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An Interview with John Thompson: Community Activist and Community Conversation Participant

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An Interview with John Thompson: Community Activist and Community Conversation Participant An Interview with John Thompson: Community Activist and Community Conversation Participant Interview conducted by Sharon Press1 SHARON: Thanks for letting me interview you. Let’s start with a little bit of background on John Thompson. Tell me about where you grew up. JOHN: I grew up on the south side of Chicago in a predominantly black neighborhood. I at- tended Henry O Tanner Elementary School in Chicago. I know throughout my time in Chicago, I always wanted to be a basketball player, so it went from wanting to be Dr. J to Michael Jordan, from Michael Jordan to Dennis Rodman, and from Dennis Rodman to Charles Barkley. I actu- ally thought that was the path I was gonna go, ‘cause I started getting so tall so fast at a young age. But Chicago was pretty rough and the public-school system in Chicago was pretty rough, so I come here to Minnesota, it’s like a culture shock. Different things, just different, like I don’t think there was one white person in my school in Chicago. SHARON: …and then you moved to Minnesota JOHN: I moved to Duluth Minnesota. I have five other siblings — two sisters, three brothers and I’m the baby of the family. Just recently I took on a program called Safe, and it’s a mentor- ship program for children, and I was asked, “Why would you wanna be a mentor to some of these mentees?” I said, “’Cause I was the little brother all the time.” So when I see some of the youth it was a no brainer, I’d be hypocritical not to help, ‘cause that’s how I was raised… from the butcher on the corner or my next-door neighbor, “You want me to call your mother on you?” If we got out of school early, or we had an early release, my mom would always give us instructions “You go to the neighbor’s house”, which was Miss Hollandsworth, “You go to Miss Hollandsworth’s house, and you better not give her no problems. Whatever they eat for dinner, that’s what you are eating for dinner.” She’d spank us too, she spanked us and then call my mom. So that’s what I was telling this guy about at Safe, I said, “The whole neighborhood raised us.” So, I’d be hypocritical not to help raise some of these youth that he has in the Safe program. 1 Sharon Press is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Dispute Resolution Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. She currently serves as Co-President, along with John Thompson, of Community Mediation Minnesota and was one of the organizers of the Falcon Heights Community Conversations in which Thompson participated. 82 Community Engagement: 2017 Symposium SHARON: So, when you were in Duluth, did you still want to be a basketball player? JOHN: Yes, I actually wanted to play basketball for UMD, I left all my study habits, I don’t even know if I had any, but I left ‘em and I brought all my party habits to Duluth, because it was easy to party. There are so many bars and so many parties in Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota, it’s a college town. I forgot to study, I forgot to work hard, but I remembered to party. And so, my mom came and got me out of there, and she took me to Ohio. My mom’s like, “You didn’t get nobody pregnant here in Duluth?” And I went to Ohio and did just that, I had my first kid. SHARON: And did you graduate? JOHN: No. When I had my first kid, my mom was paying for a lot of stuff, and my mom was like, “You’re not gonna leave this lady with a kid, so you’re gonna have to get a job.” I actu- ally wanted to be a psychiatrist, and that was gonna be my major, but I had to go to the home builder’s institute, and I had to hurry up and take this trade. I wanted to do carpentry, electri- cal, plumbing — Building Apartment Maintenance, BAM, is what it’s called, ‘cause I needed to make money, ‘cause I had a kid on the way, and my mom’s like, “No, I’m not gonna raise your kid.” So, she kind of forced me to be a man early, and I always thank her for that, honestly, be- cause I never had my dad. I knew my dad, but he wasn’t present in my life. But my mom kept instilling that in me, and all of the boys, that these kids didn’t ask to be here, so you’re gonna raise ‘em, and you’re gonna have to sacrifice what you wanna do, in order to make their lives better, so I thank her to this day. I’m fighting for the trades right now, because the trades actu- ally saved my life. Honestly, I would’ve probably been a deadbeat dad. I don’t know, ‘cause I was young, so I don’t know. SHARON: How old were you? JOHN: My first kid was 22. So, I just wanted to make sure that I was the dad that my dad wasn’t. I had my first son, he looks just like me, like I would stare at him like man, I created this, I cre- ated this kid right here. SHARON: No denying it right? JOHN: Wow. That amazed me. You know like when you look, you’re holding your baby and you’re looking at him like, man, he has my nose, I made this. When he started getting older, I’d buy a different pair of sneakers and a jogging suit, so I had to make sure I found the exact one that he had, so we matched. And everywhere I was at, you’d see me with this kid. I wanted everybody to know that I was happy to have a son. SHARON: And what’s he doing now? An Interview with John Thompson 83 JOHN: He’s an accountant. SHARON: Is he in the Twin Cities? JOHN: Yeah, he’s here in the Cities. Sad part is he went to school to be an accountant, and then people would let him do taxes at tax time, but none of these companies would hire him. I don’t understand that. So he does taxes around tax time, and then when people need help with their taxes, but he’s been out of school for three years now, he’s yet to find a company that will bring him on, and say hey, you can work for this company. I told him that too, you go to Las Vegas, they’re hiring accountants left and right for their casinos and all the money they have moving through Las Vegas. It should be the same way here, it’s just that these companies are family owned, so they hire family, they train family. SHARON: So, you went in to do the building and maintenance kind of stuff, and you continued doing that, because you work now as a machinist2. JOHN: That was a little different, because when I first got out of normal business, I moved back to Chicago, and I started to work for the Art Institute in Chicago. I started changing locks and doing building maintenance stuff, moving exhibits and painting, and things like that. I stopped working for the Art Institute, and then I started working for a Steel Foundry, ‘cause it was a little bit more money and it was a union job. I think at this point my son is probably like seven. So, I’m working at a steel foundry, and now they’re sending me to school, prepping me to be the machinist. At the end of the day, I’m going to school for hydraulics, pneumatics, welding and just sharpening my tools for the trade. I started getting it, and I always read a lot, like if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna read up on what I’m doing. So, I just honed my craft. Then I decided I wanted to do plumbing. My friend owned the plumbing company, so he was paying me like $27 bucks an hour, plus training me, and I just told him, “I don’t want you to waste your time or your money, “I’m not gonna be passionate for this.” But literally like two days later, I’m working for Saint Paul Public Schools. They hired me as an equipment repair tech to repair a lot of the nutrition service equipment throughout the district. That’s how I met Philando [Castile]. I was repairing a lot of the nutrition service equipment throughout the district, milk coolers, ovens, microwaves, rooftop condenser units, and walk in freezers, whatever they have in the kitchens that make their nutritious service operation run. I actually met Philando because one of his ovens was broken. The oven came from some- where overseas; I remember the schematics being in German, I think. I’m pretty handy, I just don’t read German. So, I called ‘em back, “I need these schematics in English.” I remember it took a long time to get the part, and then I had to figure out the schematics, and I’m calling to Germany, and I can remember the red tape that I’m going through to get this oven, and when I get there Philando has the meanest look on his face, like no matter how hard he tried to be mad, it was always like a silly smirk on his face so like you can’t convince me you’re mad.
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