offer their own perspective on events, and while there are many areas of agreement, there are events that they each remember in their own ways.",
"title": "Interview with Portia Johnson, Part 2",
"title_s": "Interview with Portia Johnson, Part 2",
"title_t": "Interview with Portia Johnson, Part 2",
"title_search": "Interview with Portia Johnson, Part 2",
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"2016-09-27"
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"2016-09-27"
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"date_created_sort": "2016",
"creator": [
"Johnson, Portia"
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"contributor": [
"Woodward, David",
"Phelps Horton, Rachel",
"Paul, MizJanetta"
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"Phelps Horton, Rachel",
"Paul, MizJanetta"
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"notes": "Portia Johnson was born in 1940 in Columbus Ohio. She moved to Duluth in 1966 and worked as a certified nurses assistant at Chris Jensen nursing homes and as a cartographer for St. Louis County. She also attended classes at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has four children and many grand children and great grand children. Ms. Johnson was a Minnesota Delegate for the DFL party thee times and attended Bill Clinton’s Inauguration. Her community activities include: Serving as president of the Duluth Chapter of the NAACP, member of the Arrowhead Regional Corrections Advisory Board, Independent School District 709 Desegregation/Integration Council, League of Women Voters, St. Louis to End Homelessness Committee, a founding member of the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial Committee, member of Community Action Duluth, and served on the Board of the Institute for Afro-American Awareness. In 2004 Ms. Johnson was recognized as a YWCA Women of Distinction and in 2012 she was honored at the CJM Annual Dinner.",
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"subject": [
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"Duluth"
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"state": [
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"country": [
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"contributing_organization": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contributing_organization_name": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contributing_organization_name_s": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth",
"contact_information": "Archives and Special Collections, Kathryn A. Martin Library, University of Minnesota Duluth. 416 Library Drive University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN 55812; https://lib.d.umn.edu/",
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"UMD_U6213_00018"
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"date_added": "2019-09-23T00:00:00Z",
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"date_modified": "2020-11-23T00:00:00Z",
"transcription": "Duluth African American Oral History Project\nInterview with Portia Johnson, Part 2\nInterviewers: David Woodward, Rachel Phelps Horton, MizJanetta Paul\nDate: September 27, 2016\nPortia Johnson: She was, she was wonderful and she would check to see if all the kids were there every night. And when we had parties here in Duluth, at Lurline's house a lot of times you know, so when we had parties the kids came to the house, they went also. My daughter in law says, \"Take my kids to somebody else's house.\" Well that's how your husband grew up. Yeah we did. The kids were all upstairs and we were downstairs partying. That's how that worked. It did.\nAnd you hear those kids, they said oh yeah we had lots of food the next morning. Yes you all did.\nBut Susie, and no matter where we went, Susie went with us. I don't care where it was my dog went with us. When we went home for leave, 30 days leave, that's what the US Air Force give us, Susie went home, in the projects and my mother says, \"Well hope I don't get in no trouble.\" Because you’re not supposed to have animals in the projects.\nYou know what, yup, Susie was right there. But anyway Michael would come in, Lurline's son, from a gig, because Mike is a drummer and Mike was the drummer for Whitney Houston. He was her drummer for many years and her music director.\nDavid Woodward: What is his last name?\nPortia Johnson: Michael Baker. Yeah. And Mike, he was a teenager. Down there when y'all were, when Heidi was asking me about to the club down on Michigan, The Rendezvous.\nDavid Woodward: We did want to know about that one.\nPortia Johnson: No you don't.\nDavid Woodward: Yes we do.\nRachel Phelps Horton: We love history here so we love everything you have to tell us.\nPortia Johnson: Mike started playing you know drums, he was under age, he really was and it's the thing about Mike playing the drums. He was playing the drums at Washington Junior High, that teacher, a music teacher said he would never amount to anything and he wouldn't allow him to play in the band or anything. No they would not, all white at Washington Junior High. And when he got to Central, a little bit... that teacher wasn't as hard. But they did, they told Mike he wouldn't go nowhere but every year Mike has ever come back home, Mike has always done... given a lesson at Central, when Central was open. He would always give a free concert. Mike always did that. But anyhow, Mike would come in from his gig down at the Rendezvous, Susie wouldn't let him up the stairs.\nThat's how protective Susie, our dog.... It takes Mike to tell you that story.\nYes but that's how... she was very protective. And then when I cut my foot when we were stationed in Florida she wouldn't let nobody come near me. I cut half my toe off, my big toe. And I'm laying out there on the ground and hardly anybody was home. We lived on base housing. I still don't know to this day who came and got me. I mean I know I was in an ambulance. I don't know who found me. I don't know any of that. I just don't know. That was in the early 70s. It was, I just don't know. But I know I was trying to calm her down and she wouldn't let nobody come. I know she wouldn't let nobody come near me.\nDavid Woodward: Protection.\nPortia Johnson: Yes she was. Because we never trained her up. We didn't have to. Susie would either lay in the front yard or the back yard. She was that collie that that neighbor gave to my kids you know. So I don't know. I still don't know how I got to the hospital that day. I don't know. But yeah they had to put her in a house somewhere or something. Yeah. She wouldn't let Mike come up the stairs a lot of times.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Someone was looking out for you.\nPortia Johnson: Yeah, when the man came to see about the heat. She lays right there because the stairs come around, you got three stairs, and she can lay right there on that step. And then the rest of the stairs come down straight. He come in to check the radiators because of the heat. The kind of heating that I had. She just laid watching he couldn't get out. You couldn't get up stairs either. You had to call me.\nThat's just the kind of dog she was. He could get in the house but he sure couldn't get back out.\nNo he could not and he couldn't come upstairs because you know they had to have the key to open up the air vent on the radiator, it's hot air.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Oh it wasn't the knob.\nPortia Johnson: It's a little key. But you have to in order to let the pressure. The little key, and no he couldn't come upstairs to the bedrooms at all and he couldn't get... so he had to call me on the phone, I'm at work. I said put the phone to her ear, that's the only thing I could say.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So the IAAA was well received in the community. Is there any other kinds of....?\nPortia Johnson: We had a lot of barbecues. I mean, you know everybody was invited. We had discussions. We had... we had you know, a lot of things for our kids.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Specifically Black kids?\nPortia Johnson: Yeah, it was.\nDavid Woodward: What about nutritional programs or food?\nPortia Johnson: We had that on Saturday. You know when we had the tutorial programs, it would be a breakfast also.\nYou know, we would have that and I'm trying to remember... I can't remember how we got that. I just don't remember you know that at one time IAAA, we were in the school, it was Franklin School. It's been torn down now. But that's where we started was at the Franklin School. It was on 7th Street and 5th Avenue West. It's where the Sports Court is, you know where the Sports Court is? No you don't, I can tell by all of you all's faces. It's a big empty lot right now.\nThey had the swings and all like that. In the back is where the guys played basketball. It's called the Sports Court now but that was Franklin School.\nI'm trying to think of the... the kind of teaching that went on there because it wasn't your regular....\nRachel Phelps Horton: It's like Montessori school?\nPortia Johnson: It wasn't a Montessori. It was an open school.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Meaning?\nDavid Woodward: Similar to Montessori but they didn't really have classrooms it was more collaborative.\nRachel Phelps Horton: It was less structure based.\nPortia Johnson: That's what I was looking for, it wasn't really structured. No it wasn't. And that's when they closed Franklin and that's when we went in there.\nThe city allowed us to go in there and needed a new furnace. So we writing a grant asking the city to put...because it's one of those big huge furnaces.\nI had one of them in my house when I first moved in. Because it used to be coal at one time. It used to be a coal furnace. I mean C.O.A.L. that kind of coal.\nRachel Phelps Horton: What other kind of coal is there? Like the black stuff you get in your stocking.\nPortia Johnson: You remember that, do you?\nRachel Phelps Horton: I never got that.\nMizJanetta Paul: What year did Franklin School close down?\nPortia Johnson: That's a good question. I don't know, I don't remember. I just don't. I'm trying to think, Oh Lordy, when we started IAAA it had to be in '76. So I'm thinking maybe '78 or something like, I'm not quite sure.\nRachel Phelps Horton: And then that's when you moved to the place across from Washington?\nPortia Johnson: Central Hillside Community Center, right. When it became empty when they moved the social workers out of there. Well we couldn't get the furnace fixed for one thing at Franklin. And then the mayor that we had, well we had a board, see also. And we had quite a few people who were known in our community, you know in the city itself. We had two lawyers on our board and one of them was on the city council as well.\nAnd so that helped us a lot, that helped us an awful lot because the mayor... that's when John Fedo became mayor and that's when a lot of things...because John took it away, he wanted to take it away from us because Black folks shouldn't have things like this, what John said.\nMizJanetta Paul: What was John's last name?\nPortia Johnson: Fedo.\nRachel Phelps Horton: And so what were the years of activity for the IAAA? You started in 1976. And when did it end, or did it evolve into a different community program?\nPortia Johnson: It did... when John became mayor I'm trying to think, because see I became..., I'm trying...there is so much that went on during that time.\nWe still had a lot of activities. We still had a lot of barbecues, fish fries, and that kind of stuff going on. But then...and grants being written you know for a lot of the monies that... we had to in order to keep the... for the upkeep of the building. And sometimes we were getting some funds from the city and some from the feds.\nBut a lot of us got off the board or some of the people moved away. And Verne, she was director, and see she moved. I'm thinking she moved back home to Chicago and several of the board members moved and some were in the Air Force.\nSo then another group of people came on board and then they were friends with John. And that caused a lots of problems, lots and lots of problems. And so all of us got off the board. There's no way in the world to be on that board with John Fedo. And he was trying to break our contract. Our contract was for 10 years.\nWayne Gilbraith who was an attorney, who is an attorney... He doesn't live here, Wayne lives down in the Cities. But Wayne is the one who wrote the contract up and it couldn't be broken. And that's what John and some of his cronies kept trying to do is break the contract. According to him Black folks, you know they don't need to have anything. They don't know how to take care of anything. You know that kind of thing. And so you know he had that contract for 10 years.\nDavid Woodward: So you're saying, you've put a lot of weight on John Fedo as being a disruptive force. What you're building in the late 70s he sort of squashed...\nPortia Johnson: You know what, well you know what, I am not going to bash John. I don't like him. He knows that. I've never disputed that. Because John and I have... we've butt heads for so many years. In fact he was the first car dealer, when he used to work for Kolar, when it was down on Superior street. I bought my car and it was a lemon and I could never get it fixed, that did it for me. And his two brothers, two of his brothers worked there in the maintenance department. And I know so much stuff that John has done, dirty stuff.\nRachel Phelps Horton: I was going to say, so that's kind of your first interactions with him. Did you find that a lot of Duluth's politicians were along the same mindset as John or did you see some that were, you know, an opposing force to what he was doing and trying to build your community up?\nPortia Johnson: You know there weren't a lot of them that agreed with him but they didn't say anything about it. They didn't do anything either. I guess we didn't have, must not have had a lot of the voice for that.\nYou know like I said our contract was for 10 years and it couldn't be broken. He tried and he ran the city the way ...he was, how can I say? He did, he just really ran the city. So that was it, I'll just put it at that.\nDavid Woodward: On your board of directors for the IAAA, who was on that? What kind of community members were on there? Were there some dignitaries or were they just concerned citizens?\nPortia Johnson: Well it was both, like I said you know we had Wayne who was on the city council.\nDavid Woodward: Wayne?\nPortia Johnson: Gilbraith, he was an attorney. I'm trying to think of who else was on...Lurline, myself, Claudie Washington. I'm trying to think of who else was on there.\nSharon wasn't on there, I was going to say Sharon Witherspoon but she was still at home raising kids, having babies, that's what she was doing.\nMizJanetta Paul: Was there a lot of females on the board?\nPortia Johnson: I want to say maybe five, five of us.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Five out of how many?\nPortia Johnson: The board wasn't real big. I wanted to say, I want to say10 was the board, and I could be wrong. But one or two of the people were in the military and I can't remember their names. I just can't.\nDavid Woodward: You have military, you got concerned citizens, and Lurline, first Black school board member.\nPortia Johnson: Her name is Lurline.L.u.r.l.i.n.e, Baker-Kent.\nRachel Phelps Horton: And so was the IAAA, did they get involved in civil rights up in here in Duluth too? Or did they mostly focus on like educational aspects... of you know... or during that time? ...Sorry.\nPortia Johnson: I'm waiting, I'm just waiting. Civil Rights plays a big part in our lives. It always has. So yes it did play a big...Bill Maupins, I know I had to think of somebody else. Bill Maupins. He was a person that everybody went to here in Duluth.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Is that M.o.p.p.i.n.s?\nPortia Johnson: No, it's M.a.u.p.i.n.s.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Like the French, like Mo Pau.\nPortia Johnson: And does that name ring a bell or something. He worked up here in Chemistry. David Woodward: Yeah I think you had mentioned him the other night.\nPortia Johnson: Yeah he worked up here in the chemistry department. And he was president of the NAACP for many, many, many years. But the politicians would come to Bill. They'd come to his house and that's where a lot of talking went on. You don't know how you've heard about the...not back door but you know politicians have talked.\nDavid Woodward: Behind closed doors?\nPortia Johnson: Yeah closed doors. That's what it was at Bill's house. A lot of times it was white and Black. It was mostly whites from downtown. Sit there with that bottle of scotch and you get all kinds of information. And it happened.\nDavid Woodward: Get things done.\nPortia Johnson: Yes things got done, oh did they ever. Oh yeah a lot of people didn't know that, a lot of people didn't know that, people who got into office that that kind of thing. Yeah, political stuff, Yeah. Bill was very good about that. He was very astute when it come to politics. He really was.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So he helped get a lot of things passed for your organization?\nPortia Johnson: He did, but not too much, but not so much for our organization. But you know for people to get on boards that will help us. OK. See at one time Bill was on the civil service. He was a civil service commissioner. In fact I was at one time also but he was on there for a long time. And that's how we got people jobs. That's how he got people jobs working for the city.\nRachel Phelps Horton: OK, is that how you got your job as the cartographer?\nPortia Johnson: No I was with the county, that's county...\nDavid Woodward: Did you belong to a lot of commissions, city commissions?\nPortia Johnson: That was the only one, as a commissioner for civil service. Yeah I did that right after I retired. They, they talked me into it. Two days after I retired, I was, oh God, y' all. Give me a rest. I was on there for 11 years.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So what would you say were or are your impressions of the city of Duluth and how its government has related to your political organizations in trying to either you know up build them or you know kind of stagnate them the way that John seemed to be doing?\nDo you see that organizations for the Black community have increased or stayed the same?\nPortia Johnson: It's sort of hard to answer that. It is and it isn't. Things have changed to some degree. And I'll put to you... the racism isn't as blatant as it was.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Can you elaborate more on that?\nPortia Johnson: As far as racism? As far as the disparities in the court, as far as you have more Blacks incarcerated in Stillwater and all those other institutions that we have. Is it Oak Park, Stillwater, St. Cloud. You have more Blacks in those places for the least little thing than you do anywhere else. In fact there is a forum that's coming up the 29th of October. I don't know, it's at, where is that going to be, it's at St. Scholastica, the Supreme Court judges are coming.\nRachel Phelps Horton: All of them?\nPortia Johnson: Oh no, all of them never come, I'll tell you that. But there's a great disparity in our court system and it is, you know and I practically live downtown in the courthouse. My grandkids have me down there all the time. And I could say that you know when I worked for the county. I was on the racial bias task force they started that because of you know the disparities in the courthouse. One of the judges started that. And because you don't have, he says you have people that look like me come before him, but people that look like me don't work in the courthouse and that's why they started the racial bias task force in the county.\nDavid Woodward: What year did they do that?\nPortia Johnson: Don't ask me that. I'm trying to think.\nDavid Woodward: You can say mid-80's, mid-90s.\nPortia Johnson: No it was in the 90s because I started working downtown in '90 then I retired to 2004.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So it's relatively recent.\nPortia Johnson: Twelve years, that not relatively recent as far as I'm concerned. But they're OK, go ahead.\nBecause there are so many Blacks that have been charged. $50,000 you know $75,000 for, it's not even a felony sometimes. That's a great disparity and a white person kills somebody and $10,000 is the bond. I said, Oh no no. And it still happens.\nGo ahead, David.\nDavid Woodward: Can I ask you a question, raising children here, did you educate them on how they should act to keep them out of the court system. What kind of things did you tell them possibly that other people might not have to have told to them?\nPortia Johnson: I did you know and that's why I got in so many different committees to help the community and to educate our children. Like I've been on the ARC, Arrowhead Regional Corrections Advisory Board for a little over a, they just told me today and I didn't even think about it, since '93 and hadn't thought about it. Myself and two other people.\nBut yeah I talk to them. And that's why I got on the racial bias task force so I can learn the laws. You know what you do and what you don't do. What is being passed, you know it's like the diversion program for our kids. I didn't learn about that until two years after they had implemented that. And I was just furious because no Black kids were... they didn't put no Black kids in that diversion program. And I raised....\nRachel Phelps Horton: H.E double hockey sticks.\nPortia Johnson: Thank you, I get ready to say that word, I get mad, I get very angry about that. I really do.\nDavid Woodward: Diversion Program?\nPortia Johnson: Diversion program is for kids, first time offenders, is supposed to be that, short of them not killing anyone, but doing really, silly, dumb.\nI don't like to use the word dumb either but they do stuff to get himself in trouble. Shoplifting, get in a fight, that kind of thing. And then it's almost like community work.\nBut diversion is that you go to the county attorney's office, now it is, you go to the county attorney's office and more than one kid is there with their parents, parent or parents, it usually depends upon their you know, their family. They have to say what they've done and they have to do two days with the Men as Peacemakers. They have to be in the circle. And it's for two hours for two days that the diversion program and that way, because they have pleaded... they say that they are guilty you know, they say what they have done.\nAnd then after they have completed the two days, and the four hours as Men as Peacemakers, then they don't have a record. They're not supposed to. I don't trust that. But... I have talked to my great grandkids because I've had to go down to three times. But yeah.\nBut according to the county attorney's office there shouldn't be a record.\nMizJanetta Paul: Do they tell you to rip up the ticket that they give you.\nPortia Johnson: Yes they do.\nMizJanetta Paul: They tear it up.\nPortia Johnson: How do you know?\nMizJanetta Paul: I know people.\nPortia Johnson: That doesn't answer my question, you know it as well as I do, but that's OK.\nYes they do have to do that. Yeah they do. You know, that's the diversion. But it was two years after they started that that I found out and I found out by accident because the director of ARC never talked about it... our board meetings and did I, I lit into him at a board meeting. I didn't care who heard it. I was furious because none of our kids got to go through that. Our kids had records.\nDavid Woodward: That was in 2000s yeah.\nPortia Johnson: I'm trying to think, yeah it was in the 2000s and I'm trying to think when that was.\nAl Mitchell was the county attorney at that time. Yeah, it had to be in the 2000s, yeah.\nRachel Phelps Horton: OK. And so I don't know just kind of stemming off and trying to keep on the same topic of education and our community and stuff. So, when you were teaching the classes, how did you talk about and discover, what were your feelings about the Clayton Jackson McGhie lynching and was there still like an aftermath reaction when you moved here in the 60s and 70s? Was the community still, I guess how was the community still affected after that?\nPortia Johnson: Well the lynching was in 1920.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Right.\nPortia Johnson: But there was still blatant racism here when we moved here in '66. It was blatant, it was very blatant.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Did people still talk about the lynching.\nPortia Johnson: No they didn't want to talk about it at all. No not even when we started. The board for the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie oh... people were just furious.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So they didn't see. You weren't able to even teach that in your tutorial.\nPortia Johnson: Oh I could because I'm Black. It was all Black kids but I didn't know about it at that time. I'm not from here, you gotta remember. I didn't know about that lynching here.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Would you remember the first time you heard about it?\nPortia Johnson: When I came on board. Really. But you know Bill Maupins had talked about it a little bit but we talked about so many things, politics. In fact his dad was the one who alerted all the Blacks, as many Blacks as he could that day to hide... go and hide because he saw them, he was on his way home from work.\nRachel Phelps Horton: He saw the mob coming?\nPortia Johnson: Yeah, he saw a lot of the people and he was on the bus you know and getting off the bus and he saw. Yeah. And he's the one who got on the phone, went home and got on the phone and called as many Black folks as he could.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Is he still alive?\nPortia Johnson: Oh God no, neither is Bill. Oh no. OK, all Bill's kids live down the Cities.\nRachel Phelps Horton: OK. So it wasn't spoken about in the community of African-Americans.\nPortia Johnson: No, you know what, if it was it was not written down. You know like a lot of Black history is, OK. Things that happened here. That's how it was here also.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Was that like a regular occurrence would you say?\nPortia Johnson: Talking? Talking about things that happened, talking about people who would harm you or your children as far as police go as far as anything. It was spoken but not to everybody, not in the big forum or anything.\nDavid Woodward: That could be dangerous right?\nPortia Johnson: Yes, yes it could be very dangerous.\nMizJanetta Paul: Who was he? Because I've never heard this story, Clayton, Jackson, McGhie.\nDavid Woodward: Oh the lynching memorial... we can talk about that at another time.\nPortia Johnson: Oh, you haven't seen the lynching, oh the memorial. Oh ok.\nDavid Woodward: We can bring her down there.\nPortia Johnson: You should, you know 1st Street and 2nd Avenue West. The big memorial and it have three Black men in the wall.\nRachel Phelps Horton: With the little garden in the middle.\nYeah it's across from that really hideous like hotel. I don't know if that rings a bell. OK anyway. OK great. Well so. So that wasn't spoken about that was. And so when you moved up here was, how large was the community of African-Americans?\nPortia Johnson: It was really large because we had the air base.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Oh that's right. OK.\nPortia Johnson: It was very large. I don't know what the population was at the time. I want to say two thousand. I could be....that was just the Blacks. You had a lot of Blacks who lived here who came from the south. What did they say, short of the Ku Klux Klan behind them. And so therefore they didn't have anything to do with a lot of us.\nThey're still afraid. You know rightly so. So they didn't participate in a lot of things. I mean when we had barbecues and stuff like that. But as far as talking about anything, no, they never did, they never would.\nDavid Woodward: It's dangerous business.\nPortia Johnson: Well down south it was then, they don't know about up here. Your among a lot of white folks up here you know.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Right.\nPortia Johnson: Like I say, a lot of things is blatant here, at that time.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So, speaking of committees. We ... are doing this project for the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie memorial and the committee there in. And so you were on the YWCA Committee, Inter-racial Committee or do you know anything about that from the 1970s?\nDavid Woodward: The YWCA Inter-racial Committee?\nRachel Phelps Horton: And the Black Women's Group or the Duluth Association for Black Concerns do any of those ring a bell for you?\nPortia Johnson: Oh, Jesus, there's been so many of them. Ok. here in Duluth?\nRachel Phelps Horton: Yes, or are there any organizations that stand out in your mind?\nPortia Johnson: Because I ran across a paper the other day and I said, oh God I forgot about this, The Democratic Black Women. I was at...I'm trying to remember, see I belong to some of them down in St. Paul also so. I don't think about those things anymore. And I used to go down there a lot, to learn, basically. Because here you don't learn anything, I'm sorry, but that's just how it is for me.\nRachel Phelps Horton: You don't learn a thing in what way?\nPortia Johnson: You don't have a large enough group here in Duluth whereas down in the Twin Cities, yes you do. You have more people and they've been there a long time. People here, a lot of Black folks here are too afraid to talk about anything.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Still?\nPortia Johnson: Well to a certain degree, we don't have the, I'm one of the old timers now. There's only about four of us now. You know all the rest of them are dead. But I'm not afraid to talk. But they know that I got a big mouth according to them. I just never thought so.\nRachel Phelps Horton: We like people like you because that's where we get all the lost history from that we never would have known about.\nPortia Johnson: So the YWCA, OK. I know what you're saying now. I had forgotten all about that, go ahead.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Yeah so, is it the YWCA because you were a woman of distinction in 2004.\nPortia Johnson: That was the year I retired.\nRachel Phelps Horton: OK great.\nDavid Woodward: And I think these are maybe short lived organizations, the YWCA Inter-racial Committee.\nPortia Johnson: Well it was.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Organized by Cleaster Jackson.\nDavid Woodward: The Black Women's Group at the community club was organized by Cleaster Jackson. You know Cleaster Jackson?\nPortia Johnson: Who's that? I don't even know who that is. Rachel Phelps Horton: How are the interracial relationships in Duluth? I am for one am interested because I'm mixed. My father is Black and my mom is white. So I love, you know the history of mixed people... because that was one thing that I'm interested in for historical purposes. And so were there any mixed families or were children like me looked down upon highly like they always were like mulattoes. And like how did that play out in Duluth community?\nPortia Johnson: It hasn't changed a lot. I can tell you that. But you do see a lot more.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot more.\nPortia Johnson: I have too. And you know what and I said that over the years and many times I said you will see it... you know over the years you're going to see more kids of color who are mixed. A lot of who are, are African-American and Native and African-American and white. Are you going to see it. People don't want to hear that. Yeah but it happens, it really does. So a lot of times the kids were really frowned on and at school they were made fun of.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So there were families of interracial marriages. OK. OK.\nDavid Woodward: And would they get it from both sides then?\nPortia Johnson: It was mostly from the white side. And that was something that I talked to my kids or anybody's kid that when you come from a mixed family you know mixed heritage parentage, which side are you going to go you know where are you accepted? A lot of times the white community don't accept. And I know that.\nDavid Woodward: The one drop rule.\nPortia Johnson: You got that right. yeah. They do not accept. And they didn't, you know then.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So would the children have gone to Black schools?\nDavid Woodward: We didn't have any Bkack schools, no not here.\nPortia Johnson: So no they just had to deal with it the best that they could. And I told my kids, because people thought my kids were mixed, no. Their daddy was just a little bit lighter than me. No, neither one of our parents were mixed or any of that stuff. But that's not the point.\nThe point to me is that kids, by me working with preschoolers I heard so much from those kids.\n[00:40:25] And adults can be so cruel and they have been, to those kids, you know those are babies but they heard it and then they would in turn do it to somebody else and they did. You know preschool's from three years old to six years old. I heard it and I saw it you know I was there with them every day you know. And I talked to my own kids when they were growing up. And I'm, to be honest I told them, Do not marry a white woman. I'm serious, because I heard that growing up that it makes it harder.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Right.\nPortia Johnson: For a kid from a mix, you know, parentage because they don't know where they belong. But I guess he didn't listen to me.\nDavid Woodward: You got some mixed grand kids?\nPortia Johnson: Yes I do. This one granddaughter, I love her dearly, she's a grown woman now. But you know when she was growing up her mom didn't know how to fix her hair.\nThat's my other thing, that's my other thing. That's one of my biggest things right there. White women do not know how to deal with these little kids' hair.\nAnd I told my daughter in law that and, \"oh I know it\", OK, alright. And I kept telling my granddaughter I said \"you cannot wash your hair every day like your mama.\" I said, \"you don't have the same kind of hair as your mama.\" I said, \"I told your mom and she didn't want to hear me.\" I said, \"but you better listen to me.\" You can't do that every day. \"grandma\", ain't no grandma to this one. And I would bring all the hair products because her mother didn't, wouldn't get it. She would go get one thing. I said, \"Oh no no no, you need more than one thing.\" You know for her hair. And one time she went out of town and my son and I was there, I was there to watch the kids. And I couldn't get comb through my granddaughter's hair.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Oh gosh.\nPortia Johnson: Her mom had not combed to the roots, to the scalp. So all of this back here was matted and I cut and I got busy cutting hair. My daughter in law was mad at me for a long time but that's, you know because she never combed it. My daughter in law didn't comb it all the way through to the scalp or any of that stuff you know. And my son said, \"oh mom\", and I said, \"don't be oh mom me\". I told you to tell her that, you didn't do it. Those are some of my reasons but you know hey, they got them and I love them to death but I just told them there is no way in God's name you gonna ever be able to pass for white.\nThere's no way cause you're too brown, you too much like me. So therefore no. And I said yeah that's true. The mothers don't tell them that though and it makes it hard. It makes it very hard on those kids because the mothers don't know. They don't know. I don't know, what do you say? OK, what else?\nDavid Woodward: Some of the things that sort of developed, I don't anything about when they developed. The first one is the Juneteenth celebration. That doesn't go back... to the 20s maybe. I don't know, when did begin?\nPortia Johnson: Originally that began...\nDavid Woodward: Here in this community.\nPortia Johnson: Oh in this community. Oh ok I thought you wanted the history, I was ready to give you the history on that one. Okay, in this community at the time. Reverend Caldwell's wife, what is her name? She was a schoolteacher and she was teaching and they came from the Twin Cities and see she brought that with her, you know, for us started celebrating Juneteenth because they celebrate that. So one of the bigger celebrations in the Midwest is Minneapolis. It used to be a whole weekend thing. It's not anymore. Down to one day but Novella, that's her name. Novella Caldwell?\nYes, she was teaching, oh Lord Jesus, I want to say first grade or something like that. Anyhow, she used to have the different different groups come up from the Twin Cities and we used to have parades down 4th Street from... from the park because they would be in the park, you know 4th Street park, or Portland Square. Well I say 4th street because that's right where I live. Anyway.\nRachel Phelps Horton: We're all neighbors I live around there too.\nPortia Johnson: Do you live around there too. Where?\nRachel Phelps Horton: I know a lot of people around there. Well I'm kind of a few blocks down but, oh sorry yeah.\nPortia Johnson: That's alright, we're neighbors. Anyway, 4th Street, that's where she'd start the parade. And she used to have the, oh shoot what are they? The Bugle Group from the Twin Cities and the dancers. She would have two or three groups come up and you know we all would get in the parade and go down Fourth Street all the way to the center, yes it was fun, it was fun. We haven't done that in many a year.\nDavid Woodward: I do remember they had the celebration at Portland Square and they moved it to the center.\nPortia Johnson: Yes.\nDavid Woodward: Maybe 10 years ago or more.\nPortia Johnson: It was more than that because I did it for 10 years myself. Don't ask me what years because I don't remember, but I was the chair for many years, yeah, about 10 years I was the chair until Claudie took over.\nDavid Woodward: Do you think it was in the 70s when that started?\nPortia Johnson: No, you mean when she started it?\nDavid Woodward: Yeah in Duluth here.\nPortia Johnson: I'm trying to remember, in the 70s, I came back in ‘76 so.\nI'm trying to think, ..... left in '80, it had to be in the early 80s I'm thinking. But it was nice it was fun. And it was educating the other communities. Yeah. And so yeah we did move it down to Central Hillside Community Center because when it rained what are you going to do. There's no way to shield anyone you know.\nDavid Woodward: June isn't the greatest month in Duluth.\nPortia Johnson: No it isn't. I've seen it snow. I don't even want to use that word right now. I really don't. But anyway. Yeah. So yeah we did move it down there.\nDavid Woodward: Was it always on the same dates or did you move it around?\nPortia Johnson: You know what. It can't be on the same date because the 19th isn't on the same date.\nDavid Woodward: Because now it coincides often with Grandma's Marathon.\nPortia Johnson: Yes it does, it's the same day as Grandma's Marathon and most certainly is, just the way it goes. And you know we had been asked several times when I was chair to move it to the following week. And I refuse, I absolutely refuse. I said no I'm standing ground. I said it was our slaves. It wasn't Grandma's Marathon. OK.\nDavid Woodward: Let them move theirs.\nPortia Johnson: That's what I said too but you know they wasn't about move theirs. So it is on the same day as Grandma’s Marathon.\nDavid Woodward: Nationally it was here first.\nPortia Johnson: Oh yeah. Nationally it was but I'm trying to think what year was this year's ....When was the marathon this year? What was the numbers? What was it, is it the 30th. No it wasn't the 30th.\nDavid Woodward: No more than that. I think it started in '76, somehow that strikes me.\nPortia Johnson: I don't know but anyway yeah.\nDavid Woodward: And then another celebration that's part of a Duluth's community and civil rights would be the Martin Luther King march and then the celebration. Now it's down at the DECC. What was the sort of.... when did that start? And do you remember when that started moving and becoming sort of a big deal, because it is a big deal.\nPortia Johnson: It is. It is. And it's another way of educating our kids. But the public period as to Martin Luther King, because they don't talk about it, only on that day in our schools.\nRachel Phelps Horton: January 18.\nPortia Johnson: January 18th, you know that's the only time they're talk about Martin Luther King. It’s the only time they put his picture up.\nRachel Phelps Horton: And they close school on his birthday too, right?.\nPortia Johnson: Well we did that.\nDavid Woodward: They used to not.\nPortia Johnson: We had superintendent and board members who was definitely against that, \"We'd lose money.\" Oh really, give me a break. It was when Dixon was superintendent. He and I, we butted heads a lot. But he didn't do that.\nBut what they did was they give up their day for NEA. And it is a trade off. The tradeoff, NEA is National Education Association for the teachers to go to a conference and it's always down in the Twin Cities. And I knew that a majority of our teachers don't. That's a holiday for them. That was the trade off. If they were to close the schools and they said they would not supply the buses. I mean we went round and round on that one we did we went round and round on that and Dixon wouldn't budge.\nAnd I know our parents, including ourselves that kept our kids out of school that day out of protest. Yeah. Yeah.\nRachel Phelps Horton:That was recent then?\nDavid Woodward: That was early 2000s.\nRachel Phelps Horton: I thought that was a national thing.\nPortia Johnson: It is a national holiday but each state, each city has the right to do. OK. But it is a national holiday. Yeah. So in other words, a national holiday that means you're sitting in your county, your Feds are all closed. That doesn't mean your schools have to be.\nRachel Phelps Horton: OK because I was confused on that because our schools were closed for that day.\nPortia Johnson: And we were the only city in this state that our schools were not closed. And that was an argument but they do not. And I keep telling y'all as blatant racism, there it is right there. Slapping the dead in the face. They didn't want to.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Were there other instances of this blatant racism that has affected you?\nPortia Johnson: They don't want to have anything as far as the curriculum for the Clayton,Jackson, McGhie and we're still fighting that one. OK right now.\nRachel Phelps Horton: About what happened.\nPortia Johnson: No, have the curriculum put into all the schools, at least the high schools.\nDavid Woodward: They have a curriculum that's developed.\nPortia Johnson: Yes we do.\nDavid Woodward: That can be used in classrooms.\nPortia Johnson: Kris, what's her last name. She's a teacher at East and she was on the board at the time. She teaches International Studies at East.\nI can't think of Kris' name now but she is the one, she and, oh what was that other teacher, that little short woman. She was on the board too at the time. They did the curriculum.\nDavid Woodward: We don't have to summarize or anything right now but one that Heidi put down here, which is a pretty good question here I think and it's a sort of a bigger question and I'm looking for here.... OK.\nThis is sort of a big one number 60 at this point your life having seen what you've seen, been through what you've been through and both in Columbus, in Florida, and here. What is your opinion of your life as you've lived it here in Duluth? What's your opinion of the culture and the place of Duluth after so many years?\nPortia Johnson: The culture here and what I've seen you know... let's say, I'm trying to think of when... I'm trying to be nice on this one.\nDavid Woodward: You don't have to.\nPortia Johnson: I know. But the thing about it you know, Duluth has been awfully good to myself my children and my grandchildren and now my great grandkids, because they get in trouble. So it's been awfully nice. You know and the fact that I have been on so many different programs, I mean the committees. I've spoke my piece. I have worked hard all these years to try to have a little justice in this town and the schools. I can't do it in the courtroom.\nBut I'm still trying you know and at our different institutions because I hear things about what happens in the jail and at NERC and I do like Duluth. I think it's a very beautiful town, it's a quiet town, which I like.\nWe don't have enough of ethnicity as far as plays, music or any of that stuff, you know that's what I gave up to come to Duluth, my kids and I when we left Florida it was either I give up you know that or come to where it's a safe place. And to me it is safe. I don't have hardly any problems as far as where I live.\nAnd people are friendly. I have learned that you know over the years, I didn't realize I'd been here 50 years, but and being on different committees and being downtown and talking to different professionals the fact that I worked downtown for many years, also. I found it to be OK, it still needs a lot.\nOK but it still needs a lot of work. I still needs a.... when they treat people, how they treat people of color. And how they treat people who are not of Scandinavian descent. It still needs a lot of, it still needs a lot of work. It really does, but it doesn't hurt. And I've said this to my kids, it doesn't hurt for us to learn someone else's ways of doing. But they need to understand ours, also.\nAnd they don't want to understand because they see the negative on TV or they hear it on the radio or it's written up in the newspaper.\nDavid Woodward: Or political campaigns.\nPortia Johnson: Yes, yes, yeah you're right. Yeah it is but all in all, I like Duluth, I do. But I want to move too.\nRachel Phelps Horton: Do you?\nPortia Johnson: I do I think it's time for me to move. Like I said I've been here 50 years and I didn't realize that... but I've raised my kids and I've asked the good Lord let me live long enough to see my kids raised, they are raised, grandkids, great grandkids. I keep telling them, I'm running away from you all, all of you.\nDavid Woodward: You're tired now.\nPortia Johnson: I am tired. That is so true. So did that answer?\nRachel Phelps Horton: Yes that's great. So I just would like to talk about...I think it's really interesting that you were a delegate for the DFL three times.\nPortia Johnson: Yes.\nRachel Phelps Horton: And you went to the ball and went to Clinton's inauguration.\nPortia Johnson: The second time that he was, yes, President... I didn't get that chance to go. The chance of a lifetime.\nRachel Phelps Horton: So how was that experience as an African-American woman?\nPortia Johnson: You know what, that was a good experience. But I was on crutches.\nRachel Phelps Horton: For all three delegations.\nPortia Johnson: Yes I most certainly was I took my best friend, Lurline, I took her for the whole thing.. She was my guest for the whole thing. Jim Oberstar, who was our congressman at the time, we got tickets from his office in D.C. so we could go to everything that we wanted to go to.\nSo yeah to me that was very exciting. And sitting up there with.... But on the floor as a delegate. And at that time. It was Al Gore who was a delegate for Tennessee. You know that's something you know. And then the next time you know he's running as vice president but I didn't know who he was. You know he was sitting two seats behind me and no, I'm trying to say, it was so many politicians that I saw when I was at the convention. That came over to Minnesota. And because at first they had Minnesota up in the Bird's Nest. Cause we raised cain. People for the DNC and Sara Leverance was our representative from Duluth was on the DNC, which is the Democratic National Committee.\nAnd so they, I'm trying to think, we were protesting something from the National. And they didn't like it because we weren't going according to what they wanted us to do. Of course we never do what they wanted us to do. Anyhow, they had us up in the bird's nest until we had more delegates who were disabled and they had to put us down on the floor.\nThey were hot. That's just too bad. That is just too bad. Yeah we had a lot of people who are in wheelchairs who were delegates from Minnesota. And they had to put us down on the floor. They were not happy about that but that's just too bad because we were protesting some rule that they came up with and I can't remember when that rule was. But anyway, yeah. So that was a good thing. that was a very good thing. But yes I was a delegate and I enjoyed it.\nI still think some things need to be done as far as the process because we don't really vote. It's already done by the time we get there. And I said, \"This is something else\", You really don't, I mean they call out the vote and all like that from the podium but everything is really, it's decided before the delegates even get there to convention.",
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