My Black History Journey: Beginning

Black History Beginning: Home and Woodley Auto

Repair

When you control a man's thinking you don't have to worry about his actions. You don't have to tell him to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" an stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back.

Miseducation of the Negro 1933

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Father of Black History

In this sense the Negro problem is not only America's greatest failure but also America's incomparably great opportunity for the future. If America should follow its own deepest convictions, its well-being at home would be increased directly. At the same time America's prestige and power abroad would rise immensely.

The American Dilemma 1944

Gunnar Myrdal

My Black History journey started at home in Toledo Ohio (The Glass City), the home of jazz innovators Art Tatum and Jon Hendricks along with pioneering black lawyer Albertus Brown. The home of WKLR with, "Paul Brown the man about town (my uncle)," it was one the north end of Toledo where I lived during the latter end of the tumultuous 60's in the midst of the riots, assassinations and Vietnam War. My father, mother, me and brother Rodney moved to Nebraska Ave in 1969 where I believe we were the second black family on our block. This was a neighborhood that was predominantly Polish people with a few Italians residents. A neighbor asked my Mom, "You all were Negroes, then you were Colored, now I hear you want to be called Black, what should I call you?" She answered wryly with a smile, "Call me Mrs. Woodley." Ironically, we moved on that block exactly ten years after My grandfather, Roosevelt Jones, Sr. moved his wife and 11 children to the 1700 block of Belmont and they were the first Black family for blocks (also where I met Bootsy Collins, musician when he was a member of the House Guests).

It was in that house on Nebraska where we were surrounded by the Holy Bible, the Reader's Digest Condensed books, the Days in the Life of Martin Luther King and the Autobiography of  Malcolm X. It was a world of consciousness and calling to purpose that surrounded me and my brothers. Of all the profound impressions the greatest were New Jerusalem COGIC (I'll note later) and Woodley Auto Repair.  Affectionately known as, "The Shop," This converted GULF gas station was more than just where people brought their cars for repairs, it was the hub of the North Detroit and Nebraska Ave neighborhood.

It was at the Shop where I watched a man, Arto Woodley, Sr. serve as an entrepreneur and leader while refusing to fit into the factory system and break the stereotype black men of his generation. I learned the early principles of business by cleaning tools, writing invoices and sweeping sawdust. Immersed in the music of the times listening WKLR and meeting doctors, lawyers, players, church people, hustlers and party people, I witnessed black culture in its rawest sense. At Pickett Elementary and St. Teresa's, I may have gained an education, but I learned how to navigate life and the hood at the Shop. My father worked 10-12 hours days fixing and towing cars. It is where his lessons that, "Oatmeal is better than no meal and every man has to has a hustle," came alive.

My early Black History lesson involved the concepts of our purpose is wrapped up in God's purpose for our lives and the American Democracy is  a great experiment that is still being developed. 

America was a place where a black man in the 1970's the battle for equality was still being fought, just in a new way. Frederick Douglass's quote, "People might not get all they work for in this world, but they will certainly work for all they get," was learned in Toledo and at the Shop.