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- [00:02]
Eric Roper
Lemonade.
- [00:06]
Melissa Townsend
Previously on Ghost of a Chance.
- [00:11]
Unknown
I mean, there's this whole so called science of the real estate industry where you have real estate economists developing these models that are saying, oh, yeah, if there's one black person in the neighborhood, it brings down the property values this amount. I just want to be clear. This was not based on fact in any way.
- [00:27]
Melissa Townsend
The Negro is not understood and few are willing to take a little time and learn about it.
- [00:35]
Greg McMore
Living in Minneapolis, you get that certain look, which is a suspicion, you know, who's that person all about?
- [00:42]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
Harry Robinson dies. Was pioneer citizen. Remains cremated.
- [00:48]
Melissa Townsend
And in the 1960s, city and state leaders did something that would end up segregating the south side of the city even more. And Clementine Robinson could say it happening right from the front stoop of her little house on the hill.
- [01:07]
Eric Roper
You're listening to Ghost of a Chance from the Minnesota Star Tribune. This is the story of my search to find out what happened to Harry and Clementine Robinson. I'm Eric Roper.
- [01:17]
Melissa Townsend
I'm Melissa Townsend.
- [01:19]
Eric Roper
This is episode six.
- [01:32]
Melissa Townsend
Eric knew that Clementine's little house in the old south side was right on the edge of a freeway. This is Interstate 35 West. We'll call it I35W for short. But it wasn't until he pieced together her life that he realized she was there. When it was built in the early 1960s.
- [02:00]
Eric Roper
Clementine's house is literally one house away from the freeway. So I can imagine her standing on her front stoop, sort of watching homes right nearby getting demolished or moved, you know, one by one, right next to her house to make way for this freeway. Someone I talked to noted the noise from the machinery, and I'm imagining like jackhammers, bulldozers, wrecking crew. You know, the smell of diesel fumes was everywhere. And, you know, there she is.
- [02:29]
Melissa Townsend
Eric knew that in the 1950s and 60s, officials put these freeways in places that disrupted or destroyed black communities. A quick Internet search showed this happened in New York, Miami, Chicago, Pacific, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Nashville, Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Montgomery, and right across the river From Minneapolis in St. Paul, Minnesota, just before the I35W project was started, Interstate 94 had cut straight through a black community called Rondo. Eric knew about Rondo.
- [03:06]
Eric Roper
So Rondo is sort of the most famous black black neighborhood in the Twin Cities. It was much more concentrated. It was middle class, very thriving. And it's famous today in part because the Interstate 94 freeway destroyed it really pretty much right down the middle. I mean, you know, it was. It was a straight shot Through Rondo. And Rondo has never been the same.
- [03:35]
Melissa Townsend
But I35W wasn't built through the corner with all those black owned businesses like the Dreamland Cafe and the Nacarema. In fact, several years ago, Eric had found a report written by a transportation consultant on the i35W project. His name was George Barton and it seemed like he was being very careful to protect existing neighborhoods. But then Eric started talking to people. We asked Greg McMore about i35w when he came into the studio. You might remember Greg from the last episode. His roots in the old south side go back for generations. I want to talk a little bit about 35. So do you remember what it looked like before it was a freeway?
- [04:19]
Greg McMore
Yeah.
- [04:19]
Melissa Townsend
What did it look like?
- [04:21]
Greg McMore
A neighborhood. Those had African American populations and those were thriving communities where black folks lived and worked.
- [04:32]
Melissa Townsend
In fact, Greg's grandmother's house was there. It was demolished to make room for the freeway.
- [04:38]
Greg McMore
My cousin remembers when the state of Minnesota came to my grandmother's house. And that was our house, everybody in our family at some point on my dad's side, we all went through that house, 416 East 25th Street. And remember when the state came, knocked on the door and said, we're going to buy your piece of property, which basically meant you've got to go.
- [05:05]
Melissa Townsend
Greg said the freeway had a profound impact on the old south side community. And Eric realized that conflicted with what George Barton had written in his report about protecting neighborhoods.
- [05:19]
Eric Roper
So in my head I'm sort of thinking, okay, well what happened?
- [05:25]
Melissa Townsend
When Eric started looking into it, he came across a dissertation paper written by a man named Ernest Lloyd. So we reached out to him.
- [05:32]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
My name is Ernest Lloyd, an African American. I go by Dr. Lloyd for the most part.
- [05:38]
Melissa Townsend
Dr. Lloyd is a transportation policy expert. He spent nearly 40 years working at the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And our conversation was great timing because Dr. Lloyd was in the middle of co writing a book that talks about the building of i35W. His co author is a man named Greg D'Onofrio. He's a professor in history and urban planning in Minneapolis.
- [06:03]
Greg D'Onofrio
For the last year or so, Dr. Lloyd and I have been working with colleagues on an edited book project called Human Public Histories and Community Responses to Twin Cities freeways.
- [06:16]
Melissa Townsend
So Dr. Lloyd gave us a little history about the building of the freeways.
- [06:21]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
The Interstate Highway act of 1956 was the greatest public work project in the history of mankind. Rather than Aqueduct of Rome at that time, you can even see it from space, how big it was Starting in.
- [06:36]
Eric Roper
The 1940s, federal officials began talking about a national network of freeways. And if you can imagine, at the time, there were no interstates for cars and trucks. And Then finally, in 1956, US President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highway Act. It's a long name, but basically federal officials said, hey, states, we'll pay 90% of the cost to build new interstates.
- [07:03]
Melissa Townsend
Most city and state officials thought that was a pretty good deal, but it wasn't as easy as it might sound.
- [07:11]
Eric Roper
I found some newspaper clippings where local officials were maybe getting a little frustrated. I mean, everyone wants this super high, but it has to be six blocks from their homes, you know, and that's not possible. I mean, this is a city, and six blocks from your home is right next to someone else's home.
- [07:27]
Melissa Townsend
It sounds like a classic case of nimby. Not in my backyard.
- [07:32]
Eric Roper
So there's a growing awareness in, you know, the early to mid-1950s that this thing is going to take out a big portion of south Minneapolis.
- [07:43]
Melissa Townsend
From his research, Eric knew other routes had been considered which would have put the freeway in different parts of the city. Greg D'Onofrio told us he had heard.
- [07:51]
Greg D'Onofrio
That too many people you will talk to in the black community in the south side believe that Lindau Avenue was one of the alternative routes for 35W. And it was a very early idea that they considered, but it was discounted because it terminated at the northern end on what freeway planners called the bottleneck.
- [08:14]
Melissa Townsend
Eric had heard about the bottleneck.
- [08:15]
Eric Roper
Now, this bottleneck was famous. I mean, it was a big deal. But, you know, it's also true that this route ran through southwest Minneapolis, and that's where Clementine used to live. And there's a chain of lakes, which is really the prime real estate of Minneapolis. And some of the most powerful people in the city live there. So I imagine that you're gonna catch a lot of heat. I mean, we don't know what conversations they had with people, but I'm sure they were not wild about the idea of this freeway near Lindale Avenue.
- [08:46]
Melissa Townsend
Now, given all those articles Eric had found about people not wanting this freeway to run right next to their homes, this made a lot of sense. So state officials began leaning toward that route that would run right next to Clementine's house.
- [09:01]
Eric Roper
So here's the deal with that route. The core of the old south side black neighborhood would be on the east side of the freeway, and the white southwest area of the city would be on the west side of the freeway, and it would create a permanent barrier between southwest Minneapolis and the Old south side.
- [09:18]
Melissa Townsend
It's about this time in 1956 that city officials hired that transportation consultant I mentioned. His name was George Barton, and he was from Evanston, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. And I imagine that this freeway was such a hot issue that local officials wanted to bring in an outside expert to make the call.
- [09:39]
Eric Roper
And he was hired to write a report reviewing the options that had been proposed about where to put the freeway through south Minneapolis. And that includes the route that would run right next to Clementine's house.
- [09:55]
Melissa Townsend
In that report, George Barton talked about the freeway's impact on downtown and local businesses, taxable property and individual property values. But he never talked about race.
- [10:10]
Eric Roper
He focused on neighborhoods. When it comes to the freeway dividing a neighborhood, he said, a location which isolates a piece that is too small to become a self sufficient unit is to be avoided. He said it would be a mistake to run the freeway in a place that would destroy an existing neighborhood. So he favored having it run between neighborhoods.
- [10:31]
Melissa Townsend
So when it came time to look at that strip of land next to Clementine's house, we presume he looked for the neighborhoods. But in his report, he said he didn't have the information from the city that he needed to figure out where the neighborhood boundaries were.
- [10:45]
Eric Roper
So he had to give his best guess. And to do that, he had to look at a lot of issues. But in the end, it came down to the area with lower property values. He said that according to his expertise, low property values along this route are a clue that this strip of land may be a logical dividing line between communities. Unquote.
- [11:07]
Melissa Townsend
In other words, Barton said those homes next to Clementine's house weren't part of a thriving community. They were somewhere in between two different thriving communities. Dr. Lloyd said there wasn't a big public outcry from the old south side.
- [11:23]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
According to the elder that I interviewed for my dissertation, they all are gone now. They had little to no knowledge the highway was going to be built in south side.
- [11:33]
Melissa Townsend
Dr. Lloyd said the whole process included only one official public meeting.
- [11:39]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
And in that one public hearing, not a single person in that hearing looked like me. They were all white.
- [11:52]
Eric Roper
City officials accepted George Barton's recommendation, and the decision was made to build Interstate 35 west on a route that created a 10 lane, permanent concrete boundary between the predominantly white neighborhood and the predominantly black neighborhood.
- [12:09]
Melissa Townsend
We'll be right back.
- [12:15]
Unknown
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- [13:21]
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- [15:00]
Melissa Townsend
Dr. Ernest Lloyd is a transportation policy expert and he said there's one thing that highway officials always said to communities impacted by freeways.
- [15:10]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
A highway technician always to say, we're engineers. We know what's best for you. We know what's best for you.
- [15:20]
Melissa Townsend
But it quickly became clear that the I35W freeway was not in the best interest of the black residents or the old south side. When George Parton said that that strip of land with the lower property values must be a dividing line between two commun in some ways, he wasn't wrong. It was the area between the white neighborhood and the black neighborhood. But it was also more than that. It was one of the few areas of the city that was actually integrated racially. That strip of land included blocks and blocks of houses where white and black neighbors lived next to each other.
- [16:01]
Greg D'Onofrio
Greg D'Onofrio There had been progress that was being made, and racial integration was gradually spreading to the south and to the west. And the construction of 35W essentially stopped its spread further west. It made it much harder for black people to move to the west side of 35W, which was beginning to happen.
- [16:25]
Melissa Townsend
Besides that, it was an important connection point between southwest Minneapolis and the old south side. People drove through that strip to shop and go to school and to work. The property values were low there because, as we know, decades of discrimination and racist real estate practices had segregated the city. And the homes with the lowest property values were those homes in and around the black community. When officials told those residents that they would need to move to make room for the freeway, Eric and I both thought about the black residents there. Where were they going to go? We know most of the city was closed off to black residents. And on top of that, Eric found news reports where people were complaining that they weren't being paid a fair price for their homes. In his research, Dr. Lloyd talked with a number of people who had to move to make room for the freeway. He said there was a deep sense of alienation.
- [17:26]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
Where do I go? What could happen to me and my Children, who cares about us? We pay taxes, but who cares about us?
- [17:41]
Melissa Townsend
After learning all this, we had to wonder, was this intentional? With all the decades of discrimination that we knew about, did city and state officials know that this was going to happen? And did they intend for this to happen? We haven't found any written evidence that gives us a clear answer to those questions. But there are some places in that report where one could argue that George Barton used racially coded language. For example, in one section of the report, he says, quote, creeping blight attacking older residential communities cannot be stopped as long as their local streets are used by fast moving traffic. Now, he may have been talking about traffic congestion snarling the streets of nice neighborhoods, but many scholars, including Greg D'Onofrio, note that the word blight was often used as racially coded language. And if that's the case, then when Barton says a freeway can stop creeping blight, what he may be saying is that a freeway can stop black people from moving in to a white neighborhood. Was that part of how George Barton described this freeway? What we're doing is trying to figure out if there's any racially coded language. It's a lot like listening for a dog whistle. It's difficult to discern. But at the end of the day, Dr. Lloyd said, whether the freeway was put there to segregate the city or not, the black community had no power to stop it.
- [19:26]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
Am I in the ear of the governor? Am I in the ear of my city council person? They're so small, they have a political clout anyway.
- [19:36]
Melissa Townsend
I35 didn't destroy the old south side by going straight down the middle of it. The impact on the neighborhood was more complicated than that.
- [19:51]
Cynthia Hicks
Testing, testing.
- [19:52]
Melissa Townsend
Hello, south side. We outside.
- [19:55]
Cynthia Hicks
How's everybody doing today? Okay, we have some sound.
- [19:59]
Eric Roper
The young people who grew up on the old south side and the 50s and 60s, they have such a connection to this place that even now, even to this day, they have an annual family reunion. And by family, I mean it includes anyone with roots in the neighborhood. And they call this event Southside Back in the day.
- [20:17]
Melissa Townsend
Back In August of 2024, Eric and I went to Southside Back in the day. We wanted to ask people what they remembered about their neighborhood and what impact the freeway had.
- [20:28]
Eric Roper
Yeah. So what is your name?
- [20:29]
Cynthia Hicks
Cynthia Hicks. Kelly.
- [20:32]
Melissa Townsend
Cynthia told Eric that she grew up in the old south side. We used to have Mr. Rubin, used.
- [20:37]
Cynthia Hicks
To be on 33rd and 4th Avenue, and he was from Alabama. So he made sure that all of the foods that we had from the South. He made sure that we could get them on 38th and 4th Avenue at Reuben's grocery store. And everyone knew that's where you could go get the good collard greens.
- [20:54]
Melissa Townsend
I started talking with, with T.J. jones about his childhood in the Old south side, and he was beaming with pride when he talked about his years at Central High School. We had championship football, basketball, baseball, and.
- [21:07]
T.J. Jones
Track teams, so we were the stuff.
- [21:11]
Melissa Townsend
Back in the day.
- [21:13]
Eric Roper
I was on a championship football team and a championship track team.
- [21:18]
Melissa Townsend
Yes. See what I mean? Beaming with pride. But people told us when that section of I35W was under construction, things began to change. Bernice Tinsley Carter remembered how her school changed after the freeway came through. She was a young girl at Warrington Elementary School at the time. All I remember is not being able to do what I used to do. It was so busy. A street split us to where the dividing line at that time became the highway. So then you had to go to whatever school was on that side and whatever school was on this side. So your school friends are gone. So your sense of community is also gone again because that school was your community also. So, yeah, it was horrible. When I told Eric about Vernice, he said he already knew the freeway had had a huge impact on the schools.
- [22:10]
Eric Roper
Warrington elementary School shut down in the mid-1960s, and. And part of the reason for that is that it's too segregated, so they lose their elementary school.
- [22:19]
Melissa Townsend
And 13 years later, a second school in the Old south side closed.
- [22:22]
Eric Roper
Bryant Junior High School, which Prince attended, the Musician. That closed in 1978.
- [22:28]
Melissa Townsend
And then just four years later, the high school closed.
- [22:32]
Eric Roper
Central High School, which is, like, still a point of pride for many people in this neighborhood, closed its doors in 1982. People today still talk about these institutions.
- [22:41]
Melissa Townsend
That was the school where TJ Jones was on the championship football and track teams. The anchor institutions for black families were closing. Craig McMore, 35W.
- [22:53]
Greg McMore
Going through South Minneapolis truly, truly, truly created segregated neighborhoods. I don't see there being much difference between that and the Berlin Wall between West Germany and East Germany.
- [23:12]
Melissa Townsend
Once that stretch of the freeway opened in 1967, people had a quick route to the growing suburban communities. So over the next couple decades, many families moved from their city neighborhood out to the suburbs.
- [23:24]
Eric Roper
We know from Dr. Lloyd's research that the old south side lost nearly 20% of its population between 1960 and 1970. You know, after the freeway went in.
- [23:34]
Melissa Townsend
Greg D'Onofrio told us most of the families who left were white.
- [23:39]
Greg D'Onofrio
You know, people. People who were White had had the privilege to move wherever they wanted. Many of them moved to the suburbs, and for them, the freeway was a benefit. It enabled them to live in the suburbs and work downtown and commute between the two, and they reaped the benefits of this.
- [23:53]
Melissa Townsend
Eric and I spoke with a woman named Colnece Hendon. She grew up in the Old south side. She was just a young girl when the freeway went in.
- [24:01]
Cynthia Hicks
I just remember having friends that moved to the suburbs, and it meant that, like, we would have sleepovers how girls do. And instead of going a few blocks to their house to spend the night, you know, I would go out to Golden Valley or I would go out to Maplewood or, you know, wherever they had moved.
- [24:19]
Melissa Townsend
Colnece's family stayed in the Old south side. But Greg McMore told us, with so much loss, it was hard to maintain the thriving community that they once had.
- [24:30]
Greg McMore
And it's interesting because even to this very day, you can look at the economic difference between, you know, all the neighborhoods on the west side of the freeway and the neighborhoods on the east side of the freeway.
- [24:44]
Melissa Townsend
That transportation consultant George Barton said it was a bad idea to divide neighborhoods so that they were so small they couldn't survive on their own. But that's exactly what happened to the old south side. We'll be right back. Eric knew that Clementine was living in that little house right next to the freeway when it was being built. But he found out that she was gone before the freeway was completed. She died in 1965. That's two years before that section of the freeway opened. In the final years of her life, Eric found Clementine was active at her church and with her friends. But according to the local black newspapers, she started to have some health concerns.
- [25:37]
Eric Roper
There's this article from March 1964.
- [25:40]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
Mrs. Clementine Robinson is at Mount Sinai with a broken hip. Friends found her at home ill Thursday of last week, and she has been hospitalized since.
- [25:51]
Eric Roper
And then in 1965, the Minneapolis spokesman reported that on June 22, Clementine had passed away. I found her death certificate, and it said that she died of a coronary occlusion and that's a blockage in the artery. She was 84 years old.
- [26:08]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
Funeral services were held on Friday evening at 8pm June 25 for Mrs. Clementine Robinson at the funeral chapel at 19th and Hennepin, with Rev. Noah L. Smith, assistant pastor at St. Peter's AME Church, officiating. Mrs. Robinson was the widow of the late Harry Robinson. She had worked many years as a masseur. She was a member of St. Peter's AME Church and was a member of the Helpers Club. Besides her church affiliation, she was a member of Electa Chapter number three, Order of the Eastern Star Prince Hall Affiliate. After becoming ill, she had been confined to the Eagles boarding home. She died on Tuesday, June 22, at Mount Sinai Hospital. Survivors are Sister Mrs. Matthew Washington, Kansas City, Missouri, and a nephew, Leon Brown, West Des Moines, Iowa. Internment was in Crystal Lake Cemetery.
- [27:08]
Melissa Townsend
Clementine was gone. Eric wanted to see the place where she was laid to rest.
- [27:21]
Eric Roper
This is Eric roper. It is May 2, 2023. Today is Clementine and Harry's shared birthday of May 2. And Clementine and Harry would have been 142 years old today. And I'm here at Crystal Lake Cemetery. Why am I here at Crystal Lake Cemetery? Well, this is where Clementine is buried. We're going to walk out. I have instructions on where they're buried.
- [27:51]
Melissa Townsend
As we said in the last episode, Eric knew Harry and Clementine had bought adjoining burial plots in this cemetery. But in the end of his life, Harry had decided to be cremated. So in 1964, Clementine had sold Harry's plot. And Eric found that a woman named Anna B. Lewis was buried there.
- [28:12]
Eric Roper
All right, we're going through section 12 at Crystal Lake Cemetery. We're looking for lot 223. The graves don't have lot numbers on them, so it's a lot. Little tricky. Let me look at my map.
- [28:29]
Melissa Townsend
Eric had told me that finding her headstone was a big deal to him. He had found all these documents and news articles about her, but this was the only physical marker dedicated specifically to her life and her memory.
- [28:45]
Eric Roper
I know we're going to spot it at any moment. I'm kind of like, it's a little overwhelming. Let's see. Here's Anna B. Lewis. So this is who she sold her other plot to. And I think that's Clement. I think Clementine is buried right here. But there's no marker. Marker does seem to be missing. Let me take a shot.
- [29:16]
Melissa Townsend
Eric found a cemetery attendant to make sure he was in the right place. The attendant didn't want to be identified in this podcast, but he said, yeah, according to the records, that unmarked grave is where Clementine is buried. Yeah.
- [29:31]
Eric Roper
Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's a little. I've been researching Clementine for so long, I was hoping for some. I mean, it's fine, you know, but it's like, it's a. It's sort of sad in a way, you know? Not to have a marker.
- [29:42]
Dr. Ernest Lloyd
It is. It is really sad.
- [29:44]
Melissa Townsend
Eric knew that Clementine wanted a headstone. It was in her will that he found in the county court archives. So he asked the cemetery attendant, how.
- [29:53]
Eric Roper
Often are graves unmarked like that? I mean, for Clementine, a lot.
- [29:59]
Melissa Townsend
We have the working class people.
- [30:01]
Eric Roper
Is it typically just because there wasn't enough money or family or something like that to get a grave marker?
- [30:07]
Melissa Townsend
Yeah, I would say so. I would guess so. After a lifetime of work and struggle and joy and resilience, this trailblazing woman had no marker of her life or her death. Eric knew that Clementine wanted a headstone because it was in her will. When Eric and I were back in the studio, I asked him what else was in her will. So he pulled it up on his computer.
- [30:40]
Eric Roper
Yeah, so she had written this will in 1960. Let me see, 1960. Now, she didn't have any children, so there's no direct descendants to take her things. So she left the bulk of her belongings to her sister Laura in Kansas City. This is like her jewelry, silverware, linen, dishes, household furnishings, rugs, draperies. And then she left $10 to her sister, Lady Bailey, who by the time of Clementine's death, was also deceased. And then there's a little mystery in here which is so intriguing to me. It says, I give and bequeath to my friend Leola Davis one small diamond ring. And when we look at the relationships, when it's listed in here, it lists Leola Davis as a stranger, which is, I think, just a technical term meaning they're not related.
- [31:34]
Melissa Townsend
Eric had spent quite a bit of time imagining who this Leola Davis was and why Clementine may have given her her ring. Over the course of four years, Eric had found a number of people named Leola Davis. But none of those leads ever panned out until just before we were finishing this podcast. Eric found someone he thought thought might be Leola Davis's brother. His name is Larry Davis. So Eric emailed him, and he asked, hey, by any chance, did you know a woman named Clementine Robinson maybe when you were a kid living in the old south side?
- [32:11]
Eric Roper
And then Larry sent me this email saying, like, you know, oh, of course I remember Mrs. Robinson. And I just, like, nearly fell on the floor. I mean, I was like, wow, you know, after like, four and a half years to find somebody who knew who I was talking about. And it had. I mean, he was so young, too. I'm kind of surprised that he remembers as much as he does.
- [32:31]
Melissa Townsend
This is incredible. It turns out when Larry was a little boy. He lived right next door to Clementine. So Eric made a plan to meet up with him.
- [32:40]
Eric Roper
Test, test, test. All right.
- [32:42]
Melissa Townsend
He lives right across the river in St. Paul.
- [32:46]
Eric Roper
As I said, like, after four and a half years, you were the first person I ever met who had ever known of Clementine, which blew my mind.
- [32:54]
T.J. Jones
And. And I didn't know that was her name. She was just Mrs. Robinson, you know, the lady next door. I know that my mother and father looked out for her. That was just their way.
- [33:06]
Eric Roper
Yeah.
- [33:07]
T.J. Jones
You know, be careful with Mrs. Robin, you know, don't go running up into her yard. I do remember, you know. Hello, Mrs. Robinson. How are you today? I don't think I ever saw her go down her steps.
- [33:20]
Melissa Townsend
Larry told Eric that he didn't know Clementine very well, but his sisters did.
- [33:25]
T.J. Jones
I would say Lenora probably knew her the best. Now I do. And I remember myself, Lenora going over there a lot. And I know that she used to help her clean. I know that she used to run errands for her and go to the store, which, in those days, all this.
- [33:40]
Melissa Townsend
Time, Eric had been searching for a Leola Davis, who was in Clementine's will. But there was no Leola in the Davis family. And Eric and Larry both figured that it must have been a typo. They must have meant Lenora.
- [33:56]
Eric Roper
Maybe you could tell me what you knew, but also what your sister told you about why this might end up. And it will.
- [34:02]
T.J. Jones
Sure. So now I'm going to go by a lot of what my sister Beverly said, who is alive, and I wish she could be here. So when my sister Lenora used to go over there, she admired Mrs. Robinson's ring. And I don't know if that was a ring that she had on or if she kept on a table or whatever, but she really liked that ring. And according to my sister Beverly, who would go over there with her sometimes my sister Lenora would marvel at the ring. And Mrs. Robinson says, well, one day it might be yours. You know, according to my sister Beverly.
- [34:39]
Eric Roper
I mean, do we know where the ring ended up? I mean, I know Lenore passed away. Do we have any idea if she ever got the ring?
- [34:45]
T.J. Jones
No, not at all. And neither does my sister. Yeah, so we moved.
- [34:51]
Eric Roper
What year did you all move, or approximately?
- [34:53]
T.J. Jones
We moved in, like, 1964.
- [34:58]
Melissa Townsend
Larry and his family moved out of that house about a year before Clementine died. Eric had found Leola Davis, who is actually Lenora Davis. But where the ring ended up is still a mystery. There was one more Thing that Clementine left in her will, it was her house. So I asked Eric, what does the will say about her house.
- [35:25]
Eric Roper
She left her house to her nephew, Leon Brown. And Leon Brown lived in Des Moines, and he had come to the house earlier, like in 1953 or so, with his newly adopted son and wife. Now, Leon and his wife passed away in the 1980s, but his granddaughter is still alive. She is Clementine's great grandniece, and her name is Natalie Lampley. She lives in Iowa. And I talked to her, and she didn't know anything about Clementine or Harry or the house.
- [35:55]
Melissa Townsend
Eric spent days trying to figure out what happened to Clementine's house. And finally he found out it was never passed down to Leon Brown or anyone else. And he told me why.
- [36:06]
Eric Roper
So the same year that her husband dies, Clementine starts getting $71 a month in old age assistance. So old age assistance was cash assistance that elderly poor people could qualify for. And it was to pay your daily life bills. And. And then if you got a medical problem, then it would pay your medical bills. It was a state program that was administered by the counties that was subsidized by the federal government.
- [36:35]
Melissa Townsend
But there's a catch.
- [36:36]
Eric Roper
So then they would put a lien on your house in order to sort of recoup the costs of that program.
- [36:43]
Melissa Townsend
When you die, specifically.
- [36:45]
Eric Roper
Right. So as soon as the home is sold upon death, then it is recouped. Some people call it a clawback because, you know, the county and the state are clawing back what they paid.
- [36:57]
Melissa Townsend
So when Clementine passed away, the county tallied up how much she had used of the assistance and then seized her assets to pay for it. This was the policy for anyone who was receiving aid because they were low income. Eric found the modern day program that replaced part of Clementine's old age assistance. It's Medicaid, and it still has a clawback policy.
- [37:20]
Eric Roper
There's sort of an interesting almost morality question here of like, we're going to have a program that's going to have a big safety net for people, but should we then get it back at the end? And it's still an open question, Is that the way we should be running welfare programs?
- [37:35]
Melissa Townsend
So at the end of Clementine Robinson's life, she had no marker on her grave and nothing to pass down.
- [37:45]
Eric Roper
This is almost like the final ledger of what did Harry and Clementine's lives add up to monetarily and literally? In her probate document, it says it amounted to zero. I mean, it says the balance of personal property on hand for distribution is listed as nothing.
- [38:05]
Melissa Townsend
Eric told me before he knew all the details of Harry and Clementine's lives, the reporter in him might have looked at that zero and said, well, not much of a story here, but now that zero stands for so much more.
- [38:23]
Eric Roper
They are the first generation removed from slavery, and they made great strides here in Minneapolis against pretty tall odds. But it's clear that for Harry and Clementine, their progress was constantly interrupted by racism. And when you think about that happening not just to them, but to thousands of black people throughout that time, then you realize that that has shaped the city that we see today.
- [38:48]
Melissa Townsend
This was a new realization for Eric. Maybe you could say this is something that Harry and Clementine passed down to him.
- [38:59]
Eric Roper
Their lives ended up being a journey for me to understand things that I kind of, like, wasn't really too. I'll just be honest, maybe interested in researching. It was just. This was not a topic that was really on my radar. And then, because I love history and I live in their house, I was like, oh, my God, this is fascinating. And so suddenly to me, it was this very important revelation about so many different things. And so, you know, that's what their life has meant to me.
- [39:35]
Melissa Townsend
In our conversations with historian Kirsten Delegarde, she would often say, it didn't have to be this way.
- [39:41]
Unknown
How would the story have been different if he had been allowed to go to law school? He would have gone to law school. He would have been in practice. They would have bought a house. It would have been paid off. You know, how would the story have been different if he had been allowed to go to law school?
- [39:56]
Melissa Townsend
What if they could have stayed in that house that Eric owns now? What if they could have helped build a tight knit, integrated community here? What would the city look like today? And when George Floyd moved from Houston to Minneapolis in 2014, what would have happened if he had landed in a more welcoming and racially integrated city where more black families over many generations had been able to work side by side with white families to build more opportunities and organizations that could have wrapped their arms around a black man looking for a better life? Would things have turned out differently for him? You can't change history. Which brings us to the last thing that Greg McMore said to us when he came into the studio for that interview.
- [40:47]
Greg McMore
You know, I appreciate this kind of work. I think it's important. My question would be, what now? Is this more than a listening piece, or are they 30 minutes while you're driving on New York way Someplace or what?
- [41:03]
Melissa Townsend
Now, it wasn't the first time someone had asked us this. While we were working on this podcast, Eric and I led community meetings around Minneapolis. Most of the people in those meetings were black, and at the end of one meeting, a man named Bill Wells asked us the same thing in perhaps a more pointed way.
- [41:23]
T.J. Jones
Many of the people in this room, we've sat around and had these kind of roundtable discussions, discussions forever. And it's always about, let's discover the plight of black folks in our communities. That's not the point. We need to understand the history, but the important thing is, what are we going to do moving forward? Black folks have had conversation forever. What is the actionable steps that will come from this conversation?
- [41:54]
Melissa Townsend
Honestly, when Bill and Greg asked us this question, we were a little unsure how to answer. It's one of the most pressing questions of our time. What do we do now? When Eric and I talked about it later in the studio, we both agreed. Eric found his connection to this history through Clementine and Harry, and it started to open his eyes. Our hope is, is that they will help you connect to this history, too. And once you know this history, then you and your community can decide what to do.
- [42:32]
Eric Roper
I think the responsibility we have is to spend some time understanding this and don't feel like you have to feel shame for being a white person, but walk through the world with a much better context, and it's going to give you more empathy. It's going to give you more understanding.
- [42:51]
Melissa Townsend
Now, that's what Eric thinks, and I think so, too. But this project is a part of the Minnesota Star Tribune. It's the largest media company in the state of Minnesota. And we've seen the way newspapers have often contributed to racial stereotypes and inequality. We've also seen the way newspapers have been a megaphone for vulnerable communities and communities under attack. So I wanted to ask one of the leaders in the newsroom, why was this project important for the Star Tribune to undertake, and what do you think is next? Suki Dardarian is the editor and senior vice president at the Minnesota Star Tribune who oversaw this project.
- [43:36]
Cynthia Hicks
Our mission at the Star Tribune is to build a better Minnesota by connecting people, ideas, and stories that strengthen our communities. That includes shining a light on the successes and the failures in our community, past and present, and providing context to our readers to help them better understand the world around them. The research that we and others have done to elevate the story of Harry and Clementine Robinson is valuable not just because it's a retelling of a story that few people knew about. It's valuable because it provides a window through which we can view their lives, their neighborhood, their city, and in doing so, it gives us that context. We need to understand and build a stronger community today. We've learned so much on this journey with Eric, and we want others to share that experience and grow from it as well. We want to encourage conversations throughout the community about what the Robinson story means to us today. So we've planned events and produced a discussion guide that people can use in their own small groups. I was thinking you could even turn your book club into a podcast club for a few months.
- [44:52]
Melissa Townsend
In Minnesota today, there are racial disparities that are extremely wide in wealth, income, homeownership, education, achievement, and Harry and Clementine's story helps us understand why. Good work has been done over decades to address these problems, and the murder of George Floyd in South Minneapolis fueled some of that effort. But there is more to do Foreign this is Ghost of a Chance. Our website is startribune.com backslash ghostofachance. There you can see pictures and documents from the podcast and you can also sign up to receive news about discussion guides and events. Our email is ghostofachancetartribune.com get in touch if you have a question or feedback or a tip related to the Robinson story. We'd also love to know if this story motivated you to do something in your community, so let us know. You can help pay for this incredible story and others like it with a subscription to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Go to our website startribune.com Ghost of a Chance is reported by Eric Roper and written and produced by by me, Melissa Townsend. Our executive producer is Jenny Pinkley. Our editor is Mary Jo Webster. Fact checking by Eric Roper and Mary Jo Webster. Sound design by Marcel Malakebu. Our contributing editors are Star Tribune Managing Editor Maria Reeve and Star Tribune Editor and Senior Vice President Suki Dardarian. Legal review from Randy Lebedoff. The art for our show comes from Anna Boone and Brock Kaplan. Special thanks to Kendall Harkness, Zoe Jackson, Laura McCollum, James Schiffer, Nancy Yang, Casey Darnell, Laura Ewan, Tame Danger and members of the local community who served as our adventure.