https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment0
Partial Transcript: MARSHALL: Your, your name is Ben?
NEELY: Benjamin.
MARSHALL: Benjamin?
NEELY: A.
MARSHALL: A.
NEELY: Eh, Neely.
Segment Synopsis: A.P. Marshall discuss the background and personal history of Benjamin Neely, his family and their arrival in Ypsilanti from Gastonia, North Carolina in 1914. Mr. Neely describes his early memories of the city.
Keywords: 1914; African-American porters; African-American undertakers; American Car and Foundry Company; Audrey Roberson; Benjamin A. Neely; Brown Chapel AME Church; Canada; Ecorse, Michigan; Egbert Bow; Gastonia, North Carolina; Great Migration; Hamilton Street; November 11, 1900; Richardson family; Samuel Richardson; Solomon Bow; South Washington Street; Upthegrove family; Ypsilanti, Michigan
Subjects: African American families. African Americans--Migrations--History--20th century.
https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment450
Partial Transcript: NEELY: And uh, but I, but I got to work with a man by the name of Cain. He was a dry cleaner.
MARSHALL: Was that K-E-E-N-E?
NEELY: C-A-I-N.
MARSHALL: Oh, C-A-I-N, OK.
NEELY: Yeah. And it was, he called Cain’s Cleaning and Dying, he and I began to, to work together.
Segment Synopsis: Benjamin Neely describes his self-taught way into the dry cleaning industry and the limitations white racism placed on his getting training and work. Mr. Neely describes how his own Ypsilanti cleaning business opened and failed. Mr. Neely also briefly describes his married life.
Keywords: African-American dry cleaners; Alfred E. Pelham; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Audrey Neely Roberson; Cain's Cleaners and Dyers; Capitol Cleaners; Egbert Bow, Dr. Perry; Ethel King Neely; George Porter; Goldman Cleaners; International Correspondence School; Margurite King: Hazen King Jr.; Merlin King; Richardson's Grocery Store; South Washington Street, Harriet Street; Trojan Laundry; Washington Laundry; pressers; spotters
Subjects: Racism--Michigan--History--20th century. Race discrimination in employment. African American business enterprises. Marriage.
https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment1290
Partial Transcript: NEELY: Well, I tell you. The, the idea of unionization started right around until then. Everything out here was unorganized. It was day labor, anything they wanted to pay them. Kicking them around. So the Amalgamated Clothing Workers started to, organizing the laundry workers. And of course they came to the Trojan Laundry first. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers are a white group, a Jewish group, and of course, they started working with the white people down at the laundry. Now, I don’t know this, all I’m doing is down there trying to make a reputation, a name for myself, and putting out a good job. But, they was, they were, they was secretly, that whole group, laundry group—whites, mostly, there was about 10 colored, or, 10 blacks in the whole laundry, rest of ’em was white—and they, they decided that they would organize if they would get, Ben Neely would join them. Yeah. Now how that got out, how they happened to have such an opinion of me, I don’t know.
Segment Synopsis: Mr. Neely discusses joining the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and organizing local African-American laundry workers into the union during the 1920s and 1930s.
Keywords: African-American trade unionists; Amalgamated Clothing Workers; Congress of Industrial Organizations; Ford Motor Company; Jackson's Cleaners; Marshall Scott; Martha Washington theater; Orville Hubbard; Weurth Theater; laundry workers unionizing; racism in Ypsilanti; segregation in Ypsilanti
Subjects: Segregation--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Racism--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Labor unions--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History.
https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment1757
Partial Transcript: MARSHALL: While you’re getting yourself together, this, just, just the other day, somebody, I mentioned Ben Neely and somebody said, “Well, you need to talk to Ben Neely because Ben Neely was lead—was leading protests around here when the rest of the blacks were perfectly happy with their status quo.” [Laughs] That’s what they said about you. They said, they were talking about blacks in Ypsilanti protesting, and they were just saying that, “Well, Ben Neely was leading protests when nobody else was interested.”
NEELY: That’s right, that’s right. Yep. You see, that was during the time when the depression was on and they wasn’t feeding the people. They’d give the whites what they, anything they wanted, and give the blacks practically nothing. So I decided then what you call outright, put it, put it on the spot. They wanted to brand me as a Communist. But I wasn’t a Communist. Mm-mm, I never was Communist. And I never fought the Communists either. Because he was fighting my battle too. So I’d, I’d accept, I’d accept what help I could get from him
Segment Synopsis: Benjamin Neely describes the situation for African-Americans during the Great Depression and some his organizing. He also retells his run-ins with locals police standing up to segregation in Ypsilanti businesses. .
Keywords: African-Americans and the Communist Party; African-Americans in the Great Depression; Anti-Communism; Benjamin Neely; Bobby Dennis; Communist Party; Eastern Michigan University; FBI; Foster Fletcher; Sidney Hillman; Trojan Laundry; Walter Reuther; White Tower restaurant; Ypsilanti in the Great Depression; Ypsilanti police and African-Americans; discrimination in Ypsilanti
Subjects: Segregation--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Racism--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Labor unions--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Police--Michigan--Ypsilanti--History. Communism and labor unions.
https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment2215
Partial Transcript: NEELY: ’Course, I, it had become time when we thought it to get, to work politically.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: Oh yeah. Fellow by the name of Elliot Jordan and me were organizing for to uh, get the Negro to vote properly. Changing him over from the solid Republican to vote either ticket—whichever one serves, serves him best.
Segment Synopsis: Benjamin Neely discusses his work as a leading local activist during the World War Two period and divisions within Ypsilanti's African-American community. Mr. Neely and A.P. Marshall also discuss the case of Harry Starks, a Black man apparently elected to city council, but never informed.
Keywords: African-Americans and the Democratic Party; Amos Washington; Congress of Industrial Organizations; Elliot Jordan; Frank Seymour; Harley Holmes; Harry Starks; Jimmy Moore; John Burton, John Reeves; Negro Business and Professional League; Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations; Spencer Washington; Willow Run; Ypsilanti City Council; voter registration Ypsilanti; women and union organizing; ‘Hurry Up Sundown, Let’s See What Tomorrow Brings'
Subjects: Local elections. African Americans--Politics and government. Political participation.
https://history.ypsilibrary.org%2Fohms-viewer-master%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DNeely.xml#segment2826
Partial Transcript: MARSHALL: I know what you mean. Um, well, I guess I wanted to ask you something about what’s the effect of this newspaper that uh,
NEELY: Oh, the black—
MARSHALL: Francois started? Francois started a newspaper. That was way—that wasn’t too long ago,
Segment Synopsis: Benjamin Neely describes his views on the class divisions within Ypsilanti's African-American community, including over which political party to vote for. Mr. Neely remembers some of the struggles he has had with other members of Ypsilanti's Black community because of his political opinions.
Keywords: A.P. Marshall; Annie Simpson; Bell Radio Station; Benjamin Neely; Black newspapers; Dick Elliot; Directory of Library; Dr. Bell; Eastern Michigan University; Frank Seymour; Herbert Francois; Mark Neely; Pete Brooks; Republican Party and African-Americans; Washtenaw Sun; Ypsilanti NAACP; class divisions in Ypsilanti's African-American community; sharecroppers
Subjects: African American newspapers. Political participation.
MARSHALL: Your, your name is Ben?
NEELY: Benjamin.
MARSHALL: Benjamin?
NEELY: A.
MARSHALL: A.
NEELY: Eh, Neely.
MARSHALL: What does the “A” stand for?
NEELY: A-Adell.
MARSHALL: A-D-E-L-L?
NEELY: Right.
MARSHALL: Where were you born, Mr. Neely?
NEELY: Gastonia, North Carolina.
MARSHALL: Oh, you were born in Gastonia! Well, when I-eh, why the reason I ask
you that is—I lived in Winston-Salem.NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: for quite a long time. In fact, my daughter was born in Winston-Salem,
but uh, I—I’m qui—quite familiar with North Carolina. Uh,NEELY: [Where’s the latest group?]
MARSHALL: When did you come to, when did you come to, uh, Ypsilanti?
NEELY: 1914.
MARSHALL: 1914, the year I was born. [Laughs] Did you come here on your own, or?
NEELY: No, I was 14 years old.
MARSHALL: Came here with your parents?
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: 1914. And then you’ve lived here all your life?
NEELY: I’ve lived here off and on all my life. I—my home has always been here.
MARSHALL: Always been here, uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: But, uh, I would be out of town, like I’d be in Chicago for maybe 6
00:01:00months orMARSHALL: Oh yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: I’d be in Detroit for maybe a year or two,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: but my home has always—
MARSHALL: Always here, uh-huh. Well, Mr. Neely, uh, ’course, you, you, uh,
have childrenNEELY: Yes, my, I have one chil—one daughter.
MARSHALL: One daughter. And, uh, is she still living here?
NEELY: Yes, she still lives here.
MARSHALL: Who—do I know—
NEELY: It’s Mr. Audrey Roberson.
MARSHALL: Oh, yes, yes, yes, mm-hmm. So you’re a grandfather, too?
NEELY: Oh yes.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: Great-grand, grandfather.
MARSHALL: Yes, right. Uh-huh. Well. Now you see, I didn’t—I, I know Mrs.
Roberson but I didn’t know—NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Y’know, I hadn’t connected the two.
NEELY: Well, I’m 80 years old.
MARSHALL: Yeah, I, I was about to ask you, uh, wh—when, how, about to ask you,
when was your birthday?NEELY: Eleventh of November.
MARSHALL: Eleventh of November, and you were born—
NEELY: 1900.
MARSHALL: 1900. Eleventh of November, 1981, you’ll be 81 years old.
NEELY: That’s right.
MARSHALL: I had an uncle who was, let’s see, his birthday was July, then his
00:02:00birthday was July 5th, uh, 1900, and he died last year [laughs]. But, um, I figured you’d been around quite a while. And, uh, real—really, uh, oh, what I want to ask you, the next thing I want to ask you is, uh, the things—when you—about the time you came to Ypsilanti, the time you came to Ypsilanti, could you tell me what, uh, situ—what circumstances were, so far as, [tupelo] so far as black people were concerned?NEELY: Well, most black people in Ypsilanti when I came here called themselves
Canadians because they said their parents were Ca—were from Canada. And, uh, well, we, the newcomer black man…why, I heard, uh, one lady in particular call 00:03:00a, speak, speak of me “all those southern Negroes.”MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Her nephew and me were in a fight—just kids.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: My father was a deacon in the Methodist Church and I attended Sunday
School at the Methodist—A.M.E. Methodist Church.MARSHALL: Where, where we are now.
NEELY: [ ] place was built, 1905 I think.
MARSHALL: Yeah, right.
NEELY: Does that answer your question?
MARSHALL: Well, that’s, that’s part of it, and then, and now, keep, just
keep right on talking. I am interested in, uh, I’m interested in, what did the people, what, what, what was the general attitude of the people? 00:04:00NEELY: The general attitude of the people was everyone—there was no renters.
Ev—everyone owned their own home. My, we, my family, when they came here, my father was a construction worker.MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: And of course, he came, he first stopped in Detroit. He was only in
Detroit a day and a half before he was out here.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, he roomed with a family called the Upthegroves, and they lived
on Hamilton Street. The, the Upthegrove house is still there. And, we roomed with them for a while, then we moved from the Upthegroves over to a, the 00:05:00relatives of the Richison group, which was the Bowles family.MARSHALL: Oh, the Bowles. Solomon Bowles.
NEELY: Solomon Bowles. We, we lived with Solomon Bowles
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: for a long time.
MARSHALL: It was at that time Solomon was in the moving business.
NEELY: Solomon was a, was a house mover.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: He was with Egbert Bowles.
MARSHALL: Egbert, right.
NEELY: Uh, about that time, uh, we was going to, going to school, too, my
brother and I, and uh, we lived with, we lived, we, we lived with Egbert Bowles, y’know.MARSHALL: Egbert Bowles.
NEELY: Egbert, not Solomon.
MARSHALL: Yeah, OK.
NEELY: No, it was Solomon,
MARSHALL: Solomon?
NEELY: He lived on, he lived next door to, to the Richisons
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: on Washington Street.
MARSHALL: The Richisons were the undertaker Richisons.
NEELY: Yeah, but they were not undertakers at that time.
MARSHALL: They weren’t undertakers then.
NEELY: No, [weren’t] really, ’cause Sam and I was in school together.
MARSHALL: I see.
NEELY: Yeah, see.
MARSHALL: ’Cause old Sam that’s here now.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
00:06:00NEELY: He was out here and I was both in school.
MARSHALL: Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, he was undertaker for a long while, while I was, let’s see,
what was I doing to [here] at the time. Right along through there, forget the year [though], I had to leave school in 1917.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: [I guess] I left school at that time.
MARSHALL: [Coughs]
NEELY: And I went to Detroit and I worked at the American Car and Founding
Company, inspect—an inspector of six inch shells, ’cause the war was on then.MARSHALL: Oh yeah, yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, from that time, I worked for a little while out on, in Ecorse and I
come back to Ypsilanti.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And that was in the 20s.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: But you know, you not looking for 20s.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah, anything, all the whole period, mm-hmm.
00:07:00NEELY: And of course I, worked around with Ypsilanti as a porter at the, in the
fraternity houses in Ann Arbor for awhile.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: And after I got through with that, I wind up with a, I was trying to
find myself because I—MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: I was not a, not a construction worker [but I didn’t make any, make].
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: And uh, but I, but I got to work with a man by the name of Cain. He was
a dry cleaner.MARSHALL: Was that K-E-E-N-E?
NEELY: C-A-I-N.
MARSHALL: Oh, C-A-I-N, OK.
NEELY: Yeah. And it was, he called Cain’s Cleaning and Dying, he and I began
to, to work together.MARSHALL: That was here in Ypsilanti.
NEELY: That was here in Ypsilanti, yes. And uh, we were cleaning and pressing,
that was about, around 1921, 22. And uh, and then on we, we, mm, let me think 00:08:00about that. Then we were doing quite a bit of that—the cleaners and dyers then were just beginning to get, get themselves together.MARSHALL: I see.
NEELY: And then see, I was in the position when I had to leave school on
account of family conditions.MARSHALL: Sure, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, very poor. My dad, when he was doing no, nobody was making any
money, and of course you had to, had to have something.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So I had to produce the best I could
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and that’s the way it was. So I, I worked with Cain and I, I began to
pick up on the dry cleaning business and I begin to get ahold of periodicals of it, things to read about it, what it is,MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: how it’s done, and those organizations that are best in it
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: what they knew about it, how to do a good job,
00:09:00MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: a job that would, who would attract attention and keep people coming. So
I began to, what they call, teach myself the, the art.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: And I kept it up—once I got started, I never stopped. I then felt that
I needed more education, but I couldn’t go back to school, so I took a course with ICSMARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: International Correspondence School on English and how to use it—the
meaning of punctuation pointsMARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: just the basic grammar.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, I got so I could read with understanding, at least partial understanding.
MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: ’Course, uh, I uh, kept working with Mr. Cain till finally he moved
out of town, and left the business with me. So I had a few dollars at that time, and I, I bought it out.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And I bought machinery, and that was more, that was closer to, into 1925
00:10:00and then, then I got, I uh, bought it out and I started a business of my own.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, mending clothes, cleaning and pressing clothes, and uh, I
bought my own machinery and I set up a business of my own that kept going.MARSHALL: Where was your business located, Mr.—?
NEELY: I was, I located, I got married about that time
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: so I closed out my business on Washington Street. ’Cause that
business, started on Harriet Street.MARSHALL: On Harriet Street.
NEELY: but it closed out of Harriet Street and I moved over on Washington street
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: right next to Richison’s Grocery Store. And we moved out of that over
to my house on Harriet Street. That’s where I lived and had most of my business.MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: It was right next to Mr. Egbert Bowles
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: or Dr. Perry’s old home.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: Not the new home, but his old home.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, right.
NEELY: I was there when his, when his children were born.
MARSHALL: Yeah, huh.
NEELY: He graduated on my, uh, my tooth.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: 19…37 I think it was.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: He graduated from, he saved me from that, ’cause he figured I’d take
00:11:00the fee.MARSHALL: Yeah [laughs]
NEELY: ’cause I’d have to pay the dentist who wasn’t paying himself.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: So he figured that I would take it and I did too, because I was
determined to see to it that he made it. I couldn’tMARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: make it, so I’ll see to it that the other fellow can.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So I was [had it] that he graduate with flying colors.
MARSHALL: Uh.
NEELY: And uh, I come through with that, let me see if I can connect the—
MARSHALL: How long did you stay in the cleaning business?
NEELY: Oh, I stayed in the cleaning business for the rest of my life.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: But I, but I had to go, see Goldman, at the time, I was to go, going,
doing pretty good. Goldman and Green and a couple of other young kids kept coming into town and you see, they were white, they had more money than I did, and they had a cleaner’s war between the two of them. But in that cleaner’s war, I got wiped out.MARSHALL: Oh.
NEELY: Well, I couldn’t take it.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So I had to go to work. So I, then I went back and forth to Detroit from
00:12:00here to work for awhile. And that, uh, then at the, time of 19, I think it was Friday, in 1929 with the Stock Market Crisis.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: That was the—you could, you remember that?
MARSHALL: Yeah, I remember that.
NEELY: It was that, it was a Friday evening,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, sure was.
NEELY: And I was uh, I was at New Todd’s Cleaners and Dyers on, way out on
Jefferson Avenue.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: I was getting into the high price cleaners as a presser,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: spotter, cleaner, ’cause I wanted to see how they did it.
MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: Not so much
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: [until] the enterprise,
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: get in there. See how they did it. And that’s because the, the, the,
the Cleaners and Dryers school would not admit me.MARSHALL: I see.
NEELY: They would not train me.
MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: And the white cleaners, at that time, around here, would not hire a
black spotter. They would hire a black presser, but they wouldn’t have a black spotter.MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: He could clean, but he wouldn’t let, wouldn’t let him spot
MARSHALL: Mm, mm-hmm.
NEELY: because the spotter was the highest-priced man.
MARSHALL: Sure, yeah.
NEELY: The spotter was getting anywhere from eighty-five to a hundred and fifty
dollars a week.MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: And of course, the presser, he’d make 40, 45
00:13:00MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: cents an hour. Or maybe, uh, piecework, something like that.
MARSHALL: Sure, mm-hmm.
NEELY: So I was, I was struggling to get through. I was married during that
time and I kept going until finally, after I got in business for myself, I was doing pretty good. Then I went out of business for myself. [ ] when I did go out of business…well, anyway, I did go out.MARSHALL: Well, when you, when you married?
NEELY: 1925.
MARSHALL: You married in 1925. You were—the name of your bride?
NEELY: Her name was Ethel, Ethel King. She was a former married woman. See, I
was single then, but I married the woman, see I thought I was—MARSHALL: That was Hazen’s mother.
NEELY: That’s right, sure.
MARSHALL: Oh.
NEELY: I married, I raised Hazen, Marguerite, and Mary.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: But see, they were not my children.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: I married [if] their mother.
00:14:00MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, uh.
NEELY: I, ’cause I, I married her because I was the kind of fellow I didn’t
like the w—the way that the young girls were dressed.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And,see, I’d get a woman, ’cause I needed somebody who’s going to
help me get ahead.MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: so I married her and her four kids. But I made a mistake.
MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: [That one too, but go ahead.]
MARSHALL: Mm. Mm.
NEELY: Yeah, but the kids all liked me
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: but me and her, we couldn’t make it.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: Until I married, I’ve been married to [ ] for 40 years. And, uh, so,
uh, I’m married to, I separated from her; I kept on going for myself, I—MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: And I worked at, uh, Trojan Laundry for 32 straight years. I went down
there around, went down there around a hundred and, a hundred and 1930-something.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: I went down there as a, as a presser, to—just to get in there
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: ’cause it was a good—get to started here. I started at 45 cents an
hour. At noon, they gave me 50 cents an hour and, at fifty, and in the evening, 00:15:00they raised me to 60 cents an hour.MARSHALL: Ohhh.
NEELY: They figured they’d hire the first Negro
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: man in the pressing field down there
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: and just see what, what I could do.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: But they found that I was quite ex—well experienced
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: and knew exactly what I was doing
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: and when I did a job, it was right.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: So they, they was making every effort to g—get ahold of me. ’Cause
the man that they hired there at the head of the thing, he wasn’t part of the University of MichiganMARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: but that’s all he do, is what he, what he read some books over
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: there. And they didn’t teach nothing about dry cleaners.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: But he was just the head of the thing and I was the man doing the work.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So that just give me a full swing at that, to do my way, to do things my way.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: And I was doing it. And I was getting away with nay—with doing it.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: I was putting them over but I was learning for myself
MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: finally. And I had come, I’d come on time too as time grew on. Uh, I,
uh, He, he married the, the owner, called the Washington Laundries [coughs]—the Washington Laundry from Ann Arbor—married the spotter that was 00:16:00working down there. So he, it was decided, they decided to go to California and he recommended me to take his spot, ’cause he out there in person.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: So they, they didn’t, they was being cheap, y’know. They, they give
me, they started me off then at a hundred dollarsMARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: per week, and uh, for I to, to do the job that he was doing.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But I—there wasn’t nothing to do, you got to do it anyway before he
left there.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: Nothing I wasn’t doing.
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: I was just, just, just you just, you could do it the same thing, there
wasn’t no—one less man.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So, I kept on going with that until finally, after the, the war, and
they started to have these little schools for, for teaching dry cleaning. A group of people, E., uh, Mar—, E., I think it was E. E. uh, not E. E. but a man by the name of Marshall in Detroit that was on the school board there, George Porter—uh, he was the biggest cleaner, Negro cleaner in, yeah, and, uh, 00:17:00Alfred E. Philum, he was the, the editor of the City of Detroit Sun,MARSHALL: Oh, uh.
NEELY: so, he uh, after he got he put up a school like that, [he strike on]
MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: Well, then he watch and pick me up.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: I was making myself a hundred dollars a week they come and offer me a
hundred and fifty.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: Naturally, I went down there and got
MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: the hundred and fifty.
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And of course, uh, I was down there until that closed. All that gave me
a reputation, y’know,MARSHALL: Sure, mm-hmm.
NEELY: and that, and I’m learning all the time.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: See, I’m in school most of the [mayor].
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: I was, I was getting a big thing.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Getting to tell me—I’m getting ready then. I got [ready] cleaners
waiting from Alaska, and Texas—MARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: all those places where people would be writing back to see Mr. Neely
about this question,MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: just like they was doing the one in Springs, in, uh, in uh, Washington,
in uh, Washington.MARSHALL: Washington, D.C.?
00:18:00NEELY: Yeah. So, uh, it kept going like that until finally, uh, after I got
through with that, why, let me see, [there’s even something for them to see now], I have what’s called mental lapses.MARSHALL: I would have [laughs] I can’t remember myself the last ten years,
and I ain’t got emphysema, I don’t think.NEELY: Yeah…you better, you…great thing not to have.
MARSHALL: Yeah. [laughs]
NEELY: I’ll tell the world that. And, and asthma. [March oh], all that stuff.
MARSHALL: [Laughs] Oh, God.
NEELY: So I, uh,
MARSHALL: So you worked, you worked over that, then you when you after you,
after this, company going out I mean this school went out in Detroit,NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Well then did you come back here and go back into the, into cleaning
00:19:00again here?NEELY: Well now let me think, let me collect up that. After the school went out
in Detroit, what did I start to do after that…Oh, I got the school went out so I come back to Trojan.MARSHALL: You come, you came back and started working for Trojan.
NEELY: Come back and worked for Trojan again.
MARSHALL: And then of course you worked there until you retired.
NEELY: I worked there until they went out of business.
MARSHALL: Oh I see.
NEELY: Then I come up here to the present Trojan Laundry and I was operating
that until they sold it.MARSHALL: Oh.
NEELY: They sold it to the present man.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: And after that, I worked, uh, worked two years in Ann Arbor at the
Capitol Cleaners.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: And from there I retired, and that was in ’68.
MARSHALL: Oh, I see.
NEELY: And of course, at ’68, I retired because of bad health.
00:20:00MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Y’know, since then, since ’68 right on up until now, my health has
been slowly receding.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Right now, I can’t walk, uh, two city blocks, uh, well, I can’t
walk. Go there and back there two, three times I’m out of wind.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Now, now, now, during that particular time, of course you you you you
you covered a period there when, uh,NEELY: I covered a [that’s] twenty or thirty years.
MARSHALL: black folks started waking up.
NEELY: Oh, yes.
MARSHALL: Now, I, I, I always say we started waking up right after the second
world war. Up to that time we were just sleeping. But, uh, those guys who came back here from, uh, from being in the war, at least, I wasn’t part of it, but I was in the war. And I, I know, I know what we did back where I was, I was in North Carolina, by the way. Uh, so I mean, I’m interested in the, what was happening in Ypsilanti, particularly during that time. 00:21:00NEELY: Yeah, I see what [it is]. Them folks have been telling you about the
scrapple I’ve been having.MARSHALL: Yes, yes, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Mr., uh, Neel—Ben,
NEELY: Yes.
MARSHALL: hindsight is always better than foresight.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And they—people were probably critical of you then and they’re not
anymore. You know that.NEELY: Yeah, oh yeah.
MARSHALL: I mean, this is one of those—’course, I go through some of the
same things.NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: So I, so I understand that.
NEELY: Well, I tell you. The, the idea of unionization started right around
until then. Everything out here was unorganized. It was day labor, anything they wanted to pay them. Kicking them around. So the Amalgamated Clothing Workers started to, organizing the laundry workers. And of course they came to the Trojan Laundry first. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers are a white group, a Jewish group, and of course, they started working with the white people down at 00:22:00the laundry. Now, I don’t know this, all I’m doing is down there trying to make a reputation, a name for myself, and putting out a good job. But, they was, they were, they was secretly, that whole group, laundry group—whites, mostly, there was about 10 colored, or, 10 blacks in the whole laundry, rest of ’em was white—and they, they decided that they would organize if they would get, Ben Neely would join them. Yeah. Now how that got out, how they happened to have such an opinion of me, I don’t know.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But anyway, that’s what they told me. I said, well, I, I believed in
unionism, but I suggest the question is, will it stick? ’Cause I don’t want them to get me out there, get them to where I get my neck out in Washtenaw County, ’cause I won’t be able to get a job nowhere around here. ’Cause if they got to that place where they found that I was secretly organizing people—MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: and I was!
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: And of course I, I couldn’t have got, couldn’t get a job at
Golman’s, I couldn’t get a job at Green’s, I couldn’t get a job at uh, uh, Forbes—none of those places. 00:23:00MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, even Jackson’s, ’cause, we’d stay away from him.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: And Trojan’s couldn’t fire me because if they did, if they did, it failed.
MARSHALL: Yeah [laughs] Oh…
NEELY: So they kept it going like that for over a long period of time. Uh,
Ypsilanti was one of the most—Ypsilanti was, and is now one of the most prejudiced spots you can find in Michigan. But it’s more subtle now than it ever was before. Uh, during when I first came here, there were two theaters. One was the Martha Washington. No blacks could go there at all at the time when I first came here. And the other was at the, what they call the Wuerth Theater. You couldn’t go to the, go to the downstairs there but you could go up in the ceiling, upstairs there. That’s where the theaters for years, be like that. 00:24:00MARSHALL: But we went, didn’t we?
NEELY: Oh yes, we went. Finally, a man by the name of Marshall Scott uh, went
and, went downstairs. They put him out, and he sued them. And uh, he had, they had a battle and he won his fight. They had to open up that bottom, and allow colored people to go downstairs. And later on, they had to open up the Martha Washington so they could go there. And they could eat at no restaurants downstairs but one, but one little place where that uh, they could, that black people, they had very little work that they could do in Ypsilanti.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: They had to either go to [mister] Ford’s or some place out of town to
work because there was no jobs in Ypsilanti. And so you see they had what they call crews to drive me until Ford began to build out, out here.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: I uh, I worked for a short time at Ford’s, but I, I just wasn’t
00:25:00that, wasn’t that kind of a construction work—I mean, a, a factory worker. I was, I’d go for waiting tables or something on that order. Something that [go away] you feel clean; I didn't like to feel, to be dirty.MARSHALL: Yeah [laughs]
NEELY: for some reason. But I, but I figured if I could wait tables, I could
work to make enough money.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And of course, uh, you managed to get on the school, you know how [our
waiters] were getting into classes there,MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: doing them things, they would get to working,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: they, they know how to get ahold of things, too, y’know.
MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: And of course I, I had, I, I was in that group that elected Mayor
Orville Hubbard of Dearborn. That, that crew paid me $15 that night for waiting on them and serving them whiskey.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Stuff like that. I [get the] salary [cut the] club, old man [lawful]. So
do—doing that kind of work and working at Trojan too,MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: I was making pretty fair money.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Oh, sure.
NEELY: Well, let’s see, uh…
MARSHALL: Well now, well now, when you, when you, when you got interested in
00:26:00this union business, how much support were you actually getting from the other blacks?NEELY: Good support.
MARSHALL: That good support.
NEELY: Good support. Uh, that was, that was, there’s where we made our
biggest, biggest haul. You see, we had to get the blacks so that they would take us because, see, blacks was against unionists to an extent. Uh, I uh, I went to school with them for a while. They, they sent me to different conventions including in Chicago,MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and I think we, we went to, to the camp a couple of times to see what
the union was doing. We studied how they, how they operated, how they, how they to attack an organization, and how to use tactics to persuade people to do things, and how to uh, uh, to evade you may say the, the, the uh, way of the 00:27:00management had of trying to put a special person in your midst.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: But we, we were, figured out that, instead of, uh, I guess that was my
old scheme too. Uh, uh, and, uh, we’d know who he was, except we’d give him what we wanted management to have.MARSHALL: Yeah. [Laughs] Yep.
NEELY: [Laughs] So we, [ ] and we were accepting it and we would take it back
to him, but in the meantime, he thought he was going to ask for their, for their benefitMARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: and we were poisoning management
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: at the same time. But finally they, y’know, that got exposed and they,
they, well, they fired him all right, but they couldn’t fire us, we wouldn't take the guy because we knew he wasn’t for us.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So, it was just, and, uh, what that did, that meant that the, the, the
white union members and the black union members, they [just look at the benefits and leave, see what benefit about it]MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: What he think. That’s, let’s, let’s, let’s all get together. And
we’d together just figure out something, and then we’d, we’d spot our man, 00:28:00and see what, see how it got to the other guy. Then we’d know exactly how it got there. And we’d cook up things and send to them.MARSHALL: So…[laughs]
NEELY: In other words, I was what you’d call a double-crosser.
MARSHALL: Well, that’s one of those things white folks forced us to do.
NEELY: Well, that’s what they thought they were doing. But I was, I was organizing.
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And then again, we, we, we, uh, things organizing, was, that, um, we
would, uh, just a minute, get my breath,MARSHALL: Just while, while you would
NEELY: Yes, go ahead.
MARSHALL: While you’re getting yourself together, this, just, just the other
day, somebody, I mentioned Ben Neely and somebody said, “Well, you need to talk to Ben Neely because Ben Neely was lead—was leading protests around here when the rest of the blacks were perfectly happy with their status quo.” 00:29:00[Laughs] That’s what they said about you. They said, they were talking about blacks in Ypsilanti protesting, and they were just saying that, “Well, Ben Neely was leading protests when nobody else was interested.”NEELY: That’s right, that’s right. Yep. You see, that was during the time
when the depression was on and they wasn’t feeding the people. They’d give the whites what they, anything they wanted, and give the blacks practically nothing. So I decided then what you call outright, put it, put it on the spot. They wanted to brand me as a Communist. But I wasn’t a Communist. Mm-mm, I never was Communist. And I never fought the Communists either. Because he was fighting my battle too. So I’d, I’d accept, I’d accept what help I could get from himMARSHALL: Sure.
NEELY: but I didn’t have to get, have my name on his roll because I know that
in America, Communism can’t win in America. But their, but their protest, their activity could help me win,MARSHALL: Sure,
NEELY: so I’d take it there, just take away where you could get it.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: So I would work with the protests. And, uh, Foster Fletcher hates me,
00:30:00hates me today because he was, they even done sent the I, the I, the,MARSHALL: The F.B.I.?
NEELY: The F.B.I., they sent them down to Trojan Laundry to try to get me to
join the Communist Party, yeah, want to get me to join the Communist Party so that I would report to him. I tell him uh-uh. Said I’m no stool pigeon for nobody! So you, I know who you are, you were, there was no way you could come to me with that. And I’m not telling you, on you, and you tell anything you want to tell on me, but I’m not joining.MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: You tell ’em that.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: [ ] don’t bother me no more.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But Bobby Dennis—poor fellow—he was the, he was the, he was a member
of the Eastern Michigan [two] school.MARSHALL: Dennis?
NEELY: Yeah, young Buddy Dennis, you probably don’t know him.
MARSHALL: Nah.
NEELY: He was up, he, he graduated from there before you got into there.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But, yes, but, uh, he was, he joined the Communist Party. He was going
to tell, I tried to tell him to pipe down,MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:31:00NEELY: but ah, he wouldn’t do it. I could have used him but I had to get away
from him.MARSHALL: Yeah [laughs]
NEELY: because he was, he was poison.
MARSHALL: Well now, what were you doing? They were setting up these soup
kitchens to feed people and, and, providing people with, uh, food, and, stuff like that, and not—and ignoring the blacks? Is that what happened?NEELY: That was, that was later. That was all, I wasn’t in it then.
MARSHALL: Oh.
NEELY: But I was where you had to go to people, they had to give you an order
for go to the grocery store.MARSHALL: Oh.
NEELY: And get you the food that you wanted.
MARSHALL: I see.
NEELY: And, uh, and uh, you could get, you would go there and uh, they’d have
meat, ham, and everything else that you’d want, and, uh, give it to you, during the, during the time, I remember, I know once that Thomas was supposed to be taking care of supplying meats, foodstuffs to the poor, to the poor people during 1929, 30, and 35, in through there. Uh, the, the blacks would go down 00:32:00there to get something, they didn’t have nothing, so they had to go away. So I, I got a group of people together and I said, “Now we’re going to get some food today. I’m going to tell you what’s liable to happen. The police department is liable to come down here and want to drive us away. If they tell you to go, don’t tell them no you’re not going, move! We run away. But soon as the cop goes away, come back to the same spot. And he will tell you to move again, go ahead, but as soon as he moves, you move.”MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: “Just keep it back and forth. Do as he tell you all the time. If, if,
if you, you can’t be there, he can’t either, ’cause he got to be where, where you are to keep you there.”MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: So it was, that thing, and in the meantime, the rest of them was begging
Thomas for food. Pretty soon it pretty near drove Thomas mad—he, he rushed out and he said, “Give these goddamn people anything they want! Give them the whole damn thing, ’cause I don’t want no part of it no more!” Negroes walking out of there with whole hams, sacks of flour, 5 pound bags of sugar. They couldn’t get a 2 pound bag of sugar before! 00:33:00MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: They cracked it wide open.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: Well…
MARSHALL: Now you keep saying Thomas. Is that Thomas Grocery? Where they getting
this food?NEELY: Oh this food, no, that was, uh, that was, uh, the federal government,
had this extra supply of foodstuffs.MARSHALL: Oh, I see. This was not a grocery store, but this was a, sort of a
[wows]. Yeah. I see.NEELY: No. This was the beginning of this thing. No. It was a—yeah.
MARSHALL: I see.
NEELY: Yeah, this was a, this was a first, a first beginning of this thing.
See, there’s been two depressions: the first great depression and the second one. The second one was at, at the, at, at the uh, war, the Vietnam War. But you see, after the World War I, there was a depression.MARSHALL: That’s what I’m thinking, yeah, I thought that was what you were
talking about. Right after World War I, black folks had it rough.NEELY: Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And then there was another one that came in the 30s.
NEELY: Yeah. Yeah.
MARSHALL: I know what you’re talking
00:34:00NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: about.
NEELY: You see, I’m talking about that one that come right after
MARSHALL: right after the
NEELY: the first world war. Yeah, that was a rough one. I mean that. There,
y’know, and of course there over the river, when they was organizing over there, that was one of the most subtle things—even the, even the union was kind of smothered in, in a little bit there, with the—there was one group over there did save me. We, yeah, called the White Tower. Now they wouldn’t serve no blacks, but I’d go along with the union brothers over there, over there and eat my breakfast along with them. I don’t realize that they had made an agreement with them to allow me to come in because the union wouldn’t allow no discrimination.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: They would, they would allow, allow me to eat over there as long as they
were with me. I don’t realize that, though, they didn’t tell me about it; I went over there by myself one day to get something to eat. I know this woman looking at me, never said nothing. Pretty soon she told me no, she wasn’t going to serve me. I said, “Why?” “You know you ain’t supposed to come in here.” I uh, so I called the police to get my order, get my, uh, come down 00:35:00here and arrested me. Yeah. Y’know? They put me in jail. The union had to come get me out of there.MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: That’s something; that’s when the cat got out of the bag.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Then the union had to come on out and fight this, fight my battles.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, so.
NEELY: Oh, man, I tell you, I, you see, all kinds of dirty tricks were pulled
on me. Every time I got one—didn’t make no difference who it was—I’d expose it.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: That was in, that was before Walter Reuther took power.
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: After Walter Reuther took power, it kind of straightened it out. All
through that, ’course, now in this case with the White Tower, one of the policemen, they, they come out there, one of them was going to beat me up, but I, I turned my back and was walking away and he hauled off and hit me. I turned around and knocked him out.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: You see, knock a policeman out, you know,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: he put his gun on me—I tell him, I tell him to move it or shoot it!
00:36:00[Laughs] I was getting ready. Then I hauled off to him and I was, I was crazy! I didn’t have good sense.MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: Nobody, nobody but a darn fool would have done that but me.
MARSHALL: [Laughs] Oh, sure.
NEELY: Sure, now, that’s what they wanted to tell you about—them wild days
of mine.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: when I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take no for an answer. You hit me, and
I’m going to hit you back. You kill me, I’m just a dead, another dead man.MARSHALL: Yeah. [Laughs]. Ah, sure. Was things like that that s—that moved us, though.
NEELY: Oh, yeah, they, they said that—
MARSHALL: Things like that that got us where we are today.
NEELY: And of course we, uh, let me see, uh, that’s all I can think of right now.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: ’Course, I, it had become time when we thought it to get, to work politically.
MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: Oh yeah. Fellow by the name of Elliot Jordan and me were organizing for
00:37:00to uh, get the Negro to vote properly. Changing him over from the solid Republican to vote either ticket—whichever one serves, serves him best.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And at this time, we felt that, that the Democratic Party was the best
thing for us.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But now our women was a trouble maker for us, for us, and for the black
man, black, uh, union man because our wages were so low that she could not, she could not see the idea of him out there walking on the, on the, line drawing no money, and she’s suffering for food in the house for the children. But we had, we had to convince her that in order to, to get the greater re—get results and to make things better for us, we had to suffer a little bit more extra. ’Cause if we win this battle, we had the good battle made.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: and we can get it, y’know. But Elliot Jordan and I, we sat down at
00:38:00that time in every home in Ypsilanti where Negroes lived, and every home in Willow Run, where Negroes lived,MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and talked to those people. And we’d go out into Willow Run, evening,
and do, dramatize everything.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: Just as the sun was setting, they’d had that song, ‘Hurry Up
Sundown, Let’s See What Tomorrow will Bring.’MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: And just as that sun was setting, we’d be playing that piece pulling
into there.MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: ‘Hurry Up Sundown, Let’s See What Tomorrow Brings.’ You’d see
the heads of them popping out and I’d get on the microphone and talk to the women, to support your husband in his efforts, and to organize because it’s for your benefit. Sure, you’ll suffer. You might be a little hungry—so are we. But help us starve our way into the successMARSHALL: Yeah [laughs]
NEELY: and we’ll win. You know, them women got in there, took that fight,
took that bait, got in there, I mean, they went to town!MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: When Harvey Holmes was in the, the City Clerk, I was down there. It had
00:39:00got so they wouldn't let the Negro go down and register no more. So I went down there to find out why. I, he said, “Who are you?” I said, “I’m the, I’m the organizer for the union and I want to know why these people can’t register. You tell them they can’t register and I tell them they can!” Now, [after I told him that] I told them, “Now here, try to get you, get a registration there. Let them turn you down.” He didn’t turn them down either!MARSHALL: He didn’t turn them down [laughs]
NEELY: No, he didn’t turn them down. ’Cause I had a witness. If he’s been
turning down a man, wouldn’t let them register, [cause I was right port man] I could get the International on that.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ain’t no [buck] then, either.
NEELY: Mm-mm, noooo…
NEELY: They hated me,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: and they had the policemen spotting me for everything.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: But I, but I, I come through. And they, and they, they don’t like me
too well yet because I don’t like Jimmy Moore. They all right I guess, ’cause I, I’ve never had, never had no trouble with them since.MARSHALL: Jimmy Moore is having his problems.
00:40:00NEELY: I know he’s got his problems
MARSHALL: He’s got his problems.
NEELY: Yeah, ’cause, ’cause of that PTPOA, I…
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: That’s, that’s, that’s a mess.
MARSHALL: Yeah. And then he’s got, he’s got some policemen down there on his
staff that he can’t get rid of.NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: And they’re just as anti-black as they can be.
NEELY: I know it, I know it, I know it, I know it. And of course, they might
succeed in getting rid of him.MARSHALL: They’re after him.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: They’re really after him.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Did you ever get involved with that, uh, Business and Professional Group?
NEELY: Business and Professional Group?
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: Well, let me tell you, put it this way, well, I’m going to put it the
way it is. I had, I d—I had little respect for them.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: I’m a black man
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and they’re black people
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: but you see, we blacks are divided. Our educated blacks feel that
they’re our leaders and we’re supposed to take their word and have nothing to say about it. See, I don’t have the education that those people have 00:41:00MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: but I have common sense. And I feel that common sense along side of
education will get you by.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
NEELY: They can give you method—give you a thing like that and how to do
things and get things done—but anything you know, you come and tell me and I’ll do it for you.MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, you do as I say and I’ll use you as my trooper to put me
over. Well, uh-uh. Do it right, do it to help mankind, make the best for all of us instead of helping me and then you suffer right on. I couldn’t see that so I just, I let them think that they got meMARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: but I never joined them. And I haven’t joined them yet. And I don’t
think I will join them because I, well, you know, I, uh, when I make up my mindMARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: And I know that, and I’m going to call the man’s name: Spencer
Washington. The poor fellow is dead now. But he was, he was, he was t—terrific. He was always telling me, “Don’t get on wrong now, don’t get 00:42:00on wrong.” And then there was another man that I tried to talk with. Now we was electing John Burton and somebody, and Mr. Reeves was running in there at that same time. I was leading the, leading the political group at that time. I said, “Mr. Reeves, we haven’t got anything against you. You, you, you seem to be pretty good with us.” I said, “But we didn’t know about you when we put John Burton up.” No, Frank Seymour think it was. When we put him, when we put him up. “But now if you’ll just stay up a little while, we’ll take you on the next round, we’ll put you over.” Now he looked at me ’cause he was that group, you know, well he was like me, [little use].MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: So he kept saying that he was, that I was supposed to listen to him
because he knew what he was doing. So I backed off a little bit and told him, I said, “Well, Mr. Reeves, I’m sorry to say this…”MARSHALL: That’s Seymour?
NEELY: No. But no, this is Reeves.
MARSHALL: Oh, I’m sorry.
00:43:00NEELY: Yeah, see, we was electing Seymour at that time.
MARSHALL: Oh, I see. Reeves was the guy that had the following?
NEELY: No, no, Reeves—we had the following but Reeves was trying to cut in
there, to get people to vote for him.MARSHALL: I see, yeah, I see.
NEELY: But you see, I was the leader of our group.
MARSHALL: I see. I got you.
NEELY: I was the man who, who was whe—guiding, guiding the, the, uh, the group
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: for the, uh, political action, in the first ward. Say in other words, I
was the CIO, was the political PAC man—MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: Political Action Committee.
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: I was the head of the Political Action Committee.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: And I was on political action.
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: So I said, uh, “We’ll, we’ll pick you up and we’ll put you over,
but we can’t carry the two of you right now.”MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: So he said, “Why can’t you put him down?” I said, “Well, we
didn’t know about you but we got this man and we, we, he’s, and he’s [proofed] in our way.” Because Frank was a workerMARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and Mr. Reeves was not.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So he said, “No, I’m going to—I said, I don’t need your help
anyway.” I said, “you don’t?” He said, “Nope.” It was a shame when the election came up. 00:44:00MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: It was a shame.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: In fact, I felt sorry for the man myself.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: I actually did. ’Cause it looked like, it looked like [whipped]. You
see, it just, it just outright murdered the man politically.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: ’Cause, uh, I don’t think he got 50 votes.
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: And I think something like 800 or 900 was cast.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh. Well, tell me now, now, Seymour,
NEELY: Frank Seymour?
MARSHALL: Frank Seymour,
NEELY: Yeah, he dead now.
MARSHALL: Died here, two or three years ago. Frank Seymour, then, in your
recollection, was the first black elected to City Council.NEELY: Uh, I think Harris Starks was first.
MARSHALL: Well, now, this is the reason I’m asking this question. Somebody
somewhere told me about somebody, and I was trying to think if it was Starks, that told me that there was a black once elected to City Council, but after he was elected, he was never informed. And he didn’t know that he had been elected until the end of his term, 00:45:00NEELY: I didn’t know
MARSHALL: so he never served.
NEELY: I don’t—
MARSHALL: It was a white person that told me that.
NEELY: That could have been, that could have been Harris Starks.
MARSHALL: I believe it was. I believe it was. Now, you see, you’re not the
first Negro that I’ve asked about that but the Negroes don’t seem to know anything about it.NEELY: No. If I had, I don’t, uh, I had, it would have been, he would have
been on it. It would be—MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: [ ] know somebody if I know somebody.
MARSHALL: Well, this is what they told me, they said this guy was actually
elected but they just decided they weren’t going to say—do anything about it so they didn’t tell him.NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And that he never knew it, he didn’t find out about it until after
his term was over.NEELY: I bet that was Harris Starks.
MARSHALL: That was, they said that, they said that this happened before Seymour.
NEELY: Yes, because you see, we were trying to get Harris Starks in there first.
MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.
NEELY: Yeah, that was who it was.
MARSHALL: But I—they, they were tricky.
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Oh gosh, they were tricky. [Laughs] Ah, shucks. And then of course,
uh, by the time you got uh, by the time you got Washington in, well, and of course, after Seymour, then John Burton got in.NEELY: Yeah, oh yeah.
00:46:00MARSHALL: And then you got, uh, I think, I think Washington gave up City Council
to be, be on the school board.NEELY: Yeah. Because they were, after Frank Seymour, see I quit, I got out of
political action after I left Washington, I left, uh, Frank Seymour and John Burton in power.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: And I backed out, I backed out of all political
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: I backed, cut out all ’cause I was busy with my work.
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: ’Cause I said, I’ve got to get in here and make me some money now,
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: ’cause I can’t I, I’ve [started all my nos], I got to go and get
something to eat now. I’ll go—I’ll turn it over to you folks to carry on. And of course they went on to carry on, and I backed out.MARSHALL: I know what you mean. Um, well, I guess I wanted to ask you something
00:47:00about what’s the effect of this newspaper that uh,NEELY: Oh, the black—
MARSHALL: Francois started? Francois started a newspaper. That was way—that
wasn’t too long ago,NEELY: No.
MARSHALL: way after, that was after the second World War. And that was somewhere
around 1950, wasn’t it?NEELY: Right around there. I think I got a copy of that around here somewhere.
MARSHALL: If you can find, you know, I haven’t been able to find a copy.
NEELY: No?
MARSHALL: And I think the old lady, Francois’ wife, is just so evil. I think
what one of the things she did, I think, I think when Francois died, there was a stack of papers, in the garage or something, and I think she’s thrown them away and she never want to admit it. But I haven’t been able to find a copy of that paper anywhere. If I just get one copy, see how it looks. So I mean if you, not today, but if you’re ever able to put your hands on a copy, I would like to see a copy. And then there’s another little paper, that little paper that 00:48:00was put out by this woman, there was a woman that used to put out a little…NEELY: Miss, Miss, oh, I know
MARSHALL: Simpson.
NEELY: Simpson, yeah.
MARSHALL: Yeah. I haven’t been able to find any of hers, either. [Laughs] But
evidently this is about as close as Ypsilanti has ever come to having a black newspaper.NEELY: Oh yeah, sure. In fact, uh, you know, the, F—Frank [Noonan], Frank was
also the head of this uh, black radio station out here.MARSHALL: You had a black radio station?
NEELY: Oh, yes. Bell Radio Station?
MARSHALL: I didn’t know about that.
NEELY: Oh, yeah.
MARSHALL: And Frank, Frank Seymour was involved with that.
NEELY: He was the head of that thing.
MARSHALL: Yeah?
NEELY: And it was Dr. Bell from, from, uh, from uh, Hamtramck, he was a, a dentist,
MARSHALL: Yeah, uh-huh.
NEELY: Yeah, his son took it over.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: And…yeah, sure. I got the, I got the…I think I’ve got some records
00:49:00here, uh, from that, from that time.MARSHALL: From the radio station?
NEELY: Yeah…Uh, I’ll find it some other day.
MARSHALL: Well, we, we don’t have to, this is something we have plenty of
00:50:00time. But if you just keep it in mind, you might run across something like that.NEELY: Oh yes, I’ll run across, I, uh…
MARSHALL: The other things, of course, the other types of things for which I’m
looking, I’m looking for clippings, I’m looking for anything that’s in print, I’m looking for pictures, anything which might be indicative of some of the things that black people were involved in.NEELY: Well, they were involved in…let me see…
MARSHALL: I guess the thing I was thinking about, one of the things I was
thinking about was, I understand that, uh, for a long period of time, there had 00:51:00been an NAACP in the community and somehow it had died.NEELY: There was.
MARSHALL: And, then, uh, after along came Martin, [alone] along about the time
of Martin Luther King, it was revived again.NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And that’s what we have now
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: revived. Um, was the NAACP ever very effective?
NEELY: Uh, it could have been. But it, uh, you ha—we had some people that uh,
was just not quite what they should be. ’Cause you put me over,MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and I’ll hold them back.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: You see, they, you had that kind of a thing.
MARSHALL: Yeah, mm-hmm.
NEELY: In fact, uh, there was a, there was an actual open uh, battle between,
00:52:00and I never did [one] did go for this too much, between what they call Pete Brooks and me.MARSHALL: Oh yeah.
NEELY: We were—you probably heard of Pete Brooks.
MARSHALL: Pete Brooks was the guy at the grocery store. Oh no, you’re talking
about the Negro Pete Brooks.NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: Yes, I’ve heard of Pete Brooks, yes.
NEELY: ’Cause he and me, we, we never did what you call come to actual bitter
fallout, but we differed politically.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: ’Cause he was trying to, just, take, take the Negro and make him solid Republican.
MARSHALL: Oh, mm-hmm.
NEELY: And of course I couldn’t see that. I wouldn’t go for it. And of
course, he tried to discredit me. Um, in fact, I put, I, I put—that was a dirty trick, wasn’t it? ’Course Pete [Glasser] [come probably] want to give you a whipping for that, too.MARSHALL: [Laughs]
NEELY: ’Cause he was big enough.
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: Um, Pete Brooks, some white man, Dick, Dick Elliott, was going to send
the Method—the, uh, Baptist choir to Chicago for, for, uh, if they would come 00:53:00out and vote for him during the, during the next election. And he was, Pete Brooks, he was having Pete Brooks sponsor that thing. Well, I knew and I got a wind of it. And so they, they, somebody said, “We can get, I think we can get Ben Neely to join into that.” So Pete Brooks, Pete accepted their bid because I told him, was going to tell him I’ll join for that.MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: ’Cause I wanted to get my group in there and expose what Dick [was].
So we invited Dick down. They didn’t know I was going to expose him.MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: So we met down Miss Clark’s. And he went down and he outlined his
whole plan. How much he [ ] to give them two hundred dollars, so as, so as to get all the Negroes together so they can take them down and, and vote ’em. And then I, then I said, I laid across and I said, “Now, friends, you see what we are up against here. Here it is plain. You’re going to deceive yourself and go down and vote your rights away instead of going down and vote for the thing that’s going to do you good in the end. It’ll hurt you and the next man to you. But it’ll help you in the end. Now here’s what, here’s our own man, 00:54:00going to sell us out for a, for a mere two hundred dollars, when there’s thousands of dollars and thousands of ways it could, it can hurt us [and the fact is]” And Dick Elliott’s face was almost purple! And Pete was all, he was so mad. And he was, he was going to give me a whipping! I told the group, said, “uh-huh. You can’t whip all of us. If you lay a finger on you [then] we’re [going to] fight.”MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: But you see, Pete never did have no political power after that
MARSHALL: Yeah.
NEELY: because I’d exposed him right open in the dirty way. I just laid and
put it all out there.MARSHALL: Uh.
NEELY: I just laid it, I just come on out and told him,
MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: whole truth about it. Oh, I was a dirty rascal sometimes.
MARSHALL: Well, well, well, uh, I guess, I guess I’m, I, not just from talking
to you, but from talking to a lot of different people in town, I’ve gotten a similar kind of a picture that you’ve got. And that is, [trump], and this is generally speaking.NEELY: Mm-hmm.
00:55:00MARSHALL: When we look in our past, there has been, there has been,
unfortunately, a group of people, and it’s largely dominated by the educated peopleNEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: who seemingly, in order to push themselves,
NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: they were ready to sell all their people down the road.
NEELY: That’s what I’m talking about.
MARSHALL: And this has been, this has been true here, uh, as, as well as other places.
NEELY: Sure.
MARSHALL: And I guess one of the—and, and this, this leads me to something
else. One of the things that I began to notice when I came here, of course, when I came here in 69, you know, used to live not many blacks up there.NEELY: No.
MARSHALL: I came here as a kind of a token black. I knew it when I came. But I
came here as a director of their library, you see, and there were no, there are no black administrators before I got here. But I guess the first thing that I started finding out is that the few that they had, except for those who were 00:56:00janitors and a few of those who really weren’t equipped to do anythingNEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: They have actually, actually been taken no interest at all in the community.
NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: Not in the black, in the black community. I came out here and started
working on Brown Chapel, and people were just, people were still standing by looking.NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: They can’t believe it. And I, well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s,
it’s, it’s, it’s funny to me. But then when I looked at it, and then I began to learn about Francois, and all of that group, you know, of people who were here, and they often were doing things where whenever they would do things it seems that they were always doing before they only…NEELY: Francois started doing that same thing, after [kit]. I helped Francois,
a whole lot. Even up at, at the college. 00:57:00MARSHALL: Uh-huh.
NEELY: But as soon as he got it the way he could go for himself, and uh, well,
I’ll leave her out of it, God bless her, but I don’t say it that way, I say it otherwise [laughs] But anyway,MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: Uh, he went to Francois,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: the choir and him,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: in fact, uh, I, uh, found it, my dad, you know, my dad, I guess is, you
might, I guess my people were sharecroppers sometime in the South. We, we, we came up the hard way.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, uh, we never had much wealth. My dad, we didn’t, was, was always
a hard-working man, a strictly honest man, and he could acquaint, could acquire and get, pay for more property, to lose it to people like Francois.MARSHALL: Yeah, yeah.
NEELY: Yes, and he was out there just about ready to lose some property
00:58:00MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: and I discovered it.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: Well, I went in there and took over.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And uh, Francois never did like me after that, because he saw that I, I
saw what happened.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, well, I covered up everything and changed it all around,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: I never said anything to him, never told him how dirty I thought he was
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: trying to kick my father around after I had helped him so much.
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: And, that, but anyway, yeah, he, until my father died, he had a deed to
sell my father’s property and he, he, he knew I was going to call for it sooner or later, so he sent it to me. So…MARSHALL: Mm.
NEELY: And then of course, I know when the, when him and Gertrude was getting together,
MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: I never will forget, seeing him out in front of the, of the, the Jew
store, in a car there with [Day], talking.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: Anyway, I haven’t got a thing against him, and I’m for—not into
any kind of a politics now.MARSHALL: Mm-hmm.
NEELY: I’m just fading slowly out.
MARSHALL: Wow. I guess you might say everybody—
NEELY: Is doing the same thing.
MARSHALL: does, well, everybody does something as he goes through life. And it
00:59:00depends upon his point of view whether it is beneficial to others, or whether it is detrimental.NEELY: Yeah.
MARSHALL: And you always have that pull. Some people are doing things that are detrimental,
NEELY: Mm-hmm.
MARSHALL: and it seems like there’s always another power over here that’s
trying to do the good. And sometimes the detriments are stronger [laughs]. And then in other times, it seems over here you, you seem to be winning, but just about the time it look like you winning, there come along someone, something [guys] that come on over here and try their best to tear your piece up. And I mean even, I mean even here in Ypsilanti, I bet some experiences like that were, you think you’re doing alright, you think you’re doing something—