SAAH 004 Tom McGowan 6-17-2016ufdc

Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohfb Samuel Proctor Oral History Program College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Program Director: Dr Paul Ortiz 241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu SAAH 004 Tom McGowan Saint Augustine African American History (SAAH) Interviewed by Annemarie Nichols on June 17, 2016 hour, 15 minutes | 35 pages For information on terms of use of this interview, please see the SPOHP Creative Commons license at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AfricanAmericanOralHistory SAAH 004 Interviewee: Tom McGowan Interviewer: Annemarie Nichols Date: June 17, 2016 N: Good afternoon, its Annemarie Nichols at the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, interviewing Mr Tom McGowan It is June 17 [2016], and let’s get started Can you state your name? M: My name is Thomas McGowan N: Okay Can you tell us when you were born? M: I was born June 11, 1959 N: Okay Can you tell us a little bit about your growing up years? M: Yeah I actually grew up in New York City Staten Island, New York I went to a Catholic Grammar School which left me with considerable contempt for hierarchical organizations and the church [Laughter] I went to a public high school I attended Hunter College That’s part of City College of New York My undergraduate degree was in communications I then entered a master’s program at CUNY I earned a master’s of science in social research, and MSSR, but during that time I really fell in love with social theory and sociology So I attended the University of New Hampshire and worked with Walter Buckley He wrote a really interesting book in the 1960s entitled Sociology and Modern Systems Theory He’s a brilliant man, and I had the honor of working with him And he sponsored my dissertation My dissertation was on the work of HansGeorg Gadamer, who was a German philosopher And my thesis was, I was very interested in the sociological significance of his work He does work in hermeneutics, or interpretive theory, and what I believe is, there is an aspect of interpretation in everyday life that sociologists don’t really study, so I was trying SAAH 004; McGowan; Page to open up some theoretical ground there So I earned my PhD in sociology It was conferred on me in 1988 That same year, I took a tenure track position in Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee I really wanted to be a college professor, and I was able to realize that dream And I’ve been there ever since My research interests have kind of gravitated from or meandered from initially, I was really kind of a generalist looking at social theory and its implications in practice And then I kind of stumbled into the area of social gerontology I designed and received funding for what was called the Rhodes College Life history project in which we, over the course of seven or eight years, I taught a seminar for undergraduate students, and the purpose of the seminar was to combat ageism by locating individual students as companions with homebound elders in the Memphis community And I had the students journal, and I published a series of articles around that research project, and that was a great project I had hoped to a book around the project, but honestly, I kind of lost interest in the gerontological side of it, and more—my interests kind of shifted toward interaction across difference in general, not just ageism ‘cause I published on ageism, discrimination against elderly people And then I got into looking at medical sociology with a focus on community health and just social discrepancies in epidemiological patterns Kind of the demographics of health and access to care I did a lot of consulting work for the Tennessee Health Department and the Shelby County Health Department Throughout that period of time, over an eight year period, and then I had another sabbatical, and really meandered into the topic of integrative learning and professor-student interaction SAAH 004; McGowan; Page as kind of an analog experience relative to the doctor-patient relationship So now my interest is really in what does it take to cultivate an integrative disposition? The kind of disposition that Martin Luther King argued for in his essay the ethical demands for integration So that’s kind of what I’ve been focusing on for the last couple of years, and that’s what I’m writing about now N: That’s really great I kind of want to go back and ask you, so you have a communications background What got you interested in sociology? Why’d you want to study that? M: It’s a really interesting story I’ve told this story to some students over time I was going to be a sportscaster That’s why I was studying communications I worked at a radio station in New York as an undergrad WINS, all news, all the time It was a twenty four hour news station And I was also working part-time at a place called sports phone, which, before the internet was this telephone service people could call and get live updates or almost live updates on different scores like the basketball and football, depending on the season And believe it or not, the night—the office was on third avenue and fifty third street in Manhattan ‘cause Hunter College is on the Upper East Side, so it was close to the college And the night John Lennon was killed, I was working And I was on the New York sports phone, and we had—back in the day we had these wire services Associated Press and what was the other one? Was it UPI? It might have been UPI But when there was a bulletin, bells would go off, and there were three bells, which I believe I remember three bells, meaning there was a big bulletin Fourth was the highest And I went over and read the copy and said, oh my goodness John SAAH 004; McGowan; Page Lennon’s been shot outside the Dakota The Dakota Apartment Building was a hotel but also an apartment building It was only two miles from where we were, so it seemed really kind of eerie And a couple of minutes later, four bells, and the wire read that he died at Bellevue Hospital Well, Bellevue Hospital is right across the street from the Hunter dorms So, but I was always of the opinion that John Lennon, even though he had a checkered life of some sorts, was a very important cultural figure ‘cause he spoke out about injustice and took on different causes and advocated for the little man, little woman Unlike Paul McCartney But in any event, I was taken aback by the fact that the five or six other guys I was working with didn’t really care Like I said, John Lennon’s dead, and they just looked at me and said, what’s the Knicks score? And at that moment, I had this epiphany which was I didn’t want to be a sportscaster any more because I’ve always had a sense of social justice, and kind of felt that not that I nevessarily was destined to something important, but that we should all try to ameliorate suffering and work for social justice So I remember it was a rainy night in early December It was unusually warm, maybe like in the forties or fifties, and I walked I would usually take a taxi or the bus home, and I walked down second avenue in the rain the two miles or so to the dorms And when I got back to my dorm room, I just knew that I wanted to change direction Actually, in the spring I left that job I was able to get unemployment insurance, which was wonderful I spent the summer at the beach writing music ‘cause I was an amateur guitar player and song writer In the fall, I started my senior year, but my heart wasn’t in it And so, I withdrew toward the end of the semester and went out to California SAAH 004; McGowan; Page and just lived in Berkeley, California for a while But while I was at Berkeley— ‘cause its kind of like a hippie kind of area, you know I was playing music on the streets, and I got a job at a pizzeria beer joint on the campus of Cal Berkeley My friends increasingly were students at Berkeley And Berkeley is a tremendous university The students were really smart, and really interesting, and I started spending a lot of time with them And I started spending more time on campus, and then, I started crashing lectures I heard some amazing people speak Like IF Stone who was a long-standing Liberal and person who advocated for human rights And during that time I realized that what I was trying to with my music, which I really didn’t have the talent to do—I’m a very average guitar player and a very average, well, less than average singer But I wrote some really good, insightful songs like social commentary I realized that my passion was to be a constructive critic of society To try to make a difference in the world And that’s when it dawned on me that I should go back to the academy and finish my degree and pursue graduate school because I probably, that’s probably where I needed to be so I could think freely and be creative and kind of pursue my passion So I did I went back to Hunter They readmitted me I finished my undergraduate degree I stayed at Hunter for my master’s and then went to New Hampshire for my doctorate N: That’s great Let’s see So you’ve had a lot of different experiences Can we back track a little bit too and talk about your family maybe and growing up on Staten Island? M: Sure Sure Staten Island used to be a beautiful place It’s an island, and for SAAH 004; McGowan; Page many years, it wasn’t even connected by bridge to New York City, but in 1964, when I was five years old, they opened a bridge, the Verrazano Narrow Bridge, which connected the north shore of this area known as Rose Bank, to Bay Ridge And when that happened, Staten Island started to get very developed And it’s known as the forgotten borough There are five boroughs A borough is a county, but it’s also part of a city, so Staten Island is Richmond county, and it’s part of New York City But it’s called the forgotten borough because it—traditionally it has had dramatically smaller population relative to Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx, and of course, Manhattan And for so many years, it was on the margin, literally, geographically The only way to get there was through ferry boat by a ferry boat, which takes about twenty-five minutes, so it was always a world away But I think because it was the forgotten borough, it developed after 1964 in a very haphazard, irrational way Developers tore down a lot of woods In fact, I lived on the south shore, not far from a harbor called Great Kills Harbor You know, the Dutch settled New York in Staten Island, so a Kill is kind of like a marshland So Great Kills was a great marshland There was a little barrier island that they filled in forming a really nice harbor, so I’ve always had a connection to the water and the sea and all that But Staten Island changed dramatically So growing up there very young, like six, seven, eight, nine years old, I remember playing in the woods a lot, riding bikes with my friends There’s a historic place not far, maybe two miles from my house called Richmond Town It’s kind of a very, very small noncommercialized version of lets say, Williamsburg Its very small though Like five, ten percent of that that is But there were historic homes, and there was an SAAH 004; McGowan; Page old lighthouse up on a hill, and a very, the hill and the woods around it were really kind of fun to play in but then that changed So my teenage years, I witnessed a lot of ugly new houses going up, and I just didn’t understand capitalism, you know, why everything was profit driven There was still, and there are still, little slices of what’s called the old Staten Island I mean, David Thoreau used to go to Staten Island, and he wrote a little bit about how beautiful it was back in the day So but by the time I went to high school, I found it to be a very depressing place You know, overrun When I was in grad school my first year, I drove a taxi cab in New York, which was a real experience in and of itself N: Definitely D: Yeah And I remember I had a fare A woman came out of a convention, and you know, some fares were wonderful We had great conversations And we were making small talk, and she said Staten Island And she had just heard a paper given It was kind of like a planning conference or maybe, I don’t know if it was urban studies or what, but she said Staten Island was referred to as the most over-developed, under-planned area in the entire country, so that kind of summarizes what I just described So I had a love-hate feeling for the city I really wanted to be some place—I’m not a nature buff per-se, but I just love the aesthetics of oak trees and marshlands and the water I think I was eight or nine years old when one of my aunts—I know you probably say aunt—but we say aunts—took me and a couple of my cousins to the Jersey Shore, and that was the first time I ever swam in the waves And once I went in the ocean, it was like I just, I just love swimming in the ocean, even to this day So that, in a roundabout SAAH 004; McGowan; Page way, explains in part why I’m here I will go to the ocean, and I’ll swim in the waves, and I’ll body surf, and I’ll feel ageless Weightless, ageless And in fact, my partner, Lisa, she said you’re like a little kid when you’re in the waves, and I said, I hope that’s not embarrassing to you But I love the ocean to ‘cause the ocean—if you disrespect the ocean, and if you’re not humble, it will crush you It will absolutely crush you And so its very humbling and very powerful and yet, majestic So it’s powerful in a just way, and I like that about it I like that about it a lot So anyway, I know I’m meandering, but so growing up in Staten Island was it, you know, it made me yearn for a place that was more beautiful in a natural way, and I’ve always been searching for other places to go to I travel a lot I love traveling N: That’s great Do you have any siblings? M: I have two brothers and two sisters, so there’s five all together Ironically, the three boys, myself included, are men, all ended up moving to the South I have a brother in Onancock, which is a sleepy little town on an inlet to a creek to the Chesapeake Bay on the eastern shore of Virginia Very pretty And he actually works for—he worked for the state of Virginia, and now he works for the nature conservancy as a planner And he’s a very boat-oriented person, has a sailboat I have a sailboat And he’s always oriented toward the water My other brother lives near Asheville, North Carolina, and he’s an accountant And he works for Habitat for Humanity now He worked in bigger firms for a while, but I think he was always kind of disappointed with some of the ethical things that happened or didn’t happen And I think he’s happy there I have two sisters One is a stay-at- SAAH 004; McGowan; Page home mom, although she recently took a part time job because her husband lost his job on Wall Street, which is a big thing now up east in New York Wall Street has changed dramatically in the last five years, really since 2008 My other sister was a stay-at-home mom, but she does kind of nannying a little bit, but the older sister of the two lives on Staten Island In fact, she lives in the house I grew up in she took care of my parents when they aged, and now they’re both deceased, and so, in kind of the Irish-Catholic culture, the child who takes care of the parents assumes most of the property out of kind of a thank you gift from the other siblings The other sister lives in New Jersey She’s very close to the beach, so We like visiting her, so [Laughter] N: I bet So it seems like your siblings in general and you all have this kind of tie to like this moral sense of like social justice and like doing justice to other people, but also like you have this connection to nature How did your parents kind of like foster that and like kind of teach you that? M: I don’t think I want to justice to my parents in this interview because it’s funny My father was a steam fitter, and that’s a person who works on big buildings as kind of almost like an industrial plumber, and he was a member of a union But I would characterize him as kind of a working class union man But he worked physically very hard, but when he would come home, I received very little mentoring from him ‘cause he was always tired So I was the fourth born of five, so the joke was by the time my parents had me and my youngest sister, they were kind of done And so, I don’t know how I was—of course, he always said to me, get your sheep skin, get your sheep skin I didn’t know hwat he was talking SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 21 you have to come over to this boutique with me I said okay and it was run by this older, he was a hippie You know, very nice guy, and we started talking and he said, oh, you guys live here? And we said no but we come here regularly He said ‘cause we’re having an end of the world party in December This was in October 2012 And I said, you mean around the Mayan Calendar? And he said, yeah, it’s just an excuse to have a party, but we throw these big dance parties every six months or so, so my friend Frog and I are throwing this party Well, we had been in the Florida Keys that summer, and a dear friend of mine mentioned that a former student of his, Frog, had sailed his boat up to the back of his house and stayed for a few days and he had a lot of fun And I looked at Phil and said, wait a minute, Frog? Does he have a sailboat? Yes Is he a musician? Yes Does he make musical instruments for a living? Yes And I turned to Lisa and I said, oh my god We have to go to this party ‘cause its too much serendipity So we laughed, but we came back in December And the night of the party, again, I was back in the library working I had a meeting with another faculty member It was really cold I—my memory said it was in the late thirty, high thirties Lisa thought it was low forties, but we weren’t prepared for it ‘cause we thought Florida And we went back to our motel on Vilano Beach, and I said, let’s not go to this party because it just sounds, it’s at a community center, and it sounds kinda hokey, and it’s a dance party And I don’t dance unless I can drink some beers, and there’s no alcohol Seriously And so she laughed, but she said, listen, we came here to go to this stupid thing, so let’s go So I said alright So Riberia Street was all torn up, and we were like, where is this place? The Gallimore Center? What 21 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 22 the heck? And we like drive down and we park And I was just like, where are we? I look across the street and there’s like all these boats with US Border Patrol on the side of them ‘cause they have a training center there, and these boatyards, and this community center, and the street’s all torn up I’m like what the heck And we go into this party, and it was so surreal because there were people who were seventy five years old, there are people sixty five, fifty five, forty five, all the way down to teenagers, like kids almost There with their parents or a grandparent And I just found it so interesting And then the next morning, oh, we went out to A1A Restaurant afterwards, and people kept coming in who had been at the party And I kept saying, what was that? And they said, oh you know, that’s the Gallimore Center That’s Lincolnville, and Lincolnville is a really cool little neighborhood, and so the next morning, I put in my computer Lincolnville, and all of a sudden this foreclosure popped up I said, Lisa, I said, we have to go look at this house This house looks like a haunted house It still—you should look it up , 103 Cerro Street on Zillow You know, Zillow is the real estate thing They have the original photographs of when I first saw it, and it looked dilapidated It looked horrible And of course, I was intrigued because the sociologist in me said, if no one’s buying this house, but the price keeps falling and it’s a foreclosure, it might really be a candidate for me to buy and refurbish and have a house near the beach And it could be a great thing And that’s what happened I went and looked at it, and she thought I was crazy She said, this house is about to fall down I said, we can fix it And there was an orange tree in the yard, and I love oranges, so I’m like, oh my god, it has an orange tree You know, a hundred 22 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 23 thousand something dollar orange tree, it’s worth it [Laughter] so anyway That’s how I discovered—and I of course read about Lincolnville, and this old house has a website, and they have this thing that I stumbled on called the top ten neighborhoods in the United States that are worth developing in because they are up and coming and they’re really special, and Lincolnville was like number two N: Oh wow M: So I knew that there was some desire to develop it I guess you could say gentrify it But for me, it was the thought of, you know, on a professor’s income, I don’t have a lot of money, but I did have a retirement fund that I’m allowed to leverage against and a steady income So I thought I might be able to buy it, and I was able to buy it And then I’ve just worked on it each summer The first summer was horrible ‘cause we were living in it while fixing it The second summer got better, and now, it’s pretty sweet There’s still things to do, but it’s nice N: That’s great I kinda wanna talk about, and your—you gave this really nice story about like your first experiences, but as far as deciding to live, or part time live in Lincolnville, how did you come to make that decision? I mean, as far as like kinda getting integrated and deciding like why did you wanna you know? M: I’ve always lived, well, always In Memphis, my bungalow was in a neighborhood called Ballantine Evergreen, and it’s the most racially integrated area of Memphis And so I always wanted to live in an integrated neighborhoods where there were Blacks and Whites or other people because I don’t—I can’t stand 23 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 24 privatized communities Not that they can’t have some diversity in them, but it, when you live like this and you cut yourself off, that’s a form of violence to yourself because you’re missing out on all of the joy— and sometimes hassle— but educational experiences of encountering difference So I think the human condition is very dialectical, and we’re the thesis You’re a thesis, I’m a thesis [Laughter] and when we contact, when we have interaction with other people, especially if they’re different than ourselves, and we’re open to hearing their voice, then ironically, we grow, and you don’t it selfishly, so you grow, but it’s enriching, and its like travel When you go some place, you grow because you experience things you never did before So I think there’s an ethic, you could say a morality, but I would say an ethic to opening yourself to alterity, to difference, because that’s how we grow beyond who we were previously So in terms of place, I know Lincolnville was the, you know, traditional middle class Black neighborhood, but I also knew it was always a little bit integrated That there were White people living here even from like the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and that it’s a very live and let live area, and it’s just so real, you know It’s like, old trees and quiet streets And it’s on a peninsula, so there’s like a marsh right over there, and there’s a river right over there And it’s tucked away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, but you can walk or ride a bike I always ride my bike to downtown, so it was like a perfect place to think about living and like retiring someday It’s just perfect Again, old, beautiful, and diverse N: Can you tell me a little bit about the community and what you like about it? M: I’m, I feel awkward because I had been here seasonally I was here for the 24 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 25 summer in 2013 I was here for the summer in 2014 I was here for the summer in 2015, and then in December in 2015, I had a sabbatical I only had a spring sabbatical, so I moved down here So I’ve been here since December up until August, but I think until I live here full time, I don’t feel a real part of the neighborhood yet or community But I think that’s on the horizon And you know, I developed a course This is the third year I’ve taught it, so the first year I taught it was in 2013 We’re, once I got into this topic of integration, I thought of Martin Luther King, and I started studying King’s work And I didn’t even know it, but he was a sociology major as an undergrad, and so I started looking at his work, and I thought, my god, this guy’s a sociologist as much as he’s a theologian or an activist And so, I thought, then, I was like, noticing these historic markers in my neighborhood, and I’m reading them, and I’m like, oh my god I had no idea And so I got a few books, you know, Garrow’s book Colburn’s book Dan Warren’s book And then just reading up And I’m like, this would be so cool ‘cause we have something called a maymester at my college where students usually go to Europe or South America, but I thought what about a study away three week course here and we study King’s sociology, meaning his logic and his work through the lens of the St Augustine Civil Rights Movement And I contacted the dean at Flagler, and he said, yeah, that’s a cool thing So our students live at the Flagler dorms, and then we teach at Flagler, and then they, we all these They can walk everywhere, and so it’s a really great experiential learning opportunity for them to learn about the barriers to integration and then what integration is, and then of course, the pedagogy is integrative 25 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 26 N: Yeah That’s great M: So that’s kind of where that came to end up N: How your students, how they like St Augustine? What they kind of like, get out of that program? M: Well, you know, its kind of a dream course because it’s a—you know, where else could you take a course and then go to the beach? Which a lot of Flagler students will tell you So at some level, it’s such a beautiful, pleasant environment that we could probably be teaching marbles and the students would be happy So it’s a very fortunate situation because you know, the content of the course is layered over this beautiful environment, and so, they love it They love St Augustine, they are blown away by the history Not so much the colonial history, although we look at that a little bit, but they struggle to understand how Hoss Manucy or LO Davis could be so racist And we want them to understand that it’s not necessarily racism It is, but it’s more tribalism It’s kind of like, you know, when you have a set way of life, you don’t want to change And we become complacent, and that was a lot of what was happening here And then of course, there was racism A heck of a lot of racism There was this ideological belief that, you know, Blacks were inferior or we shouldn’t intermingle with Blacks for whatever reason And then of course, when King came in, you know, bringing King, you know, that was like bringing the big guns in and putting us on the national spotlight So there was so much animosity about showcasing and embarrassing the city nationally, which it did happen, you know That people today, the White community have a great difficulty talking about They’d rather 26 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 27 wish it went away So it’s complicated It’s not like you come in and the Whites were bad about the Blacks or anything like this so much as there’s so much going on In order to understand it, you have to rupture the binary logic of good and bad and understand the complexity of what was going on And I don’t fully understand it, either But it’s fascinating, and so I plan to write something about it In fact, I have drafts for an article about teaching the course and kind of like teaching integration about that So hopefully, that’ll sort itself out But the students love it And I have them one assignment like the second day they’re here where they have to walk—I give them kind of a scavenger hunt of walking through Lincolnville from the dorms And they basically go to all of the accord markers, and they kind of meander down the streets Sometimes they stop here, depending And they end up at my house, and then we have a big barbeque And it’s interesting because they say students say don’t go to Lincolnville It’s dangerous And I say, well did you feel scared? And they’re like no It looks like any other place Any neighborhood So already it’s kind of like don’t believe what you hear You know, go experience it Anyway So N: No, that’s great So as far as that is something that Flagler has an interesting relationship to Lincolnville, and I know that there are tensions between that, but as far as that, what other experiences your students, and how they kind of get integrated into this community here? Especially studying the civil rights movement and African American history in St Augustine? M: Well you know, they’re really studying integration as a way of being in the world N: Um-hm 27 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 28 M: For their own development, that I assume will ripple out and impact other people for a long time, maybe for the rest of their life if it’s a transformative experience As you know, it’s unwise to try to come to an area for a short period of time and leave, right? We talked about that Now, I tend to live here, so I’m starting to live here, and they know that I, even though I leave, i come back, and I’m hoping to be here permanently So it’s been a slow process Probably our strongest relationship is with Reverend Hodges over at St Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church because King being a theologian, and he spoke there, gave a sermon there, they have historical ties And Thomas Wright was the Reverend there And he was really the father of the civil rights movement there, but he got run out of town by his own congregation And that was before, you know, our main man Robert Hayling stirred things up So St Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church, Reverend Hobbs has been really nice, and two years now, we’ve gone there in the evening I wanted the students to feel what it would be like to walk in the neighborhood at night and imagine what it would be like confronting protesters down in the square who had chains and baseball bats and who could threaten your life Of course, you can’t simulate that, but its still interesting walking at night And we’d go there, we went there on a Wednesday night And then they had us in for soul food Sunday, so we broke bread with the congregation So that’s a relationship that we’ll build on But what’s interesting about that congregation is that most of those people, a lot of the people don’t live here anymore You know, they’ve kind of either, they’ve moved out of the neighborhood and come back, like Reverend Hobbs just lives in Jacksonville, for 28 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 29 example, you know so he’s kind of a I guess you’d say, kind of a distant Reverend He doesn’t live here, you know and that’s true of Reverend Rawls at St Paul’s AME My understanding is he doesn’t live here I think he lives in Gainesville So its interesting to think about—and that’s not unusual In Memphis, in my neighborhood, there are Black churches where most of the congregation has moved out or come back, and so the ministers—so the whole idea of place is changing It’s interesting But I’m sorry I’m kind of meandering a little bit N: No that’s really great And to kind of play off of that, I know that you have some very specific ideas about gentrification and also outsiders who have come into St Augustine, and I guess you kind of being kind of a little bit a part of that, but your work in trying to respectfully integrate into the community Could you tell us a little bit about that and how this has affected your ideas? M: Yeah Yeah I wondered initially because I knew the demographics of the neighborhood, like was I going to participate in a process that is unethical or that or can be unethical or at the very least is problematic And I thought about that And I thought about my roots as someone who grew up working class and doesn’t have capital, and I thought well, I think that my heart felt that it was ethically good for me to follow through and to try to get the house, and I thought that number one, I was saving a historic house I thought the house was built in 1940, but David Nolan insists in was built in 1894, and he showed me the map that shows that property there Of course, it’s probably been built on and subtracted, but so I thought, well at least I’d be preserving a historic property rather than knocking it down and building something Plus, I wasn’t just doing it to 29 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 30 sell or to make money So my motivation wasn’t just to exploit or take advantage of financially, so I felt pretty good about it But still, there’s no doubt I move in, and the neighbor to my—on the west side is, her name is Beatrice She’s an elderly Black woman, and we’re friendly And down the street, there are four or five Black families that I see on my bike and I talk to them and all that The guy across the street from me is from Chicago, a White guy, and he’s been there for about ten years And he’s a contractor It’s funny I’m not very friendly with him He just kinda just—so it’s really interesting I thought that the reasons I was moving into the neighborhood were good ultimately And I didn’t feel like I was a part of a big, bad gentrification process Where I think—I think there’s a tipping point I think when someone buys a property and merely wants to make money from it or not live in it, or aspire to live in it, or they buy multiple properties on speculation for selling I understand that there is a contractor who has bought up five or six houses, and he’s just holding onto them Or, for that matter, knocking down a property and building on it I think that kind of stuff gets into the tipping point where gentrification is, you know, classically problematic You know what I mean? N: Um-hm So you know, I make some money off the house I’ve rented it to students during the academic year because I’m not here And then I take the money and put it back into the house And so, you know, I think that’s kind of a cool thing So I don’t know I am conflicted over it, you know? I don’t want to be a part of a process that’s dehumanizing or unethical I don’t believe I am You know, it’d be interesting to talk to other people about that 30 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 31 N: Yeah M: I don’t like—we were just talking about this last night I don’t like when contractors knock down old houses and then build kind of unimpressive, boring little houses that detract from the historical value of the neighborhood architecturally But you know, who am I to say, but I don’t like that, so that’s sad But I’ve wanted to read more about gentrification I’ve never really studied it other than reading a few articles about let’s say, in Brooklyn, where again, a lot of properties get turned into, let’s say rental properties or owned and the property goes up and then people are forced out because they can’t afford to live there I don’t think that a big urban gentrification model maps very well onto like a neighborhood like this But I don’t know so Have you been talking to other people about it and ? N: A bit So that’s a theme we’re interested in but as far as the community and the feel for the community, can you tell me a little bit about that and what’s your experience been with that and like trying to like make friends M: I think a real measure of a community is when you can walk or ride a bike around and feel comfortable It’s one thing getting in that car, like an exoskeleton and just come back, and so I ride my bike a lot and talk to a lot of people That’s probably been the coolest thing And I’ve never been as—I’ll never forget I was with my daughter in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where she’s renting with her boyfriend, and we came out of her apartment on a Sunday morning We were walking to get something to eat, and this African American on a bicycle rode by and he said something really derogatory He said, how can you fly when you’re surrounded 31 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 32 by turkeys? And I was embarrassed for him, but embarrassed for my daughter, you know, because here she’s struggling to find housing, and it’s barely affordable It’s really not even affordable, you know, so she can go to grad school And this man is calling her a turkey, calling me a turkey, you know And then basically othering us in a way that implies that our presence is holding him back in terms of his creativity or whatever he was doing Now, you could say that was kind of a microagression tied to the structure of gentrification, but there’s something about a lack of fit between the personal and the structural when that happens, you know And I don’t think what he said was unjust— ‘cause again, but it’s hard It’s like we’re constantly talking about those two levels of analysis I’ve never experienced anything like that here Like, people are very nice, and I assume, again, I spoke to Beatrice, and I even asked her that question I said, I hope you don’t mind me moving in here ‘cause I’m an outsider And she said, no, we’re grateful that you saved that house and fixed it up ‘cause it’s been an eyesore, you know So anyway, I don’t know It’s—but in terms of community, Solomon Eubanks lives around the corner, and I know you’re going to interview him and he is just very cool and very real His attitude is, and I don’t wanna puyt words in his mouth, but if I remember correctly, his attitude is like, people should live where they want to as long as they’re good neighbors But he wasn’t espousing a structural sensibility about the demographic changes in the neighborhood I don’t know it’s really complicated I would be lying if I said it isn’t problematic because it is, but in a way that life is problematic, you know, in terms of complexity 32 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 33 N: That’s great M: To be continued, I hope N: So as far as just the community I know there are some businesses Have you visited any of those? What are those like? Any churches? M: Oh yeah Well, the, you know the Corner Market, I’ve come to know Nykol, the owner, and she’s really cool And when I have the opportunity to buy things from her, I So we had, I hired her to cater, or my college hired her to cater one of the dinners for the students, and that was nice And we go in there from time to time and buy things And so, I would consider her a friend and ally And that’s really cool We love the Blue Hen, of course, but it’s so heavy when you eat there You feel like you need to take a nap I would love to see more little places like that Like, I wish Nykol could use that back room she has and make a little coffee shop and more dessert oriented, and maybe the people who ate at the Blue Hen would go there for dessert, although they’re probably too full to begin with The plantation—I mean the Preserved place, it gives me nerves because the fact that they knocked that building down and built this thing, which is not historic, even though it looks old, just makes me a little nervous I just don’t like that kind of thing So I’ve never eaten there I don’t intend to necessarily We use the pool at the community center, and there’s a lot of interaction there, especially across race, which is really cool N: Can you tell me about the atmosphere? M: I think the atmosphere is very chill I think there’s this seriously, a sense of joy people have over having such a beautiful amenity so close at no cost It’s just 33 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 34 kinda like, how could you not like this, you know? And it’s pretty integrated, and it’s pretty cool like that You know, there might not be people who don’t go there because it’s integrated I don’t know N: Is that the Gallimore or the Solomon Calhoun? M: Gallimore N: Okay M: Yeah Right at the end of Riberia Not the end, but right behind my house Yeah N: Okay So I’ve kinda kept you for a long time M: Uh-huh N: But is there anything else that you wanna add about the community or about your experiences here or what you wish to see in the future? M: I don’t know I really don’t know I think that, you know, there’s a big cultural difference between the way African Americans and most Whites deal with their community issues I’ve seen this in Memphis Whites tend to form formal structures like an activist group or a community group, and African Americans tend to work through their churches and or just through their informal network So I think if Whites were organizing the community or involved in organizing the community, I think that if Whites were a little more savvy about different communication styles, even in terms of running a meeting, you know that’s just this kind of like—like we’re deferential toward how things should be done around culture, which happens to map onto race, but it’s really cultural differences I think there’d be more inclusion in the way things take place But again, I feel— I’ve been holding back about my involvement in any of these groups because I’m 34 SAAH 004; McGowan; Page 35 not here enough, and I feel that it’s not really my place Yeah, I own a property here, but I think my place—I think that when I’m living here full time is when I’ll really become involved in different groups and sharing my perspective on that, so N: That’s great Thank you so much for being interviewed by us M: You’re welcome We could probably talk for— [End of Interview] Transcribed by: Annemarie Nichols July 6, 2016 Final edit by: Ryan Morini, March 1, 2019 35 .. .SAAH 004 Interviewee: Tom McGowan Interviewer: Annemarie Nichols Date: June 17, 2016 N: Good afternoon, its Annemarie Nichols at the Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, interviewing Mr Tom. .. aspect of interpretation in everyday life that sociologists don’t really study, so I was trying SAAH 004; McGowan; Page to open up some theoretical ground there So I earned my PhD in sociology It was... really meandered into the topic of integrative learning and professor-student interaction SAAH 004; McGowan; Page as kind of an analog experience relative to the doctor-patient relationship So