Lucille Jackson Interview, 10 June 2013

Lucille Jackson was born in 1937 and grew up in Abbeville, Alabama. She tells a few stories about how she loved growing up in the rural area, and has a few sour memories of discrimination. One case she recalls was that of a black man who worked at the soda fountain who would re-use the white kids' cups and give them to the black kids. Once Jackson grew a bit older, she recognized he was doing this and told him she wanted a new cup just like everyone else. She went to a segregated, all-black school that did not have a phone or an indoor water fountain. She attended Alabama State, a teachers' college, where Martin Luther King Jr. lived closeby. She did not finish school, for she and her husband moved to Cleveland to find jobs. They lived on East 85th and Chester and a few other streets. Her husband was in the meat-cutting business, and they eventually became part owners of Marc's grocery stores. They were part owners for fifteen years. They never experienced racial tension or at least she does not recall, but her son Andre who attended Collinwood High School encountered numerous negative experiences, in one case where they had accused him of bringing a gun to school.