Heights Community Congress

Now Cleveland Heights [Ohio] is a rather exclusive suburb at that point in history isn't it?$$I guess it was. Guess it was.$$Was that a positive experience then integrating the neighborhood?$$Well we had some good neighbors.$$Okay.$$We got threatened before we ever moved. See one thing that happened, the Sun Press had an article, a very inflammatory article because some people had moved--(unclear) those areas. And the Sun Press, you know, in essence, the Negroes are comin'. And we got threatened. Somebody called my husband [HistoryMaker Robert P. Madison] and, you know, asked him why was he movin' and our house was just about complete. As a matter of fact, we were gonna move in the next weekend, the next week, we'd move on the weekend. And he told Monk [Robert P. Madison] he would buy his house, buy our house if we would meet. And Monk said okay I'll meet you at my office and he never showed up. But during that period, and I don't know why, [J.] Newton Hill came as director of Karamu [House, Cleveland, Ohio] and they bombed his house. And then he was gonna buy a house from a family named Garrd, no I got it backwards. The Garrd family, G-A-R-R-D, they said they would sell to Newton Hill, they bombed it. So when they sold to Newton Hill they bombed it again. So I heard both of those. And one of, this is the irony you deal with, and one of those occasions, Robert Madison had left home to get the model of the American Embassy to take to the [U.S.] State Department the next day. And I'm sittin' here with two little kids [Jeanne Madison and Juliette Madison] and the house is shakin'. And, you know, he is getting this kind of recognition and this is what's happening. And then one Mother's Day we heard, it was night, we had been out to dinner and come in, we heard a bomb and they bombed Rodger Saffold's house at one point. So I don't know. We never did find out. And I got a copy of the letter we used to get religiously in that box, the hangman's noose and the letter. And we called the Cleveland Heights police and I called the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. I never heard that they found anybody or that they knew who it was. But it ceased after a while. And we had some good neighbors who looked out for us.$$Okay. So you built the home in Cleveland Heights, is that one that Mr. Madison designed?$$As a matter of fact, there are two Madison design houses side-by-side. We moved, we were supposed to move the same time, we were a week apart. How it all got started, a guy who was a psychiatrist, who has since died, Charles DeLeon, came and said to Monk, "I have two adolescent daughters and I'm livin' in an apartment, I wanna build a house." So his wife, Sydney [ph.], and I, we'd go out and look at land, and we had looked in Bratenahl [Ohio], we'd lookin' out in Mayfield Village [Ohio], we're lookin'. And Robert came home one day and said, "Ya know, I was drivin' down North Park Boulevard and I saw two lots." So we got a white lawyer who bought those two lots for us and gave us a quick claim deed. And then Robert designed the houses, and the City of Cleveland Heights said okay if you go in straight up, you know, with no deception, it's okay. So (unclear) the contractor said the same thing. And so we moved in our house first, October the 27th, 1960. And I will never forget the first night we were there, all of a sudden I see all these people running out in the street, across the street to the ravine. I thought oh my God what has happened now. I didn't hear anything. But nothin' happened. And then one night somebody came up into our circular driveway and the light came down our drape, and Monk ran outside to see what it was and I was pleading with him, "Don't go out, don't go out, stay in here." We had some harrowing times, but we survived.$And so, when you came home in '53 [1953] where did you settle?$$Well, we went back to Washington [D.C.] and he [Madison's husband, HistoryMaker Robert P. Madision] taught a year and announced he was coming back here [Cleveland, Ohio] to open his office. So I said well since we like to eat, I got up and got a job teachin'. So I taught a semester before we came back here, and we came back here in '54 [1954] and he opened his office, you see. When I came here in '49 [1949] I had my master's [degree] and I went down--people told me, "Oh Cleveland board won't hire you, they don't hire colored teachers." What it is, they would only hire colored teachers and put up in an area where there were colored teachers and colored kids. It happens, thank goodness, I wrote to the state first and got my certificate for elementary schools and for guidance counseling, and went down and talked to Dr. Levinson [ph.]. And Miles Standish [Elementary School, Cleveland, Ohio] at that point was in transition. And so he said I'm--we didn't even have a car, so he said I'm gonna appoint you to Miles Standish--no I'm gonna appoint you to a school on a streetcar line. So every day I rode the bus and then I had to walk that long two blocks from 105th street to Miles Standish until we got a car. And so I taught there a year and a half. But while I was down at the board of education, I went to find out about guidance counseling. So I went to information, they said to go to the second floor. I went to the second floor and they said, oh no go to the sixth floor, this was 1949. And I went to the sixth floor, they said go to the second floor. I said, I just left the second floor and we just stood and looked at each other. Slowly it dawned on me I was getting the run around, and I don't have good sense. We came back in '54 [1954] and I went through the same thing again (laughter).$$But you got hired?$$Well I got hired to teach, but I got a degree to do some counseling, I think I could do some counseling as well as some of these other people.$$Did you ever get a position counseling?$$No, 'cause I came home, eventually.