Transcript of Interview with Steve Nelson Sarah Jane Shoenfeld July 12, 2017 Mapping Segregation in Washington, DC DC Oral History Collaborative Biographical Information: Clyde Steve Nelson was born in 1960 in Washington, D.C. Soon after, his parents bought a house in Riggs Park during the period of white flight. Nelson's mother worked as a budget analyst for the Department of Navy and his father was a chauffeur for the Civil Service Commission. Nelson had two brothers, David and Mark, and a sister. As an adult, he worked as an electrician for D.C. Public Schools. Description: In this interview, Steve Nelson discusses how his family saved money to purchase a house in Riggs Park during the period of white flight from the neighborhood. Nelson recalls his experiences in the D.C. Public School system, including LaSalle Elementary and Bell Vocational High School. Nelson also recounts a crime resulting in the death of his brother, and how the neighborhood continues to evolve. SJS: This is Sarah Shoenfeld with Steve Nelson on July 12th, 2017 at his home at 335 Oneida Street NE. We're recording this interview for the DC Oral History Collaborative. Good morning Steve, and thank you so much for your participation today. SN: Good morning. SJS: Let me just start by—I know that you'd answered some of these questions in the form that we filled out but I want to get them on tape. Can you just start by stating your full name? SN: My name is Clyde Steven Nelson. SJS: Clyde Steven Nelson and that's S-T-E-V-E-N right middle name? SN: Yeah. SJS: You go by Steve Nelson? SN: Yeah. SJS: Your date of birth? SN: November 2, 1960. SJS: Where were you born? SN: Washington. SJS: Washington. SN: Washington DC. SJS: You were just about to tell me something just before I turned on the tape. SN: You was, uh, for our previous meeting, you was talking about the schools and where you went to school versus where the majority of the blacks went to school. I remember, I went to Bell Vocational High School—the old Bell—and I took electrical wiring there. Uh, to illustrate the condition of the building—I later started working for DC schools as an electrician repairing them, but this is one story. When I was in Bell the cafeteria was located in the basement and it was just two rooms on the side, on each side of a hallway. And on rainy days, the rain—there was three floors to the school plus the basement, but the basement actually make it four, four levels. The rain would leak in from the roofs, it come all the way down through the building between the bricks and all and be dripping on us sitting in the cafeteria, on the tables, on the serving trays and things of that nature. So therefore, when I later became an employee of DC schools, whenever there was a problem we jumped on it right away to try to, you know, better the building so that the kids coming up behind us wouldn't have to experience the same things that I had. Whereas when we went west of the Park [Rock Creek Park], if a light bulb blew out, they had three crews, three teams up there to fix it in five minutes, you know? You asked for a little bit of history. SJS: Yeah. How did that play out? How did some mechanical difficulty happening in a school west of the Park receive higher priority than a leak at Bell? SN: Your roster, the economic situation of the area. Actually, to be honest with you, that expression the squeaky wheel gets the grease? Well I couldn't contribute all of it to race, but that did play a large part of it. Also, I think that people west of the Park had more knowledge, they knew who to call, they knew which buttons to press, where to apply pressure. Whereas people in your lower income areas or more densely black areas, they left it up to somebody else to do, they'll take care of that, whatever. It's just a matter of who has more interest, more concern, who's more outraged at the situation, that's what gets things done. SJS: When you were there at Bell as a student or then later on when you were working for the schools, was there anybody that expressed that? That sense of unfairness or outrage about the condition of the school? SN: Actually, I worked at Plant Maintenance—we were located in Penn Center at the time— since then been disbanded, they’re all contracted out now. I think for the most part all of the—Well, I'm not going to say all because you did have some upper crust African Americans, you know, who were like our present president. They were there to feather their own nest—but you did have a lot of guys in supervisory positions and who doled out the money for certain repairs. They were just as interested and as outraged as a lot of us mechanics were as well. Say for instance, your handicapped schools, Sharpe Health or Mamie Dee Lee, whenever—well I don’t work for the schools no more so I can say this—whenever they had a work order, we could be on our way to school west of the Page 2 of 37 Park. But if one of those schools had a work order, emergency or no, we took care of that because those are handicapped kids, and what was breaking down there wasn’t due to some kid throwing a temper tantrum and busting something. These were fair wear and tear type of situations. So, we tended—all of the mechanics down, I don't care what trade you were in—they tend to look out for those particular schools with more urgency than anyone else, any other building. SJS: Well, that's good to hear. My daughter is developmentally disabled so I'm familiar with those schools. And especially Mamie D. Lee, because I was very close to that one, or what was Mamie D. Lee. SN: They built a brand new one. SJS: Yeah, but it's not Mamie D. Lee anymore. SN: It isn't? SJS: No, there's a couple other charter schools and a social service agency in there. I think they consolidated all the schools for the special needs and moved them somewhere else. I want to go back to the beginning now, and then if you want to talk about this more when we get to it in the chronology, that's great. Can you tell me where your parents are from? SN: My father is from Crest Hill, Virginia, it’s up there in Fauquier County, up there near The Plains and Warrenton and all that. My mom is from—she was born here in DC but her family is from Roanoke, Virginia—Lynchburg or Roanoke, Virginia one of those places down there. I can't remember the exact name. It's a mountainous town. My grandfather was a carpenter and back in those days in that rural of an area, you had to be—I mean a black mechanic, tradesman, trying to get a job to feed his kids was—if you didn't farm or whatever, that was the only work they had and he had a craft. So he moved here to DC, he was a carpenter for the Department of Treasury. SJS: Oh ok, this was your mom's dad? SN: Yeah. My mother later on she went to school at, she graduated from Cardozo and she married my dad when she was eighteen. She went back to night school to take accounting and she became a budget analyst for the Department of Navy. My father, since he had went on to work for the Civil Service Commission, he worked directly with whichever director was, Republican, Democrat whoever was in office. A Republican director or a Democratic director, didn't make any difference, he worked with either one of them. And he worked there until he retired. What else? SJS: What did he do for the Civil Service Commission? Page 3 of 37 SN: He was a chauffeur, wherever the director went or wanted to go he took him. Sometimes it meant if the director had a nighttime thing where he was going to take his wife wherever to, out on the town, he took the government car (laughs), because it was a nice Caddy—It was a Cadillac, Lincoln or whatever, and, you know, I guess it was nice working for that particular time. SJS: Although, it sounds like he might not have had a lot of control over his hours. SN: No no no, and another thing, he and the other jobbers would joke about, that they used to train—see this is back in the Cold War era—and they used to train, they had scenarios where they had so many minutes, Russia dropping a bomb. They had so much time to get their director or whoever in the car and get them—they had a place up in Shenandoah Valley, an underground place for a lot of government officials. And you were supposed to go get whoever you worked for, or drove for, and take them to this place. He would say that all of the drivers would joke all the time and says, "I don't know about my man but if he wants me to take him to the bunker, we're going to stop by my house and pick up my family too.” (laughs) He says that they all would joke and say, "What difference does it make if I'm alive in the bunker and I know my family is out here burning away." He said no, they couldn't do that, they joked about it a lot but I'm quite sure it gave them a lot to think about at the time knowing that you only had minutes to— SJS: So did your dad actually practice that at all? SN: It was a drill, like you had fire drills in schools? SJS: Yeah.