{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/iiif/sf2m61cc8s/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Ronald Rooks, Ken Corprew, and Jacques E. Leeds oral history, 2002 July 25"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":[" Interview by Elizabeth Schaaf of Kenneth Corprew, Ronald Rooks, and Jacques E. Leeds about the Baltimore  jazz scene from the 1950s to 1980s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRonald Rooks is an appraiser of art and manuscripts and the owner of Merryman Antiques in Baltimore. Kenneth Corprew is a television producer. Jacques E. Leeds (1927-2018) was a lawyer and the first husband of jazz singer Ethel Ennis. (Abstract)"," Ending of recording cut off. (Physical Description)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":[" 2002-07-25 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":[" Rooks, Ronald (Interviewee)"," Corprew, Kenneth (Interviewee)"," Leeds, Jacques E., 1927-2018 (Interviewee)"," Schaaf, Elizabeth M. (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":[" English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio/mp3"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://aspace.library.jhu.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/215390"]}}],"summary":{"en":[" Interview by Elizabeth Schaaf of Kenneth Corprew, Ronald Rooks, and Jacques E. Leeds about the Baltimore  jazz scene from the 1950s to 1980s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRonald Rooks is an appraiser of art and manuscripts and the owner of Merryman Antiques in Baltimore. Kenneth Corprew is a television producer. Jacques E. Leeds (1927-2018) was a lawyer and the first husband of jazz singer Ethel Ennis."," Ending of recording cut off."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["The collection is open for use. Contact peabodyarchives@lists.jhu.edu for more information."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/008/original/peabody-institute.logo.large.horizontal.blue.cropped.png?1549570058","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 4 - pims0091_Rooks-1_01.mp3"]},"duration":3015.02694,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/490/original/pims0091_Rooks-1_01.mp3?1624270970","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3015.02694,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rooks_1_OHMS_20220804 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"JACQUES LEEDS: [My father] put us with a lady named Della Valentine [phonetic].\nShe was really a knowledgeable lady -- she knew about everything. We lived with\nher for five or six years before we got our own apartment. They didn't have\nallotments in those days for merchant seamen. You didn't get paid until the ship\ndocked. So the lady where we stayed, she fed us. My mom was raising us -- she\ndidn't work. In those days, women stayed at home and took care of the kids -- my\nsister and myself. Miss Della knew everybody -- the policemen, everybody on\nDruid Hill Avenue in the 1800 block. When we moved from Miss Della's, we went\ndown to the block near the YMCA. We moved into that place for a short time and\nthen we got a place of our own, an apartment on Druid Hill Avenue and Dolphin Street.\n\nWhen Daddy came home, man, it was like a real ritual. He would come home, and\nall the boys would come down and want to know where he'd been since the last\ntime, what was going on -- of course, during the war, with torpedoes and stuff.\nHe was like a legend around there. He would come home, and we would be flocked\naround there, sitting and listening to the stories. We'd really have some good\ntimes in those days, because you didn't get a chance to be close to that kind of\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=0.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"thing -- it was like you were right involved. It was quite a time. We had some\ngood, good times.\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\nKEN CORPREW: I'm Ken Corprew and I was born in Chesapeake, Virginia.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm Ronald Rooks and I was born in Baltimore, Maryland.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Jacques Leeds, better known as Jack. Born in Peru, Indiana, and\nbeen in Baltimore, Maryland, quite a number of years.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You were telling me a story about Peru, Indiana, that it had\nits own special claim to fame.\n\n [Laughter]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah. Like all at once you go Black.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: There was a fraternal organization you were telling me about.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, the Ku Klux Klan. My early beginning was like a horror\nstory. You didn't see many pictures of that time, but we did have some old\npictures and you would see these people with the hoods on and the cloaks on. And\nthis was the first thing, I guess, to intimidate because it was like ghosts to\nme. I'd never seen them myself personally, but the pictures that I saw -- I\nmean, if I'd seen one, I guess I'd start running like hell, because it was\nawful. Pointed heads, hoods, faces, clothing. You'd see the eyes. And ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=120.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Indiana, I\ndon't know whether it was the birthplace of it, but we heard that the Ku Klux\nKlan began in Indiana. And I didn't know that until I came to Baltimore, because\nI was young. When we left there, I think I was four years old. My sister was\nseven and half years old, and we came to Baltimore.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: What year was that when the family came to Baltimore?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I'm now seventy-four, and when I came to Baltimore, I think I\nmust have been about seven years old.\n\nKEN CORPREW: 1932, '33.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah. And, of course, I didn't know anything about the Ku Klux\nKlan until I came to Baltimore because when the people say, \"Where are you\nfrom?\" I'd say we were from Indiana. And they'd say \"Oh, the birth of the Ku\nKlux Klan!\" And then they would go on and tell you -- because I had never seen\nanybody with sheets on. I don't know whether it was because my father was White,\nand he was pretty respected in Peru, Indiana. So, I guess I escaped and my\nsister too. My sister, she was three and a half years older than me, and\nCatherine was a really aggressive young lady, even to her -- I guess if we had\nknown what was there, I guess she would have ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=240.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"probably been gone by now. Very\nforward, very upstanding, and of course, I would be right behind her because I\nadmired her.\n\nMy father was a merchant seaman. Of course, Peru, Indiana, was landlocked. So\nmany times, we didn't see him until he made enough money to get transportation\nto come up. That only lasted a short period of time because my mother got\nlonesome. So he brought us back to Baltimore, Maryland, which was a shipping\nport, one of the biggest ports on the east coast.\n\nIt was a different kind of a life because then, even though he was still going\non the ship, we saw him usually every three, four, five months. He would come\nback home with all kinds of trinkets. It was a real thing. When he would come\nhome, all the neighborhood would flock because they'd know he was bringing\nsouvenirs to us from wherever he went to. I remember I had little doo dads,\npictures of Paris in the spring, little key chains and little objects. And it\nwas a real thrill when the teacher would ask my mother to ask my father when he\ncame back from a new place if he would come and tell the students about where he\nwas, what he saw. And we got it firsthand.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=360.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Of course, I thought I was a celebrity because [kids would say], \"Your dad has\nbeen everywhere!\" [Laughter] And I pumped up because a lot of kids had not\nreally known anything but where you lived. To know about France and Germany,\nanyplace where there was a seaport -- mostly Europe, where the sea lanes are.\nThere's ocean, and then you've got the rivers -- some of them were large enough\nto take small ships or boats. And so, we were always thrilled when he came home.\n\nHe would bring objects, and we would take them to school. And these were real\nthings that he would accumulate, bring back just for us. And the teachers were\nthrilled, because they would just go and sit with us in the class, and he would\ntell us about where he had been this time, what shipping ports were there. And\nwe became so good in our class that we were announced three or four times to be\nthe best kids in geography and that sort of thing because of what he had done\nfor us. It was like we had been there.\n\nHe was a guy who liked to talk to us. And he'd bring some old pictures. At that\ntime, they weren't really good. Called tintypes.\n\nAnd so we had pictures from way back, of him standing on a street, or rue so and\nso in Paris, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=480.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"or someplace in Berlin, in Germany or wherever -- Hamburg -- that's\nthe seaport. Any place where they had a seaport would be where he had been,\nwhere he talked about. I guess our class was probably the best geography class\nthey ever had in school. We got it firsthand.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now, Mr. Rooks, you've been here and your family has been here\nfive generations.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's it. I'm the fifth generation Marylander. My grandmother was\nborn on Montgomery Street and my grandfather was born in East Baltimore. That\nwas my mother's father. Then the only surviving ones -- I'm the next to the\noldest of my generation. The oldest is my mother's cousin -- her name is Louise Johnson.\n\nAnd like I said, my grandparents, my grandmother was born on Montgomery Street.\nHer father was born on the Eastern Shore, Maryland, and her mother was born in Virginia.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Where on the Eastern Shore?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's the one thing I don't know. But his name was Sye, S-Y-E,\nand that's a prominent name down on the Eastern Shore. I know it was in Kent\nCounty, somewhere down there. He was an interesting man. I have the midwife's\nrecord book of the first three children they had. Mr. Harris, Barr Harris, the\nauctioneer, called me one day on the phone, and he said, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=600.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\"I've got something I\nwant you to look at because I know you know most all the people in Baltimore.\"\nAnd when I went down there it was a midwife's record book, and it was all from\nSouth Baltimore. It was funny. And the first thing I saw was the birth of\ndaughter to Sye, Louisa Sye, and her husband James, and it was 1878. And then\nthe next thing was another boy and then a boy, the first three children.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I hope you got that record book.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, yeah, I bought it. I went to buy it at auction. I still have\nit. I have a lot of material.\n\nMy father's family is an interesting family too. This is hearsay, more than\nanything, my grandmother used to always tell me -- My grandparents had like\nsixteen kids -- and you're talking about the Klan -- most of them were boys. And\nyou'd have to know my grandfather and his brothers to know what I mean when I\nsay this. My grandmother told me when I was a youngster that all my family's\ndispersed all over the United States. And the reason why all these boys were all\nover the place was because one evening the Ku Klux Klan came to the house, and\nwhen it was all over with, it was like six or eight people either dead or\nwounded, but it was not my family, it was other people. So they had to leave\nthat night. And that's the tale that was told.\n\nAnd I have family in Texas, all over the place. The Rooks side of the family.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=720.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And my grandmother had an interesting side of the family. I have her mother's\npicture. Her mother was White, and she was married to a Negro in North Carolina,\nand they found him murdered. And when they found him murdered, the mother gave\nall the children to other parts of the family to be raised, and she moved to\nTexas. And she sent back a picture of her sitting beside this fence with these\nTexas togs on -- I have that [picture] too. You know, the outfit that they had.\nAnd chaps. And she sent back this picture of her, letting the kids know that she\nwas [unclear]. I have that picture too. I have a lot of pictures of the family\n-- of my grandfather and his mother, him sitting on his mother's lap.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Tell me about Mr. Duncan and [unclear].\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, I really don't know a lot about Mr. Duncan. I knew Mr.\nDuncan, and I knew Mr. Alonzo. And naturally I knew Mr. Giles -- that's my\nfather-in-law. And I didn't know my grandfather at all because I wasn't born\nwhen he died. They used to call him Mr. Preston -- they never called him Mr.\nDuncan. The only thing I knew about him was my grandma only referred to him as\nMr. Preston, and when we would go to East Baltimore to see my great grandmother,\nshe would always say, \"I'll stop here to see Preston.\" I knew him through Mr.\nGiles, too, who was my father-in-law, and Mr. Alonzo. Mr. Alonzo used to be the\nshoeshine man at Hess Shoes, too. He shined shoes. You remember Hess on\nBaltimore Street?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yes!\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Mr. Alonzo was the oldest one right there. But he outlived most\nall those guys. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=840.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In fact, when he retired from Hess, he went to work for Skarie\n[carpentry] up on Howard Street just to hang around, like a handyman. But he was\naround a long time, Mr. Alonzo. Like I said, I didn't know much about them in\nthe music [unclear] because by the time I came along, they weren't playing. In\nfact, I was trying to think of the name of the fellow that they called the\nRudolph Valentino in the Negro race. Remember, he used to wear White suits all\nthe time? Noble Sissle.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Noble Sissle.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It was Noble Sissle. My mother used to always say, she could\nalways tell who her friends were not, if you got what I just said. Not who her\nfriends were -- who her friends were not. My mother went to Douglass Senior High\nSchool, and whenever Noble Sissel would come to town, he would stay with my\ngrandparents, my mother's father. He lived on Gold Street. And she says whenever\nhe would come to town to play at the Royal Theatre, or wherever he would play,\nthe girls would come and sit on her steps. She said they would be on her steps\nbefore she would get home, the girls in school in her class. She said they\ndidn't associate with her before that, but as soon as he would come, that's\nwhere they would sit.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Was he playing at the Hippodrome before the Royal Theatre?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No, he was playing at the Royal Theatre before he played the\nHippodrome. And he would come then.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: So he did play at the Hippodrome?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He played the Hippodrome. Most all the Black bands played the Hippodrome.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah, all the bands before.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Jimmie Lunceford and all those guys. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=960.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Vernon Robinson [phonetic]\nand I did a little thing on the Royal Theatre for the Great Blacks in Wax\n[Museum], and you may be able to find one of those books that we did. That would\nbe interesting. I don't have a copy because I gave my last copy to my\nbrother-in-law, to Elmer.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He just passed. We won't see that again.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm going to try to get a copy for you too.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I would like that.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: For you too, Ken. But we did a nice thing. We introduced -- I'm\ntrying to think of his name. He passed away just two years ago. He was the\nmanager of the Royal Theatre for many years. The book turned out pretty good. I\nthought it did.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I have to go down there and see if they have a copy.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, the Great Blacks, they had a grant and they asked me to do\nthat. We did a nice job. I thought we did a nice job because at the time they\nhad already torn down the Royal, and it's awfully hard to find material for\nPennsylvania Avenue. And what we did -- Maryland Historical Society, I think,\nowns this -- we went down to the Peale Museum. Mr. [Paul] Henderson, who was a\nBlack photographer in Baltimore at the time, had given all his stuff to the\nPeale Museum for the city. I think the Peale has since turned it over to the\nMaryland Historical Society. I'm not sure.\n\nAnd we went through the archives and we found some really interesting\nphotographs. And I just bought some things too. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1080.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I just bought some old movie\n\"coming attraction\" flyers, that they used to put up for the Royal Theatre. I\nthink I got one with Jimmie Lunceford.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: No kidding.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Jimmie Lunceford. We used to hang out around the alley.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, yeah, I know.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: We'd watch the people come in. We'd recognize them. And I lived\non Druid Hill Avenue, the 1200 block, which only was like three blocks away.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's right.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Two and a half blocks. And I lived next door to Lillie Jackson.\nAnd she used to take us around there once in a while, because they wouldn't let\nyou -- Sometimes they wouldn't want you to be around there when the people came\nin. And Lillie Jackson, she had this [unclear]. \"You know, I'm Lillie Jackson. I\nam the NAACP, and you let me and my children go on in there and see. If these\npeople want to perform, they'll see us first.\" [Laughter]\n\nYou ever heard of Lillie Jackson?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Indeed.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: She lived two doors from me.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And you had another illustrious person on your street too --\nA. Jack Thomas.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: A. Jack Thomas and [Cornelius] Fitzgerald, one of the first Black\nlawyers, and Dr. [Howard E.] Young. Dr. Young was the first [African American]\nMaryland pharmacist. Young's Drugstore was on the corner, right across the\nstreet, on Dolphin.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And his daughter was the first [African American] female\npediatrician in the state, [Nellie] Louise. You had a lot of people.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Oh, yeah. And Fitzgerald, of course, was two doors down the\nstreet from me. Fitzgerald was there.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He was there?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He was in politics.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: The drugstore was called Fowler's. That was Fowler's drug store.\nAnd when I first went down, I thought they were White people. The Fowlers were\nlike us. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1200.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"All mixed up! [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That was interesting -- Dr. Young's brother played in a group\ncalled the Jazz Kings. Have you ever heard of those? I had their photographs,\nand I sold them all because they didn't belong to me. They belonged to my\nclient, and I sold them for him. If they had belonged to me, I'd have kept them,\nbut they didn't belong to me so I had to sell them. I don't buy things that I --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They must have known Louise -- Remember Dr. Young?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, well, that was where they came from -- from her estate.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And they had the drugstore -- we had a Black store right on the\ncorner of Dolphin and Druid Hill, the first prescription drugstore.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, he was the first pharmacist, first Black pharmacist in the\nstate of Maryland.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And McCrae [phonetic], the McCrae family lived right in that same\n1100 block.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I didn't know he lived in that block.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah. McCrae. Eleven hundred block.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now your Baltimore experiences started out in the summertime.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Right.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Where were you visiting? You were coming up from --?\n\nKEN CORPREW: From Chesapeake, Virginia. Well, in those days we called it Norfolk\nCounty, but today it's Chesapeake, and that's in the Hampton Roads area. And I\nused to stay at Caroline and Gay. I used to stay right across from the square.\nThen we had a laundry down on Gay Street.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: So you were on the other side of town and seeing another whole\nworld of Baltimore.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yes.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You were over near where Eubie Blake grew up?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. He grew up with Eubie Blake, Chick Webb, Percy Glascoe. Cab\nCalloway was in West Baltimore.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1320.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We saw him when he came over the Avenue. We would be right there\nin the back of the alley behind the Royal, and we would see Tracy -- What was\nhis name?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: McCleary.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He was the house band then. But then all the celebrities would\ncome in, and we would get a chance to see them.\n\nKEN CORPREW: My experience with that is different from theirs because my\nexperience was going to see the various bands, Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan, et\ncetera, in Norfolk on a place called Church Street, which was analogous to\nPennsylvania Avenue. And the Royal Theatre here was analogous to the Booker T.\n[Theatre] in Norfolk. So my experience is different from theirs.\n\nMy next experience picks up in Baltimore when I come to Morgan to go to college,\nand I stayed. And I guess what's relevant about my career, or my time in\nBaltimore in relationship to jazz music is, in the late '60s I became a\ntelevision producer, so I had a chance to produce a number of people that he\ntalked about. Donald Bailey, Jimmy Wells, Ethel Ennis. I've had all of them on\ntelevision shows. I did this work out at Maryland Public Broadcasting, and most\nof it is in the PBS archives in Washington.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: There's an old saying that if you can't make it in Baltimore, you\ncan't make it anywhere. [Laughter] Isn't that right? [Laughter] You can't make\nit in Baltimore, you can't make it anywhere.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, I want you to tell me what East Baltimore was like in\nthe '40s when you were coming up.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I was telling someone that the recent experience that we had with\nthe bubble -- the kind of frenzy of activity. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1440.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My experience in East Baltimore\nwas around '43 to about '47. At the tail end of the -- and it was a frenzy --\npeople were just running doing everything. It was a frenzied mode. And I had\nnever seen any traffic since then until the bubble of activity that we had. Even\nin all my years of doing the school here and being an activist, the rate of\nactivity was never as frenzied as the war years until we got into the bubble experience.\n\nAnd it was a segregated time. In fact, I had my first experience in Baltimore\nwith being denied the ability to eat at a lunch counter.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Where was this?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Down on Lexington Street.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Lexington and Howard Street.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Now, that's not to say that I didn't experience segregation in\nNorfolk, but the places that I went to eat were established for us. The\ndrugstores had their own counters. But I came to Baltimore on vacation, and one\nof my aunts took me downtown. And while she was shopping, I went to get a hot\ndog and the lady screamed at me that she was not going to serve me, that kind of thing.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: The food wasn't that good at Read's anyway. [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: It wasn't Read's. It was Woolworth's.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Oh, it was Woolworth's.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The food was pretty good at Read's. [Laughter] Because I used to\neat lunch at Read's quite often.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I've had a few grilled cheese sandwiches there myself.\n\nKEN CORPREW: And Gay Street was a very busy street. A lot of business activity,\nbusinesses owned by Blacks. And there was a shopping district for Blacks. And\nmovies up the yin-yang for youngsters like me -- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1560.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"showing horse operas and war\nmovies and serials and that kind of thing. So, I spent my summers going to the\nmovies, playing cowboy, and even had one experience at Johns Hopkins because I\njumped over a fence in my backyard and cut my hand, and they had to take me to\nthe hospital and get that sewed back up. So, you know, it was a fun time for me.\nFun time. I really enjoyed it.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, Baltimore changed a lot from those days in the '40s\nwhile you were at Morgan.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yes.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: That was a sea change. What was the most pronounced change --\nif you had to pick two or three big shifts?\n\nKEN CORPREW: You mean from my early experience to the present?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yes.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I went away and stayed twenty years I guess and came back, what,\nfour or five years ago, Ron?\n\nAnd I guess -- we were talking about it earlier. One of the things that really\ngrabbed me is the cosmopolitan mix of Baltimore. When I was here earlier, I only\nremember basically Europeans, Americans, and African Americans. When I came\nback, I noticed Asian Americans, Spanish Americans. And so, the whole country\nhas become much more cosmopolitan.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Mexican Americans.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. And so that would be my first major change. I never saw\nBaltimore, the race relationships, as being hostile. They were integrated, but\nthey were not hostile. And I'm saying that because I had a friend who was a\npolitical activist who did his activities in Mississippi, and I was a political\nactivist and the most hostile environment I was in then was in ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1680.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Cambridge\n[Maryland] when Rap Brown was there, that kind of thing.\n\nSo, I guess the mellowing of the race relationships would probably be the second\nthing, even though there are pockets and forces that attempt to keep you from\nparticipating one hundred percent in the society, they aren't nearly as\nprevalent as they were in the '60s.\n\nSo they [the big shifts] would be the cosmopolitanism of the area and the\npolitical integration that was taking place.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: One of the things I remember during this time was Christmas -- it\nwas an interesting time in Baltimore for Blacks. The reason I bring this up is\nbecause I was asked not quite three years ago, but a few years back, how come is\nit that you don't see many Black people at the Lyric Theatre for the opera or\nthe concerts and things like that. My answer to the person who asked the\nquestion was, the reason why you don't see too many Blacks is because we were\nnever really invited.\n\nBecause the thing I remember about the Lyric Theatre -- and this one sticks in\nmy mind all the time -- on Christmas, the Royal Theatre would give out little\nboxes of candy. You remember those boxes of candy? The Lyric Theatre did the\nsame thing on Christmas. That would be our visiting time to go to the Lyric\nTheatre. The children, the Black children of Baltimore City School system would\ngo the ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1800.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Lyric Theatre, and they would give you a box of candy.\n\nAnd that would be the whole crux of the thing. I've always been a person who, I\nwouldn't say enjoy, but was inquisitive about old things, and I'm a pack rat.\n[Laughter] And I've always been a pack rat, ever since I was a kid.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Historian. You're a historian.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I call it pack rat. I started collecting when I was like, six\nyears old. I was actually collecting.\n\nBut the interesting thing I find about the changes in Baltimore, I remember\nwanting to go to the Walters Art Gallery, and being turned down because I didn't\nhave an adult. That was the story -- but it wasn't that. It was because Blacks\ncouldn't go at the time. I would say I was twelve, fourteen years old. This was\nlike 1947, '48, and that's when I first met Milton who owned the Centre\nBookstore. You remember the Centre Bookstore that used to be on Centre Street?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Oh ,yes.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's the first time I was introduced to books. And I would go in\nthere, and you could buy a Langston Hughes book of poems or of poetry from him\nfor like ten cents. And it would be in pristine condition. It would be the only\nthing that he would have in his whole shop that would be in any kind of\ncondition. If you knew him, you knew that everything was patched in his shop.\n\nBut those were the changes I saw. Growing up in town, and like Kenny said, when\nyou live in a town ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=1920.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"you don't pay any attention to the things that you're not\nallowed to do because your parents just didn't bother with them.\n\nYou know what I mean? Like the Woolworth's where he went, he went there because\nhe was a novice to the city. We knew that we couldn't go in Woolworth's because\nwe were there.\n\nAnd I tell you a really interesting story about Lexington and Howard Street. I\ndon't think you know the name Vivien Cook. Do you know the name Vivien Cook?\nWell, Mrs. Cook is world renowned for her being a founding member of the AKA\n[Alpha Kappa Alpha] Society. She was a principal at Dunbar High School, a\nprincipal of Harvey Johnson High School when I was going there, and her husband\nwas also a principal at Douglass, Mr. Johnson [phonetic]. And she was married to\na Johnson who was one of the establishing families of Howard University -- of\nMordecai Johnson, his son. Mrs. Cook graduated from Howard in 1912. I can tell\nyou her story because I did her papers for her.\n\nBut that's a long story. But anyhow, Mrs. Cook lived on Lexington and Howard\nStreet. Mrs. Cook was walking and Mrs. Cook was -- I guess she was about 6-3,\n6-4? She was real tall, real tall.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: She was taller than we were, because we was small.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, right, but she was a real tall woman.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: But she was thin.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. Real thin, and nice-looking woman, real nice looking. And\none day she was walking across -- [unclear] Her father looked like he was a\nWhite man. But Mrs. Cook was a regal type of woman.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah, she carried herself real well.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't know if you remember, but on Howard and Lexington Street\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2040.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"was one of the few places that they had a policeman that would stand in the\nmiddle of the block.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Right. I do remember that.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, one day Mrs. Cook was on Howard Street and walking across on\nthe diagonal from May Company to Stewart's. Stewart's was on the corner and May\nCompany [unclear] and the policeman in the middle, he spoke down to her. You\nknow what I mean? And she stopped.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He dissed her. [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yes. And she stopped and she said, in front of all these people --\nthe place was crowded, naturally. Howard and Lexington Street was always\ncrowded. She said, \"Young man, you come over here.\" And the policeman was\nindignant, because he was this big policeman that didn't need to be spoken to by\nany Black person. She says, \"My name is Vivien Cook, and you will remember this\nname as long as you live. You do not talk down to anybody! That's not your job.\"\nShe said, \"Your job is to be courteous to everyone. I don't care who it is or\nwhat it is.\" She said, \"You be courteous from now on. You understand that?\" And\nthe policeman, he was embarrassed, and he naturally cowered to that situation,\nbecause he backed off and Cook was -- she was a phenom. She was an interesting\nlady. When I was in high school, she knew every kid in the school, and she knew\nevery kid's parents in the school. She knew everybody by their first names. So\nit was interesting. It's always an interesting situation. And that was the times.\n\nThe difference in the times, and the difference in -- You know, it was a better\ntime. I always say it was a better time when you had the separate neighborhoods\nbecause the people, how do you say, jived and jelled.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And it was really a learning time.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It was a great learning time.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2160.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Because the other thing was, that the Jewish people were the\npeople for the most part who were the first people to extend credit to Black\npeople. Now, my father was a merchant seaman, so in those days they didn't have\nwhat you call allotments -- after a certain time in the merchant services,\nthey'd send allotments to your family. Wherever he was, you got your check every\nmonth. But before that, he didn't get paid until the ship bunked, they call it,\nwhen it comes back to wherever he went. He was all over the place, Europe, South\nAmerica, you name it.\n\nSo as I said, my dad was a White guy, very impressive -- He was about 6-foot-4.\nI always thought he was a handsome man. They said he was a nice-looking guy. I\nnever thought about him being like that. And my mother was about five foot,\nthree. So like Mutt and Jeff [comic strip], you know. And when we moved, when he\nbrought us from Indiana to here, he had to find a place for us to live. And one\nof the guys on the ship was in the mess, like the chief cook. On the merchant\nships most of the cooks were Black. Anyway, they found a place up on McCulloh\nStreet, in the 2200 block.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's Gold Street right there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Okay. Peremel's store was on the corner of Druid Hill and Gold\nStreet. So when he would go away and stay away two, three months, four months\nsometimes, he had a book -- they had a big loose-leaf book. The people who got\ncredits [were the] people who had jobs. People who didn't have jobs could not\nget credit. They'd have a job and they'd find out. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2280.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They'd call up the owner, I\nmean the person who gave the job --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Employer.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And they'd find out how much they made, paid once a week or\nwhatever. So they had a book, and this is one of the reasons why a lot of people\nunderstand the melding of Blacks and Jews. It's because, I think for the most\npart, that half of our families that grew up thirty, forty years ago or more,\nwere on the book. Some people, unfortunately on welfare, the check would come\nonce a month or that sort of thing. So they created a book for people that they\nknew would not be able to pay every week.\n\nSo my daddy being a merchant seaman, he didn't get paid. They used to get paid\nlater on -- they got allotments that came through the mail. But those days you\ndidn't get paid until the ship bunked back in Baltimore, in the harbor, the\nport. So Peremel at that time had a grocery store on Druid Hill Avenue.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Who is this now?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Peremel. It's a Jewish name. A lot of Peremels around. And the\nother Jewish guy on Druid Hill Avenue, 1200 block, six blocks below, was George\nDwinn. I know most people that I knew of, that lived in the area, either had a\nbook at Dwinn or Peremel's if you had jobs that you didn't come home or get paid\nevery week like that -- most of the people who traveled, like guys that were\nPullman porters who would go out and sometimes be out there on the road.\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2400.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And it was the oddest thing that I didn't know that everybody didn't have a\nbook. But some people didn't have -- I'll never forget this guy named Dwinn on\nDruid Hill Avenue. I worked for both stores. I used to work after school because\nI always wanted to have some extra money in my pocket. And although allotments\nused to come in every month, I would need the money every week. [Laughs]\n\nSo, I got a job at Peremel's. I used to go up and sweep the store, dump the\ntrash, wash or clean the utensils. But when I went down to the 1200 block of\nDruid Hill Avenue, this guy Dwinn had the Jewish store on the corner, and\nPeremel brought us -- what do you call --?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Recommended.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Recommended us to go there because they knew my daddy made good\nmoney, but it didn't come often. Sometimes they didn't get paid till they\nbunked. So after a long time, you'd have a pretty good lot of money that you\nowed. So when I went down to Dwinn's, I was a little older and I wanted a job,\nand I always wanted a little extra money. So junior high school, Booker T, was\nright at the corner of McCulloh and Lanvale. And Peremel's store -- Dwinn at\nthat time -- Dwinn was down at the Druid Hill Avenue right across from Bethel.\nAnd Lanvale.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, that was right across from Lanvale. What's the street over\nthere? Dolphin!\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2520.0,2640.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So Lanvale had the store right on the corner. Peremel had the\nother one later on. The man who had the store on Lanvale Street later on moved\ndown further down the block of Lexington, near Dolphin Street. So in both cases,\nthe stores were right there, and I worked. [unclear] So it was a real learning\nthing because I was so surprised and watched them. They had brown bags, and they\nwould have the pen, and people would buy the things, and they'd put them on the\ncounter and they'd get ready to go. And they had a book. The only people who had\nthe book were the people who had jobs that could be verified, right?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: So they were to get the objects -- like it would be Crisco or\nbread -- and they would go down the row. [Imitates sound of the row moving] But\nwhat happened was, I found out and it was kind of hurtful at first, but then I\nlearned that this was the real world, you know. One day I put stuff on the\ncounter, and he would put on a big brown bag, seventy-five, a dollar twenty,\nthirty-seven, whatever. And, you know, I noticed sometimes there would be a gap\nwhen he first started -- two dollars here, next one would be three dollars down\nthere. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2640.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But it was spaces. [unclear] And I couldn't figure out what it was. So\nwhat it was, I was counting one day, I counted the stuff, and I said, \"It's\nalready counted.\" He said, \"No, I got it over here.\" I went over there, I\ncounted -- I came up with a different figure. I said, \"What the hell is this?\"\n\nAnd so, I realized that what happened, when they put the figures down, what they\nwould do -- They'd leave little spaces. Now I'm not knocking the Jewish people,\nI'm just telling you the truth, because they were keeping us fed. Couldn't go to\nfood markets and things like that, so you had to use the corner store.\n\nSo one time I counted them up, and he said, \"You want a bag?\" And I said, \"Wait\na minute, there's something wrong.\" What happened would be that you have like a\nloaf of bread, twenty-four; chicken, a dollar forty-seven, something else also\nadded. So then, when he'd go to count it up, total it, these little spaces\nbecame closed because it would be forty-nine cents, fifty-two cents,\nseventy-four cents. And I blew up and I said, \"What the hell is wrong?\" He said,\n\"I knew you were sharp, but I didn't know you were that sharp.\"\n\nHe sat me down, [he] and his wife -- they took me in the back. I'd never been in\nthe back before in the house. Took me in the house and they made some tea and\nsat me down because I was furious. I was ready to set the neighborhood on them.\n\nHe said, \"Jack, understand me. We're the only people who will come to a Black\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2760.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"neighborhood and give people credit. We have to buy goods, we have to pay rent,\"\nor lease, whatever it is. \"And you've got to keep the place stocked and you got\nto buy.\" I said, \"I understand that.\" He said, \"But you know, ninety percent of\nthe people who come in my store are on credit, on book.\" Either they were people\nwho got paid every Friday, or people on welfare who got allotments, or whatever\nyou call them, once a month, or something like that, wasn't it?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't know.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: So he said, \"I have to pay interest on my shipments of food.\" You\nknow, a lot of times he bought fresh meat, chicken. They'd go bad, he had to\nthrow them away. You understand what I'm saying? So I started to say, \"Damn, I\nnever thought about it.\" He said, \"This is our interest.\" So when you go down to\nthe place there, and I don't know how he would figure out the interest, but in\nthis space right here would be forty-nine and it wasn't there before.\nEighty-seven. You never heard of that?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: No.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Something you never knew. And what it was, they knew how much\nthey needed to buy their goods and keep themselves stocked up. And so what you\nwere paying, what he was putting there, he would never be able to explain to you\nabout the interest. I mean we didn't know what interest was, how much money you\nhave to spend to buy on interest [credit]. So what he would do is make up his\nshortfall by putting those -- And I picked it up, see? And nobody had ever seen\nit before. [Laughs] I said, \"What the hell is this, man?\" And, oh, man, he was\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=2880.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490/transcript/39222/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"really crestfallen. Because he loved me and I loved him, man, and his wife and\nthe kids. I learned how to speak a lot of Jewish.\n\n[END PART 1]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117490#t=3000.0,3120.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 4 - pims0091_Rooks-1_02.mp3"]},"duration":3016.04571,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/491/original/pims0091_Rooks-1_02.mp3?1624270972","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3016.04571,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rooks_2_OHMS_20220804 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"JACQUES LEEDS: [unclear] I was crestfallen, you know. And he said, \"This is how\nwe're able to keep to ourselves.\"\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: To carry everything.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That's the interest that I have to pay. The figures he put in\nthere, based on how long it was before he got paid.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The thing I find strange about Baltimore -- and then I can only\nrefer to the neighborhood in which I lived. We rented in a little neighborhood\nbetween the two major communities in South Baltimore, which was Pigtown and\nFremont Avenue, and we lived on a little street called Archer Street, which was\ntwo blocks, and then my house was one block, and then Carroll Street was just\none block. Yeah, where Bunny and them lived. That was only one block. And it was\nall Black in that community. And all around us was all White. And I remember at\nthe end of World War II, and during World War II, the little incidents that came\nout -- nothing Black and White, no issues Black and White, but war issues.\n\nLike a mother losing a child, a son. And we were fortunate in our neighborhood.\nAll the young men who went into the war, and many of them fought in different\ncampaigns too, all of them came home, and I don't remember any of them -- No,\nnone of them were injured or anything. They all came home pretty good. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=0.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I\nremember at the end of the war, we used to have block parties. And that started\nout way back in the '30s with the Afro-American [newspaper] having \"clean block\"\nparties and stuff like that. And we used to have block parties every summer in\nthat little neighborhood.\n\nAnd at the end of the war, they had a major block party that everybody was\ninvited -- I mean, the White community and the Black community -- and they all\nparticipated. And the reason I'm telling you this story is because it's fascinating.\n\n1954 come along. The times start changing, you know. And in '54 --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That's Brown v. Board of Education.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They integrated the schools. Well, you have to understand where --\nMy grandmother was the mentor of the neighborhood. She was the person that they\nall came to with their problems. But she really didn't gossip.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Just a big mama, you know.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And she sat home. But anyhow, they integrated the schools, and the\nSchool 22 around the corner -- This is one of the major changes that I saw that\nwas interesting. School 22 around the corner was all White. We used to have to\nwalk past three schools to go to one school. That's what I did. And we had to\nrun home for lunch and run back to school.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: What school was this?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I went to 117, which was on Barre and Fremont Avenue at the time,\nwhich was nine blocks away from our house -- at least nine blocks away from the\nhouse. And we used to have to run for lunch because you only got an hour for\nlunch, and you'd run home for lunch and you ran back to school after lunch.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They didn't have any cafeterias then.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. We didn't have cafeterias.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Brown bag.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Sometimes, or you went home.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=120.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That's right. You always went home. We always did. But anyhow, the\nschool was integrated, and they had the picket lines -- you know, you've read\nabout the picket lines. Well, the neighbors came around and got Granny. My\ngrandmother's name was Hilda. \"Miss Hilda, Em [phonetic] is around the corner.\"\nThere was two Ems in the neighborhood, both of them White. One used to eat lunch\nwith my grandmother every day, and they would have lunch behind our backyard.\nHer house faced our backyard. And we weren't poor, in the sense of not having\nthings. We always had things. And my grandmother would always give Em our\nclothes because there was a lot of kids. There was fourteen grandchildren\neventually, in the house, and we all lived in the same neighborhood -- lived\nacross the street from each other, and then up the street from each other. It\nwas just a little house.\n\nBut anyhow, the neighbors came and got Granny, and said, \"Miss Hilda, Em is in\nline with a sign. 'No N--- in the school,'\" you know, and all that stuff. My\ngrandma said, \"What?\" She put on her little housecoat -- she was a heavy lady --\nand walked down the street, which was half a block. Not even that, you know, it\nwasn't that far. She walked down the street, and she stood on the corner.\n\nAnd lo and behold here comes the Em that she ate lunch with every day, is in\nline. And she's in front of the line, just about like maybe three, four, five\npeople. And my grandmother don't say anything to other people, even though they\nall know her. She walks over to Em, and she said, \"Put that sign down!\" And Em\nput the sign down. \"Go home.\" And Em goes home. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=240.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And my grandmother sees the\nother Em who lives on Wise Street around the corner from us at the end of the\nline, and she knew that she could handle her too. And she waited for this one\ncome up, and Em only lived five doors from the school, on the same street, on\nour street. And she waited until the other Em come up. And my grandmother said,\n\"Em, come here. Put that sign down over there. Go up and sit on those steps up\nthere.\" And Em got up and sat on the steps. And my grandmother got ourselves\ntogether and walked all back home.\n\nAbout six to eight weeks later, Em, who lived in back of us and had lunch with\nmy grandmother every day, like I said, wasn't coming anymore. So my grandmother\nsent me across -- I'm the oldest, and my grandmother used to send me on all the\nchores -- she sent me across to knock on Em's door and tell Em that she missed\nher for lunch. \"Please come to lunch.\" You know, they started having lunch\ntogether again. And it was interesting. It was an interesting time.\n\nWell, his cousin, who lived on our block, our neighborhood, used to race homing\npigeons. Billy [phonetic] must have had five or six, maybe ten homing pigeons.\nAnd he used to race them, and the only other people in the neighborhood who had\nthem was the White fellows our age. And Billy would race with this one guy all\nthe time. Race the pigeons, race the pigeons. And when the school system changed\nto a different thing, the attitude changed.\n\nIt was amazing. Now we become sort of equal basis, and the fear started in. The\nencroachment of fear. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=360.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Because that's what it basically is now in the first\nplace. And I'll tell you [one] thing, this is a bragging thing -- I always used\nto make the statement at the spa with all these old guys. I've asked the\nquestion -- what do we want as a race of people? And my answer has always been\nand it will always be the same thing. We don't want nothing from them. We don't\nneed anything from them. I said, \"Because if you take anyone in my family or my\nfriends or my friends' family, and you put them on a line here, and put you on a\nline twenty foot away, in front, and start you out at the end of the race -- on\nan intelligent basis, we will be on the end before you get there.\" And that's\nalways been my remark.\n\nIt's basically been an experience that I've always gone through in my lifetime\nof being around people. If you notice, I didn't say different people, I'm around\npeople. It's always been my experience that I have excelled and I do excel, and\nnot that I'm smarter than they are, but I excel because I want to be the best at\nwhat I can do. And that's the whole thing. And he does the same thing and he\ndoes the same thing [Leeds and Corprew]. It's inherited in us to do that because\nwe have to do it. We have to persevere under different types of situations, more\nso than others. We talked about that on the telephone, about the Holocaust. [unclear]\n\nWe basically go through the same thing. People don't realize that, and still,\nthe changes are out there, and it's not been for the best for us. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=480.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We have\ngreater opportunities to get into different places, but it becomes more\nexpensive to get into the different places. And when I say that, I'm not talking\nabout just money, I'm talking about that you have to give up too much. If you go\nfrom here, forty miles away, to Frederick, Maryland, is a prime example. In\nFrederick they still have separations. If you go in those little towns --\nHagerstown -- they still have separation. They're not in the open, but they're there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Certainly not a melting pot. [Laughs]\n\nIt's amazing. When we could afford to move here, we couldn't move here. You\nunderstand what I'm saying? And what Jack was saying about Jewish giving credit\n-- Hecht Company was one of the few companies that gave credit to Blacks. [It\nwas] on Pine and Baltimore Streets, and this was back in the '40s and the '30s.\nPeople don't realize that at one time you could only buy a house through one\nbank, and that was Provident Savings Bank. You couldn't get a house through any\nother banks. Mercantile Trust wouldn't give you -- Baltimore Savings Bank would\nnot loan you the money, but they would take your money. Mercantile Trust\nwouldn't even take your money in the bank. It was the times.\n\nSo you go through these changes, and it all had to do with one thing -- fear.\nYou go back to fear. I always say that you can take two kids -- oh, better than\nthat, I'll tell you something. A true story.\n\nI had a print shop on Washington Boulevard. Next door to the print shop, two\ndoors from the print shop, was an apartment house. And in the apartment house\nlived a young boy three years old and his sister five, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=600.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and the mother and father\nwho were no good. Strictly country hillbillies.\n\nAnd the grandmother lived up the street, and she was extremely poor. You know,\ndidn't have anything, on welfare. The mother and father would leave those kids\nin the house by themselves to fend for themselves. And my first experience with\nlittle Jimbo -- that's what they called him as a kid -- was, I had this dog\nnamed Duke that belonged with my cousin, and he would play with the dog and fool around.\n\nWell, one day Jimbo comes in the shop. He says to me, \"Mr. Ron,\" he says,\n\"where's the broom?\" And I pointed out the broom. He goes over, he sweeps the\nfloor. He's three years old. Picks it up, puts it in the trash. Don't say a\nthing to me. When he was going out the door, I said, \"Come here, Jimbo.\" So I\ngive him a quarter. Half an hour later he's back again sweeping the floor.\nDoesn't need to be swept, but he's sweeping the floor. He's finished, waits\naround for his quarter. Now we become not Mr. Ron anymore. \"Boss.\" This little\nkid, three years old. He's impressive. And it becomes boss.\n\nSo one day there's two incidents. The first incident happened [when] his mother\nand father left, and he and his sister were in the house without anything to\neat. They were there for two days, and they went up to the grandmother's, and\nthe grandmother didn't have anything. And even though she had great neighbors\nthat would have given the children anything they wanted, the grandmother told\nJimbo, \"You go see Mr. Ron, Mr. Rooks.\" And told the daughter, the granddaughter\nto go and see the lady who lived next door to her, a friend of her mother's. She\nbought houses for all her sisters, and she's still living down there, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=720.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\"And go\nsee her,\" the granddaughter.\n\nSo Jimbo comes down to see me, and I take Jimbo around to my mother's house,\nwhich was right around the corner, and my mother fixed Jimbo food, puts it on\nthe table. Now, he's hungry, right? So he says to my mother he's not allowed to\neat any meat. So my mother being like she is, she went to the cupboard and she\ngot a Campbell's soup and tuna fish, and she puts it in the bag with some\ncrackers, and she says, \"Now, you go home to your grandmother.\" And he goes home\nto his grandmother.\n\nNow he's hungry, man. At this time he's about five years old, and his sister's\nseven, you know. Well, anyhow, in the same period of time, his father got a\nwindfall somewhere or other, because he was the kind of person -- he was like my\nfather. Whenever he got any money, he's going to show off and come around and\nsee his son, and give him a couple of bones. But anyhow, the father got a\nwindfall and bought him a brand-new bike. And one Saturday morning I come in my\nshop, early in the morning, and there's this bicycle sitting in my doorway. So I\npick it up and put it in my hall. In comes Jimbo.\n\n\"Boss,\" he says -- he's still calling me boss -- \"Boss,\" he says, \"somebody\nstole my bike.\" I know, I figured it was his bicycle. I said, \"Jimbo, you left\nyour bicycle out there?\" He says, \"Yeah.\" I said, \"And somebody stole it?\" He\nsaid, \"Yeah.\" And he said, \"It had to be a nigger.\" So I said to him, \"What did\nyou say?\" Like that. So he said, \"It had to be a nigger.\" I said, \"What did you\nsay?\" He said, \"Hold it, boss, you're not one. Nor is it Sally and James across\nthe street --\" two of the Black kids that he played with every day. He says,\n\"It's those other ones up on the corner.\" ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=840.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"[Laughter]\n\nWell, I was in stitches. And I sat down that day. And he will tell you, I write\nnotes all the time. I sat down and wrote a complete story on this whole thing\nhappening. And I entitled \"Leave My Children Alone.\" And I sent it off to\nReader's Digest. They never printed it. But I thought that was one of the\ngreatest stories I ever told.\n\nWhat happens -- why is it that we have problems with people -- it's because they\ndon't know how to leave their children alone. They don't treat them right in the\nfirst place, and they aren't going to give them the right kind of guidance. Yes.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Kids will be kids.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's a true story. And I've seen him since then. I saw him on\nthe corner as a homeless person, and it really broke me up because I stopped and\nI asked him what happened. And he was standing there at the time, and when he\nmoved I realized what happened. He told me he was working for a roofer, and he\nfell off the roof and broke his leg and he has what they call a club foot.\n\nBut his sister really made out very well. She's a nurse in Baltimore City. She\nwent to college and became a nurse. But he didn't. Jimbo, he fell into the rut [unclear].\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: The thing that's so interesting -- among the demographics the\nrace relationships here -- for the most part, our generation, who really became\namalgamated with the Jewish people, created a situation where, in many cases,\nJewish people were the first people to take Black people into their businesses\nand teach them how to run those businesses. It happened so much in my time. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=960.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I\ndon't know about your time.\n\nBut most of the people, like the real estate -- Jewish firm Crane \u0026 Crane -- had\ntalked to a friend of theirs whose son is in law school. And he called me one\nday and said, \"I heard you might be interested in getting some money to go to\nschool, law school.\" I went over and we talked, and next thing I knew they had\nme around learning how to sell real estate. I was one of the younger Black\nbrokers in town who had a real estate license. And that was always the situation.\n\nIt was just like the opening of Pandora's box because when you sold a house you\ngot the commission -- it was like, sorry to say it, \"nigger rich,\" because we\nhad a couple thousand dollars. And a lot of us did very well with real estate\nbecause we had so few Black realtors. I got so good that the man called me at\nCrane \u0026 Crane -- White, Jewish, big time real estate. I had been with Spalding,\nand Crane \u0026 Crane asked me to come over. And I said, \"Well, I'm in law school.\"\nAnd they said, \"You make your time anytime you want to, we want you to be an agent.\"\n\nThey were Jewish people. Their name was Cohen, but they wanted to move away from\nthe Jewish stigma, so they called it Crane so that ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1080.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"the logo was a crane, the\nlong bird. But you see Cohen, Crane.\n\nI did very well in law school.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Where did you go to law school?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: University of Maryland. And they [Crane \u0026 Crane] had their office\non Charles Street. And I had an office. I was big time.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I thought about something that Jack said about getting started with\nJewish businesses -- After I dropped out/flunked out of Morgan, I had decided\nwhat I was going to do.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Oh, you didn't flunk out! If you don't go to class, you can't\ntake the exams. [Laughter] You were busy. Bright guy, but he was busy.\n\nKEN CORPREW: My people wanted me to come home and go to another school, et\ncetera, but I went through the classified ads, and I saw this job for a lab\ntech. I was a chem [major] in undergrad school. So I went out to the\nunemployment office -- the employment office -- and applied for the job. So they\nsent me to a company called Hold Tight [phonetic] -- Cats Paw Rubber Co. And\nthey hired me as a lab tech, and a guy there who was the chief chemist really\nliked me. He gave me opportunities.\n\nThis is in the late '50s. So my first job out of school was a lab tech. I worked\nas a regular lab tech for about a year, and then they put me in charge of\nphysical testing, where I had two people working under me. I was about twenty\nthen. It was a Jewish organization, and they looked out for me. That was my\nfirst break.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now how did you jump from there into television production?\n\nKEN CORPREW: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1200.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In the '50s, when I used to come home from the lab tech job, Dr.\n[Martin Luther] King was leading his movement in Montgomery. I used to watch\nnews every day. And I decided I wanted to do something to help improve race\nrelations. I decided I was going to become a playwright, and I went to the New\nSchool of Social Research in New York and studied playwriting.\n\nAnd then I moved to Greenwich Village. And while I was in Greenwich Village, I\nhad been working at the post office, so I bought myself a 16 mm movie camera,\nand I started learning how to make films. And when I came back to Baltimore,\nJack there gave me my first job with my movie camera. The evolution was from\nshooting television commercials to becoming a television producer. That happened\nin the course of four or five years.\n\nSo that's how I got involved, because I was an activist. And an opening was\ncoming up for an executive producership in urban affairs, and that was \"minority\naffairs,\" for the state of Maryland, and by me being an activist and having\nproduced a few shows over at WMAR, Channel 24, some people in the community\nthought I would be good for that position. And so they put their political\nweight behind it and got me the job.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And you mentioned Jimmy Wells. How did you meet Jimmy Wells?\n\nKEN CORPREW: I, just like you, had gone to the Red Fox in the '50s to see Jimmy,\nEthel [Ennis], Donald [Bailey].\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That's how we all met in Baltimore.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Ethel used to sing. Ruby Glover.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Ruby Glover.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. And so, I had seen Jimmy Wells around town playing. That was\nthe first place I saw him, but I didn't really know him personally. And so, when\nI got to be the television producer, I needed music. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1320.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So I thought Jimmy would be\na good guy to use because I had run into him again. I was working on a program\ncalled \"Operation Champ,\" which was a recreational program in the late '60s. And\nso, I was trying to figure out how to find him, and one day I was walking up\nForest Park Avenue, and I got to Forest Park and Windsor Mill Road and there he\nwas. I told him that I could get some work for him and his musicians and to come\nout, meet me out at the Maryland Center. We were out in Owings Mills.\n\nAnd so, he met me, and Jimmy Wells went on to become the director of music out\nthere. Jimmy Wells, Donald Bailey, Jimmy Johnson, Mickey Fields, Ethel. They're\nall there. They started out playing for me, but they played for everybody. Great musicians.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Baltimore was full of them.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Saw a lot of great musicians. Good musicians.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I want to add something else that I think may be significant. Our\ngeneration came up in the Black community when the mantras were different. The\nmantra was like, \"be somebody.\" You got taught that you're supposed to be\nsomebody. I learned it from my grandmother. I did a documentary on Dr. Lillie\nMay Jackson, and she was saying the same thing.\n\nAnd as I move around and have observed the community over the years, that's been\nsomething that was instilled. Well, it was also instilled that you had to be\ntwice as good as Whites to get half as much -- that was another way of saying to\nwork hard. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1440.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I don't think the kids get instilled with that today, because the\nbarriers are not as obvious, nor as large.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: They're still there.\n\nKEN CORPREW: They're still there, but not as obvious as they were when we were\ncoming along.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Another thing too, I think the greatest thing that happened to us\n-- and we didn't know anything about it -- was the drug culture. We did not have\nit then. You had a small group of people who were drug users. They kept to\nthemselves. They didn't come out and try to pull you in. They were doing their\nown thing. They tried to keep each other from getting sick, especially when they\nmainlined on heroin. They were just by themselves. We didn't have any great\nexposure to drugs.\n\nSo we were able to get through. And I think now, I know now, that the drug\nculture has been the biggest bane that we have in our trying to develop\nourselves and integrate ourselves in this country. And now come the druggies who\ncame here to get our kids to start shooting heroin. And they're finished. Their\nlives are gone! It's despicable.\n\nOne of my best clients at one time tried to be a drug kingpin, and I almost got\n[unclear]. I had been doing some great work for him. He was quiet. It was a real\nblow. I had to separate myself from him because it got to the point where they\nwere watching me -- thought I was masterminding those drug things! I didn't know\nnothing about it.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right.\n\nKEN CORPREW: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1560.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Oh, I was in Hollywood then.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But mostly, I think, what it was with us was the fact that -- and\nwe talk about this quite a bit -- our parents and the grandparents -- My\ngrandmother didn't work, but she was conscious of work. You know, that mentality\nof getting what you have for yourself.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Kept clean. We had nice houses.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. Kept things clean, and kept them fed. And not only that, my\nparents, our parents, his mother, were that next generation who happened to come\nalong when the war come along. She managed to get a job working for the government.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Bringing money in.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Bringing money in constantly, and not only that, another thing --\nthe men in our neighborhoods in those days would not have tolerated what we\ntolerate today. I always tell the story -- he'll tell you about me -- when I was\na kid, I loved to gamble. I used to play tonk [card game] with Tom in this one place.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You shoot craps with Tom?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, I didn't shoot craps, but I played cards all the time. This\nis a great story. And I remember -- I didn't know it at the time -- but I\nremember when we used to play tonk with certain guys, there would always be a\nsmall cloud of smoke around the top of the table like a haze. You know what I\nmean? It would be like if a cloud came down and stood above me, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1680.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"like if you were\nin the mountains somewhere. You know what I mean?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Constant smoke.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And you would sit there, and sometimes you would get dizzy. Those\nguys were smoking marijuana. But they made you think it was a cigarette.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And some would be smoking a cigarette, and some would be smoking marijuana.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And marijuana smoke would settle right around the table. But to\nget back to the thing about the neighborhood, the men of our times -- my father\nwasn't around -- but the men of my neighborhood would not have tolerated their\nson coming in the house with a fifty-dollar pair of shoes on that they didn't buy.\n\nAnd they wouldn't dare do that -- especially if they know you didn't work. You\nknow what I mean? It was different times.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Drug culture is something new. It was not in our time.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It was not there for us. It had nothing to do with economics,\nbecause the drug culture was in the rich society much earlier than it was in the\npoor society. Opium, and all that material. But the thing is, it would not have\nbeen tolerated in my neighborhood.\n\nThat's why we're here today. That's why I live right here today because I don't\ntolerate it. I didn't tolerate it. When I was in my neighborhood, my old\nneighborhood, I went out and voiced my opinion -- not my opinion -- voiced a\nstatement, a simple statement of fact, that -- [crosstalk]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You got to get out of the way. [unclear] You know, those druggies\njust ruined half of the doggone neighborhoods.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. And another thing -- in our times, they wanted to associate\ndrugs with the music world. That was only because of -- There would be very few\npeople -- ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1800.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, all those people, you\nknow. And that would be the closest that you got to a problem.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Ellis Larkins talked about the number of talents that were\nwasted because in the jazz circles, they ran afoul with drugs.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's true. I always love to tell the story -- I've had a lot of\ngreat experiences, and it's not just been Jewish associated. I've had mentors\nand people who are Jewish, Italians -- I get along with everybody. That's my thing.\n\nBut when I was a young man in the service, I used to hang around with a guy by\nthe name of Pappy [phonetic] Baldwin. His name was James Baldwin, but he was a\ncousin of James Baldwin, the writer. And he looked just like him too. Handsome\nguy. [Laughter] Had the most gorgeous wife you ever want to meet in your life.\nShe was really a beautiful woman, personality wise and feature wise.\n\nBut Pappy knew, well, I'll put it this way to you: I was in Germany at the time,\nand I was telling Kenny, in Germany, in Europe, the Atlantic Bar [phonetic] is\nalways the Black bar where all the Blacks hang out. And the hillbilly bar is\nnaturally the bar where all the Whites hang out. And they had what they called\njazz cellars, and the jazz cellars would always be an all the night thing. And\nmost of those people who hung out in those were Blacks and Germans. And Pappy\nand I would go out to a nightclub where Sonny Stitt -- he would come over to\nGermany -- or Sonny Rollins, or ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=1920.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Duke Ellington, and all those people. And they\nall knew him [Pappy]. And as soon as we'd walk in the place, they would throw\nthe spotlight on him. He'd say put that spotlight over in that corner, and it\nwould be me and Pappy. And they would say, \"Pappy Baldwin!\" And Pappy would say,\n\"It's me!\" And they would say send him a magnum [large wine bottle]. He loved\nwine, and they'd send him a magnum.\n\nAs a young man, it was impressive, but I'm not a very good person to impress\nanyhow. But I enjoyed it immensely. I met Sidney Bechet while I was going to\nhave dinner. I was in the same company with Duke Ellington. In fact, when Ethel\ncame to Belgium in 1958, I was in Europe at the time.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Were you there for that?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yes, she was with Benny Goodman at Frankfurt. Ella Fitzgerald came\nover, and we would get front row seats. In fact, it was called back door seats.\nYou got to go in with association. And that was impressive too. That was great.\nGreat for a young man who was at that time -- I was heavy, still heavy into jazz.\n\nI'm not so much into jazz as Kenny and Jack are. I still listen, but not as much.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, Ethel Ennis was a big time. And I was her lawyer. And she\nwas big time.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Ethel was one of the best singers in the country.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I was on my second marriage. [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: I want to add something about jazz musicians and the drug culture.\nWhen I lived in the Village, I used to hang out with a guy named Kenny Dorham.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2040.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He was a trumpet player that played with our band. And I'm the kind of guy who\nalways likes to talk and talk about ideas and issues. And Kenny used to always\ntalk to me because, for some reason, he took a liking to me.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, your name was Kenny. You want to know why. [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: But I had never given it any thought that jazz musicians didn't\nlike to play in bars. They found that environment very oppressive, and they\nthought the music deserved a better forum/venue. Then, later, I learned the\nhistory and how it got started in the first place so that they could make some\nmoney. I understood how the tradition came about.\n\nBut most jazz musicians do not like to play in bars. And the environment is just\ndepressing for them.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Ethel, heck, she hated it, but she had to in order to get money\nfor singing. She wanted to be in a concert kind of performance. But you had to\ngo in the smoke house. Everything was there. You'd smell the reefer and you'd\nwant to get out. You'd go out and take a deep breath and come back in. Loathed\nto have to go back in.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now, I have a question for all three of you. With all of you\ngoing to school, working jobs, having responsibilities at home, how in the world\ndid you ever have time to play? And what did you do? When did you each discover\nthis music scene in Baltimore? What was music like growing up and when did you\nhave time to even listen?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, I'll answer it first because I grew up in a house with\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2160.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"music. We had some of the best piano teachers in the city, in the state of\nMaryland, in our family at the time.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Tell us who they were.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Glascoe, Walter and William [phonetic] were our generation. And\nbefore them, there was cousins that I didn't know personally -- my\ngreat-grandmother's relatives. But in my household, we listened to music all the\ntime. In fact, my cousin worked at the wholesale record plot on Pennsylvania\nAvenue between Gold -- I can't think of the name of it -- and every time a new\nrecord would come out, we'd have it. He'd bring it to the house because my\nmother listened to music all the time. And that was our pastime. Because\ntelevision wasn't there at that time, and we listened to the radio and we\nlistened to the music. And my grandmother, even though she was quite religious,\nshe never got away from the music either.\n\nThen as we got to high school, and we started in the last years of high school\nand the first years at Morgan --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now where was high school?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I went to Carver Senior High School. And in our last years, that's\nwhen we had the little groups, and we would hang out. That was our thing. Just\nabout every evening, I would say, we played just about every evening. We would\nbe at my house, and we would sit in Baker's house, and we had records galore. I\nmean, we listened to everybody.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2280.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And in those days, it was John Coltrane and I would say the Jazz Messengers. MJQ\n[Modern Jazz Quartet]. And we listened and we kicked around what we heard. You\nknow what I mean when I say that? I mean, we were either criticizing or\naffirming that we liked it, or why we liked it. And it wasn't just sitting\nthere, just listening. We were always talking some issue.\n\nAnd we had one guy we called \"Business.\" He was always busy. And like I said, we\nhad a party every Friday night. We had parties fifty-two weeks out of the year.\nEvery Friday night we had a party. We took advantage of what my old man had. And\nhe allowed us to do it, with the drink. And we didn't abuse it, because he\ndidn't allow you to do --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And where were you living at this time?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I was still living with my grandmother. No, at that time I had\nmoved with my father. I took advantage of the opportunity. That's another story.\nSort of like my sisters always said, \"You always bring up bad issues.\" Well,\nit's a part of life. I'm pretty fortunate because my mother had the best of\nfriends. There was nothing that we would have wanted in our lives that we could\nnot have had.\n\nI could have gone to private school if I'd wanted to go to private school. I\ncould have done all the things that rich kids could have done. But it wasn't\nbecause we were rich, it was because my mother had the best of friends, and they\nwould do anything in the world for her.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They looked out after each other.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2400.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But anyhow, I remember in the music scene we did this all the way\nup until you [Corprew] moved away. And even after that.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That was still by 1960.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. So mid-'60s, we would get together, and I occasionally would\ngo to a jazz session or concert.\n\nKEN CORPREW: The festivals were getting started.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. The festivals started. I remember Miles would come to the\nplace up on the Avenue, what was it? Up at the top of the park.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Tijuana.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Tijuana. Club Tijuana. I'm not a fan of Miles, by the way. That's\nbecause of the Club Tijuana. That's true. I always thought he was one of those\nguys who always -- Like Kenny said, most of them didn't like to be around that\nsituation. And Miles would play down to you, and I didn't like that.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They didn't have better music places. Bars, I'm talking about\nbars. On Pennsylvania Avenue, like the Casino, all those places were just bars.\nAnd later on they might get a little trio.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Comedy Club. The Club Astoria.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, you're talking about three places in the whole town. There\nweren't any in East Baltimore at all. They used to come to East Baltimore over\nhere [unclear] until they got something over there.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They had the Ambassador's Club [phonetic].\n\nKEN CORPREW: The Ambassador's was late.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That was early. That was 1948. Because I started going to the\nAmbassador Club [when] I was twelve years old. And Maurice [phonetic] and them\nwould take me there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I never got over there.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I got over there. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2520.0,2640.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, the older guys in the neighborhood would\ntake me everywhere they went. I was taller than they were, but they were of age,\nand we would go to the Ambassador Club for the Jolly Jax [jazz trio]. We would\ngo to the Ambassador Club in East Baltimore. That was on Washington and Fayette\nStreet. And they would take me over there, and they would put me back in the\ncorner, and by the time the man got around to ask everybody for their card, he\nwould look back there. You know, \"He's all right, because he's back there with\nthem.\" Everybody else had their card and they would stick me back there. [Laughter]\n\nI'll tell you another thing we had at that time. We had Carr's Beach and\nSparrow's Beach and Beachwood Park. Carr's Beach and Sparrow's Beach every\nSaturday had somebody who was great. Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Hamp.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yes, Lionel Hampton. They always had something going on. And you\ncould always go. And we got together and went as a family group, even though it\nwas a neighborhood. You know what I mean? And that was the thing.\n\nThat's why I say this is how we lose out. Today, I know my neighbor next door\nbecause I'm that type of person. You know what I mean? And my wife is that kind\nof person. That lady across the street, I know her, but she doesn't know me,\nbecause she's not that kind of a person.\n\nI know Mrs. Grimm [phonetic] down the street. You know Mrs. Grimm? We know the\nneighbors because we're that kind of people.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Are you in the neighborhood?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: No. I'm in Reservoir Hill.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Oh, okay.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No. She doesn't live in the neighborhood. But that's because we're\nthat kind of people. And we have extended families. You know what I mean? We're\nall family. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2640.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In fact, [Leeds] is more of a brother to my wife as her brothers\nwere to my wife. You know what I mean? He's more of a brother to me than he\nwould be because he was married to my sister. But the thing is, that's the way\nwe are.\n\nAnd music was to us that same way. It was a thing that we thrived upon, I would\nsay. I would think that's one of the things, I always said, that helped us to\npersevere in a whole lot of situations, because you didn't have to worry about --\n\nLet me tell you the truth. I have never been to the Chesapeake Club. And the\nreason, I said to myself, is if they didn't want my money then, they don't need\nit now. [Laughter] And that's the way I am.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I don't think I've been to the Chesapeake Club. Where's the\nChesapeake Club?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Charles Street.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Charles Street. The restaurant.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The restaurant.\n\nKEN CORPREW: What's that, on Lanvale?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: It's boarded up now for a long time.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I've never been to the Candlelight over here. And my wife said,\n\"Let's go.\" I said, \"Not me. You want to go, you go.\" But some of these times\nI'm going to wind up having to go. [crosstalk]\n\nA whole lot of them didn't want us then. I go, but they didn't make no big issue\nout of it. These people made a big issue out of it. I wouldn't go to the Turf\nValley [Resort]. Friend of mine invited me to go to Turf Valley and I refused.\nThen one day I had to go because he was playing ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2760.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"golf [unclear], and I had to go.\nI didn't have to, but I went.\n\nBut that's my opinion. That's the way I am.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Seems fair enough.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I look back and I see all the little things that they still do,\nbut they do it in a different manner. I always tell the story. We were invited\nto a person's house one Christmas, and we had been there once before, my wife\nand I. We were the tokens. You know what I mean when I say we were the tokens.\n\nAnd we were the tokens for two reasons: One was because we were Black. That was\none reason. Another reason was because we were the two people that they could\ninvite and not be embarrassed by because I could talk to you about anything. And\nmy wife is extremely intelligent. And that was their thing. And they know that\nmy wife's going to come looking like a queen. [Laughter]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: A terrible thing that happened to me -- when somebody came up to\nme one day in school and said, \"Your daddy's White.\" I said, \"What?\" [Laughter]\nAnd that was traumatic! But I got through it. And everybody, everybody loved Pop\nbecause Pop was all right. He was a hell of a guy. He was an engineer. [crosstalk]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They didn't realize that every Daddy was White. [Laughter]\n\nYou know, I grew up with that phenomenon. My grandmother was your [Schaaf's]\ncomplexion -- she even had the same kind of hair. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=2880.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491/transcript/39223/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"[Crosstalk, laughter]\n\nIt's always amazing. I have an uncle who's fair --\n\n[END PART 2]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117491#t=3000.0,3120.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 4 - pims0091_Rooks-2_01.mp3"]},"duration":3005.04816,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/492/original/pims0091_Rooks-2_01.mp3?1624270974","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":3005.04816,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rooks_3_OHMS_20220804 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KEN CORPREW: I'm going to give a few comments on my introduction to music. I can\nremember as a child, like four or five, six, seven, us having a piano in the\nhouse. And my uncle played the piano. But I never took an interest in it. And so\neventually we didn't have the piano anymore. I was never really interested in\nmusic. The music I was exposed to was gospel music because I used to sing in the\nchoir. And then I used to sing in a chorale, I guess you'd say, when I was in\nhigh school.\n\nAnd then I used to listen to a lot of music, like from the time I was like, ten\nto fifteen, and that was the pop music. I used to listen -- there was a group\nfrom Baltimore called the Orioles with Sonny Til -- I used to have all those\nlittle 45s [phonographs].\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: By the Orioles.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Little 45s -- right. I had all of those. [The] Flamingos. And I\nreally got exposed to jazz at Morgan. When I first came to Morgan, I lived on\ncampus. And every Saturday, a jazz group would come in. Miles came in, Dizzy\ncame in, James Moody came in, and that was my first real exposure to jazz as a\nmusic of its own. I had heard some of it when I was young, but I never related\nto it the way I did once I got to college. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=0.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And that was my first serious\nlistening to it.\n\nNow I moved in the neighborhood where Ron lived, with my mother and stepfather\nin my sophomore year.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Now which neighborhood was this?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Southwest Baltimore. And this was in September of '53, I guess.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah.\n\nKEN CORPREW: That was my sophomore year.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: High school, I graduated that same year.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah, in September of '53. And then at that time it was hip to have\na jazz song or a jazz album that the other guys didn't know about that you would\nexpose them to. So everybody was doing that, so it meant that you always looking\nfor a record under your arm, the latest record experience. And we would listen\nreligiously and argue about this and how this guy did this and how he did that.\nAnd I guess that went on until about '53 --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: As if we knew much. [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah, until the early '60s. By that time, we were getting married.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Connoisseurs of music instead of wine. [Laughter]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: It lasts longer.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: My exposure, like I said, my exposure was quite early. And the\nRoyal Theatre used to have changes every Thursday. And in the summertime, we\nwould walk from our neighborhood to the Royal Theatre to see the bands play.\nThat was it. That was everything. And you talk about, Ken, with the Sparrows\n[phonetic] and the Orioles and the Ravens --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Five Keys.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Five Keys and the Flamingoes.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: The Clovers.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The Clovers. And we saw all of those at the Royal Theatre. And one\nof my claims to fame is that I worked on the Comedy Club music room when I was a\nkid. I helped build the Comedy Club music room for Mr. Old Man Ike Dixon\n[phonetic]. And this was before 1948. This was right after the war in '46 when\nhe started building the music room on the back of the Comedy Club. I had the\nbiggest blister on my ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=120.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"hands from trying to dig out a tree out of the cellar, but\nthe roots of the tree had gone down so far. That's the first time I realized\nthat the root of the tree doesn't stop just by spreading out. There's a root\nthat goes way down. I remember that.\n\nAnd I remember Club Astoria on Edmondson Avenue -- all those places. I didn't go\nto Club Astoria as often as I went to the Casino and the Comedy Club and Red\nFox. But Red Fox was in the '60s by the time when we started going there. Right?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: No. Late '50s. I was a lab tech when I heard about it.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: So late '50s, early '60s. Those are my experiences. You know,\ngoing to all those places and seeing the guys. And some of the fellows that you\nknew, but you didn't realize they were the same guys that were up on the stage\nwearing all these real bright colors, like the Jolly Jax, a Baltimore group that\nwent along with the Orioles.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Do you remember the names of the guys in the Jolly Jax?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No. Well, I knew his mother, the one who started the Jolly Jax. I\ncouldn't tell you her last time, or what his name was at the time. And I knew\nhis kids. They're still living. He was killed in an airplane. I think it was an\nairplane accident, or something like that, if I remember correctly. He was like\nJim Croce. I think he was trying to get his pilot license when he was killed.\n\nIn fact, the only person I ever knew really the name [of] was Til, with the\nOrioles, the old Orioles. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=240.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I knew Sallie Blair. Didn't think much about her, but\nI remember her in high school singing in the back of Douglass. She went to\nDouglass, and I went to Carver, that's my school.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Sallie.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Sallie. Yeah. And she'd sing every day at lunchtime. That girl\nloved to sing. And she thought she was the cat's meow. Is she dead? Somebody\nsaid she passed away. Is that true?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yes.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But she did, even in high school she thought she was the cat's meow.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, Baltimore was a country town in a way.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, it's a cliquish town.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. Cliquish, let's put it that way. But we weren't country, we\nwere uptown. [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It always used to amaze me. [unclear] I learned one thing in\njunior high school -- either you're part of the group, or you're not part of the\ngroup, and the best place is being away from either one. I was always upfront\nwith everybody. If I didn't like you, I didn't associate. If I did like you, we\ngot along well. And I've always been a person who shared with you.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, you know the expression: if you can't make it in Baltimore,\nyou can't make it anywhere.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It's true.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Baltimore's a unique place.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I was telling you about getting invited as a token. And this\nparticular place at Christmas we were invited again, and it snowed like cats and\ndogs. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=360.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I mean, the snow was like three foot off the ground. I'm not calling any\nnames because you know all these people that I'm going to tell you about and\nit's not important either. But where this person lived, a friend of theirs lived\non Old Court Road and had a snowplow, one of the big front-end things, and he\ngot in his snowplow and plowed from Reisterstown Road all the way up to these\npeople's houses, and up Old Court Road to Reisterstown Road, because they lived\non the other side. You're probably guessing who I'm talking about, but it\ndoesn't matter. We were never invited again because we didn't go. [Laughter]\n\nAnd it was always amazing. My wife would always drag me. We went to one party\n[unclear]. I'm not calling her name, because you know her too. In fact, the\nperson I'm talking about is in your group -- when I say your group, per se, they\nlike good vintage things. We were invited to their house, and she introduced her\nhusband to me, and I had never met him before, but I had spoken with him on the\ntelephone, and we had like a little bad thing going. So I said to my wife,\n\"That's the guy that owes me X amount of money that cursed me out on the\ntelephone.\" My wife says, \"Come on, we gotta go home.\" [Laughter] And we had to\ncome home because I'd go after them, see, right then. We had to go home and we\nwere never invited there because we left too early. That was related with Joe\nKern [phonetic].\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know Joe well?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, I used to deliver mail with Joe, years ago. I delivered mail\nfor his father --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know, we had the racetrack on the Preakness [unclear].\n\nKEN CORPREW: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=480.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Didn't you guys introduce me? The tall guy?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Yeah. Big family, very wealthy.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They used to live off Cold Spring Lane.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He was a nice guy.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: When you were building the music room at Ike Dixon's, did he\nstill have the band at the club?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No. Because you remember the Comedy Club was just a small building\nback there. And it wasn't a great big band they had back there. He also did --\nwas it Sparrow's Beach or Carr's Beach? One of those.\n\nKEN CORPREW: They did both of those.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No, I think it was just one of them. Was it both of them?\n\nKEN CORPREW: It was both of them.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But he had a band, a house band down there.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Because I remember we would go down there and dance on Friday\nnights, and they had the house band. We went down there. And before the group\ngot together, we would get in the cars and run down there, chase the girls. You\nknow how you do when you're young, and the girls would chase you. That's what it\nbasically was more than me chasing them. They were chasing us more than we were\nchasing them.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: There was a place, my husband and I went down a couple of\ntimes. We haven't been down there for a while. It's in Anne Arundel County.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Dobson's.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Dobson's.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Bill Dobson's.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They used to have a lot of groups down there. But he never had big\nband groups down there. Not that I remember. There was always a group down\nthere, local groups down at Bill Dobson's.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And a very friendly place.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, go upstairs on the second floor.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I was down there two years ago.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They still open?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, yes. He's still open.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=600.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I haven't been there for years.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: My uncle bought a new van, and he was going to the hospital. And\nat that time, I refused to buy a car. I refused to buy a car for five years.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You took the van?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No. Well, he bought this new van, and he came to the shop, and he\nsaid to me, [stuttering] \"Go out there and get some papers out of my car for\nme.\" And I'd go outside, and I'm looking all around for this old car, and I\ndon't see it. I come back, I say, \"Where did you park?\" He said, \"Well, right in\nfront of the shop.\" I go out there -- it's this brand-new van right there. He\nsaid, again, [stuttering] \"Now bring me the papers out of the car. Now go to\nyour uncle's and pick up five thousand dollars and take it out to --\" so and so.\nI go to my youngest uncle and I pick up the money from him.\n\nIn the meantime, my young uncle said to me, \"Is that a new car, son?\" I said,\n\"Yeah.\" He said, \"Wait, I'm getting dressed.\" So he gets dressed, and we go pick\nup one friend, then we go pick up another friend.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: It was your van?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It's a brand-new van. And we pick up about five guys, right? And\nthey drink all the time, and they drink heavy. So the first thing they do, they\nall try to outdo each other. And when I say outdo each other, I don't mean pay\nup before anybody. I mean, get the other person to pay. [Laughter] So they were\nsitting in the car, and I don't drink. I don't drink in the streets. Never had.\nBut the point is, [stuttering] my other uncle who owned the van had said to me\nthat day, \"Boy, I don't want to see you until you get everything taken care of.\"\n\nSo my uncle, the one we got the money from, we go to Glen Burnie. He bought the\ncar from Gladding [Rolls-Royce Inc.] at the time. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=720.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"We drive to Glen Burnie and we\npay the guy, and I'm stopped at five liquor stores. They had already drank about\nthree fifths of liquor in the car, and the van had everything in it. He had\ntelevision in it -- this was when they first start putting it in. So they're in\nthe back, looking, and I'm driving. So we get to Glen Burnie and after I take\ncare of the business, I come back out to the car. My uncle says to me, \"Now we\ngo to Bill Dobson's,\" because we weren't that far away. So we run to Bill Dobson's.\n\nThey spent all day long at Bill Dobson's. They were drinking like a fish. They\nnever get drunk. You would think that they would get drunk. But I imagine they\nmust have took in at least eight fifths of liquor. I don't remember what they\ndrank because I wasn't paying any attention.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know guys used to eat a half a stick of butter? Used to eat a\nhalf a stick of butter, go out to the bars and stay [unclear]. It was a big thing.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Keep your stomach lining. They would drink and he would drink. And\nwhen we come back to my uncle's with the van, he said, \"You got the keys?\" He\nsaid, \"Come back this evening at eleven o'clock. You come back at eleven\no'clock, pick me up and take me home. And tomorrow morning I got to go to\nVeteran's Hospital in Loch Raven.\" I said, \"Why you going over to Veteran's\nHospital?\" \"I got to stay over there for at least two weeks. I gotta lose weight\nbefore they operate.\" He had a heart problem. He had a bypass.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: But he was on a good binge before.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, he didn't drink. That's the one who owned the car. Well, he's\ndead now. He died last year. But he didn't drink a lot -- Roy didn't drink\nhardly ever. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=840.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He loved to gamble and fish. Buy these big boats, you know. But\nanyhow, he said, [stuttering] \"Now keep the car, but don't let nobody else have\nit till I tell you I want it back.\" Well, I kept the car a year and a half. I\nput the first 10,000, 11,000 miles on it.\n\nWell, he stayed in Veteran's Hospital like three weeks. And then from there,\nthey moved him to Washington, D.C. And every Saturday morning while he was at\nthe Veteran's Hospital, I had to go to Washington Boulevard and pick up all the\nfriends because they had to go to see Roy, my uncle. [unclear] And then when he\nwent to Washington, I had to take them over there every day. They operated on\nhim over there. And he didn't stay in there long. He told the doctor, \"I'm in\ngood shape now, I'm going home.\" And the doctor said, \"You're not ready to go\nhome.\" He says, \"I'm ready to go home. I'm going home tomorrow.\" And he went\nhome the next day. He got tired of the guys coming over every day. But I kept\nthe car over a year and a half.\n\nAnd I would call my aunt, after he got straight and I said, \"You seen him?\" And\nshe said, \"I ain't seen that old fool in three weeks.\" [Laughter] But he was a\nladies' man. He lived a long time after the operation, though, seven, eight years.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: They did a good job on him.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did. Not only did a good job on him. I have a\ncousin who's a retired professor at Kent University, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=960.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and he called up from\nCleveland all scared because he wanted to talk to me about the operation he was\ngoing to have. And the day he called me my uncle happened to be in the office.\nMy cousin called and said, \"They told me to talk to you about this operation.\"\nHe said, \"What operation? He said he had to have a bypass.\" I said, \"Oh, that's\nnothing.\" I said, \"Wait a minute, here.\" I gave my uncle the phone, and my uncle\nlistened to him, and after a while my uncle said, [stuttering] \"Tell your wife\nto put a leash on you.\" [Laughter]\n\nAnd my cousin laughed so loud that they could hear him all over my office. And\nwhen I got the phone back, he said \"That's the best thing you could have done.\"\nI said, \"You just called the right opportunity, at the right time.\" I said, \"He\nhad a quad pass like three years ago.\" He said, [stuttering] \"Have your wife put\na leash on you.\"\n\nBut that's the kind of relationship that you had in the neighborhood at the time\ntoo. It's funny because even to today -- well, he's dead and gone now -- but he\ntook over a bar that didn't allow Blacks in it when he was in the neighborhood,\nand it was owned by the same man.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: What was that?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The Jinx [phonetic] down in South Baltimore. And when he changed\nover, he found that his business was greater than it was when he refused to let\nthem in. And that was because of my uncle, too, because my uncle had retired and\nstarted working for him as manager of the bar, and growing up in South\nBaltimore, he knew everybody down there, and they respected him. You know, his\nrespect carried on from my grandfather down there, and the name means a lot down\nthere. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1080.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rooks means a lot to the old timers. Some of the youngsters still, but\nnot all of them. You know, the ones that know him.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They were legends. They were legends in their own time. Like\nRobert Ware [phonetic]. That was like West Baltimore. Red Devils.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And you had the East Baltimore where they had the truce. Man, I\nwas there. They had a truce with the Brimstone, the Red Devils.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But all of them respected Mr. Giles, my father-in-law.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, he wanted to be a lawyer. He was an insurance man.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: But when I got to be a lawyer, do you know man he worried me to\ndeath. Did you know that?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I know he did.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: \"Boy, you better quit.\" I said \"Yeah, I'm going. I'm going.\"\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's the way he was.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Oh, he was just so proud.\n\nKEN CORPREW: You know, East Baltimore in the '40s, one of the things that they\nused to talk about was a gang called the Brimstones. They were in the '40s.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And the Red Devils were in West Baltimore. The Red Devils were\nold. That's when Robert Ware and those guys were there, and then Brimstones took over.\n\nKEN CORPREW: And I lost contact with all of that for about thirty years. Right?\nAnd then when I started talking to Jack and some of his buddies about my\nexperience in there as a child, and I used to tell them about the Brimstones --\nthey knew all about it. [Laughs]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They knew all those guys. Almost all those guys went to jail. Most\nall did, they were that bad.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And you walk into somewhere, about four or five walk up, and they\nsay, \"We is the Brimstones.\" [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: They didn't bother me because I was like eight or nine. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1200.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I wasn't\nold enough to be bothered. But I was afraid of the Brimstones, and I didn't even\nknow who they were.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm telling my sister [unclear], \"You're supposed to say, 'We are\nthe Brimstones.\" \"You better shut up.\" [Laughter]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Well, when I came in earlier, you mentioned -- talk about\nlegends -- a gentleman that your father took up with when he came to Baltimore.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, Johnny Jones was a musician, and Johnny Jones took a liking\nto my dad. So when my dad was [unclear], he would call Johnny Jones or get word\nto him. A lot of people didn't have phones at the time. He called another guy up\nthere named Sleepy Sam [phonetic]. Old Sleepy Sam used to have a Pierce-Arrow\n[car]. He used to take my daddy around.\n\nSo the thing [unclear] went down because he was the only White guy in the\nneighborhood to walk with a passport. Nobody ever robbed him. Because they knew\nhe had money. And when the war started, Second World War, all the merchant\nmarines were put into the Navy. And when my daddy came home with that officer's\nblue with the gold stripes on his arm, and his cap with the gold braid, man, I\ntook him on the Avenue. \"This is my daddy.\" [Laughter]\n\nHe was an engineer and a merchant seaman officer. I was so proud I didn't know\nwhat to do. Oh, man, my heart pumped. And White people and Black people didn't\nhave much problems in those days. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1320.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember White people who had stores up on\nPennsylvania Avenue and the Blacks was just like one group. As they moved out,\nthe Blacks took over, but at one time there was real cohesion between White and\nBlack people. In business, especially, they used to get along.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No, I don't remember too much problems either. Even when we, like\nI said, had to go the eight or nine blocks through an all-White neighborhood to\ngo to school. And there were groups that were going to fight.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Had to fight a couple of times.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Had to fight a couple of times, but it got to the place where they\nno longer wanted to be bothered with us, because they knew they were going to\ncome out with the bad end of the stick. If you eventually came out with the bad\nend of the stick all the time, you weren't going to be bothered.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: And they weren't used to fighting. See, Black people have been\nfighting all our lives.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I think another factor that's important in that equation is that we\nknew our place, and we didn't really rock the boat.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Didn't want to. Didn't have to.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. Well, for whatever reason, and so that made for much more harmony.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: But then you ended up in Cambridge [Maryland].\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. [crosstalk]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: And you were rocking some boats.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. That was in the '60s, and this was ten, fifteen years later.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: So how was it in Cambridge? How did you end up down there?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Well, a buddy of mine's father owned a funeral home, and they had\nhad a demonstration in Cambridge, and Rap Brown spoke.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Everybody wanted to see Rap Brown. They wanted to see what he\nlooked like.\n\nKEN CORPREW: And I wasn't there at the time. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1440.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But what happened was a fire\nstarted and a building burned. So the police decided they were going to arrest\nRap Brown, and they couldn't find him. And the reason they weren't able to find\nhim is because they brought him out of there in a casket in the hearse. And so,\nthe next day a group of us from Baltimore decided to go down there in support of\nthe community. And so that's how I ended up in Cambridge the next day. And from\nthe moment we crossed the Bay Bridge, we were followed by state troopers all the\nway down in there. And we had a demonstration. I guess the principal force in\nthat neighborhood at the time was a lady by the name of Gloria Richardson\n[Dandridge], and we had a meeting at her house, and had a demonstration. So\nthat's how I met her.\n\nBut at the time I was a relatively young guy, so wherever the old timers told me\nto go, I went.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He wanted to be in the clique.\n\nKEN CORPREW: I was at Congress, and Lyndon Johnson was trying to pass the Civil\nRights Bill. And there was a guy from my state of Virginia, by the name of\nHoward W. Smith, I believe it was. He was Chairman of the Appropriations\nCommittee, and he was holding the bill hostage. And I was in the post office and\na member of the union, and they decided to send some of us young guys over there\nto the Congressional hearings. So I was there too. Wherever the older guys\nneeded troops, I was one of the troops.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I've never been an activist about anything. I'm a vocal person,\nbut I've never been an activist. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1560.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the reason I've never been an activist is\nbecause I used to watch, and it was always a self-beneficial thing to me that\nthey were doing. You know, more so than for me, because I always figure -- I'm\nnot a person who believes in affirmative action programs. Now, I know that we\nneed it, you know, it needs to be addressed, but to me the addressing of it\nshould be in a different context as far as I'm concerned.\n\nYou know, there's always going to be somebody that's going to offset it. You\nknow, like the guy in California says -- and this is a young Jewish fellow --\nwho said he resents the fact that I can go to school, and he can't go to school\nbecause of the quota. You know, my thing is that if they set the standards\nequal, you don't have to worry about it. Most of the time you're not going to\nget there in the first place.\n\nBecause I have a thing, too -- I know quite a few young Jewish lawyers. I've\nonly known one to pass the bar exam on the first try, and he doesn't practice\nlaw, even to today. All the rest of them barely made it. Some of them went to\nthe maximum times, three times, and if they're going the next time, they wasn't\ngoing to say it.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: But you got so many sharp Jewish [people].\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, yes, but that's because of the fact that they are encroached\ninto the society in that manner, in that situation. Now if by any chance the\nstandards were equal, there would be less White lawyers, jurors, I was going to\nsay, than there would be Black, if they were set on an equal basis.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1680.0,1800.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That's why I say I understand the need for affirmative action, but I don't think\nthat that's going to be the solution to our problems.\n\nIf you look at music -- in the sense that Benny Goodman was one of the first to\nbring about having Blacks in the band. This was way before anybody. He had guys,\nBlacks, playing in his group, in his band. And he was always that way even to\nthe end of his time. Ask Ethel [Ennis], and all of them. That was his thing\nbecause he was interested in one thing and one thing only.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Good musicians.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Good musicians. I'm the best at my business. I'll be the first one\nto tell you. And most of the people who know me will tell you the same thing.\nAnd not only am I the best at my business, but if things were on an equal basis,\nI would be called more than anyone else in the business. I'll give you a good\nexample of that is that a lawyer called me in town to do an appraisal of\npaintings by Joe Sheppard, and before he could tell me where the painting was --\nHe's a former artist, White guy. [crosstalk]\n\nJoe's a self-promoter. Joe was living here, I thought he was still here, back\nhere again. He might be. Well, you remember there was a group in town called the\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1800.0,1920.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Six Realist Painters? That was Joe. I want to name all of them. But anyhow, Joe\nwas one of that group, and Joe and I go way back, a long time. I don't mean as a\npersonal thing, but as a relationship towards art. I used to go, when I was a\nteenager, to Washington, D.C. to go to the Corcoran Gallery and the museums and\ngo to Philadelphia for the museums because Baltimore didn't allow you to go. You\nknow what I mean?\n\nAnd I would go [unclear] things like that. And he would go because of me too\nbecause that's what I liked to do. And Joe had a painting at Corcoran. They had\nan Ed Burroughs [phonetic] painting on one side -- and you know who he is, he's\none of the best in America. And it's called \"Requiem to a Fighter.\" And on the\nother side of the door, they had a picture of Joe's, which was also a boxing\npicture that he entitled \"Requiem to a Fighter.\" And they had them both on an\nequal basis.\n\nAs I grew older, I became a procurer for different people for different things,\nlike stamps, coins and sometimes art. And I got to meet Joe by going to his\nhouse and buying paintings from him for clients. And this lawyer called me on\nthe telephone not too long ago, since we've been here in fact. He called me on\nthe telephone. He asked me, would I appraise fine art?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Trade?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Appraise fine art. I said, \"Yeah, that's one of my fortes. I do\nvery well at it.\" And he said, \"Well, I've got some paintings that I need you to\nlook at ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=1920.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"painted by Joe Sheppard.\" And I said, \"Well, what kind of paintings?\"\nAnd he told me, and I said, \"I know exactly where they are.\" I even told him the\nbuildings that they were in. I knew where they all were.\n\nIn the course of the discussion on the phone, he finally discovered that I'm a\nBlack man. And he says to me, \"By the way --\" this is how he said it \"-- What's\nyour credentials?\" I said, \"Oh, you need credentials?\" He said, \"Yeah.\" I said,\n\"Well, who told you to call me?\" He said, \"The Baltimore Museum of Art curator.\"\nI said, \"You gave me three people. Who were the others?\"\n\n\"Well, the lady down at the Baltimore Historical Society, and Mr. So-and-so over\nin the Smithsonian.\" I said, \"All three of those people told you to call me.\nWhat kind of credentials else do you need?\" I said, \"Do me a favor.\" He said,\n\"What's that?\" This is the kind of person I am -- I say, \"Hang up this phone.\"\n[Laughter] He said, \"Why do I have to hang up the phone?\" I said, \"Because I'm\nnot going to do any work for you.\" [unclear]\n\nAnd that actually happened. And I said, \"You know, if you call anybody in town,\nI'm going to wind up doing it anyhow. Anybody in town of any substance. You\nmight call some gallery in town that they do their own appraising,\" I said, \"but\nthey don't know Joe's stuff like I know it.\"\n\nAnd that's everything. That's the way I am.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know, they're gonna come. They're gonna beat a path to your\ndoor. This guy's one of the most renowned around here as far as I know as far as\nart. I don't know of any other ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2040.0,2160.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Black person who can hold a candle to him. I know\na lot of White folks who have been in the business, but they revere him. In\nother words, he's got a reputation. If you come through this thing and you got a\nreputation, in other words, you've arrived.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. They always say I've never advertised anywhere for the\nbusiness. I do enough, and I could do more really. But I don't, because I get referred.\n\nA lawyer in Washington, D.C., called me one time to go to court as an expert\nwitness, and I explained to him that I don't believe there's any such thing. He\nsaid, \"What do you mean?\" I said, \"There are no experts in anything except a\nperson who has committed the act.\" In other words, the artist is an expert in\nhis work, but he's not an expert in anything else. And nobody else can be an\nexpert in his work. You know what I mean? It's the same thing.\n\nI said, \"But I can help you,\" and I said to him the same thing. I said, \"By the\nway, how did you get my name?\" And he said that the curator from the Smithsonian\ngave him my name. I said, \"All right,\" and that made me feel a little bit\nbetter. So I wound up doing it, and the funny part about it, it was against the\nMurphys [phonetic].\n\nAnd he -- Little Billy [phonetic] -- he come in at the deposition, but he wasn't\nsupposed to be there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Is that the one who died?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No, no, no, no. This was for the mother. And what happened is,\nthey had two paintings that they had given this photographer in Washington,\nD.C., to do something with, and he was moving at the time, and he told them he\nwas moving, saying \"Please bring them in afterwards,\" but they insisted on him\nkeeping them, and somehow they got lost. And they had them way up there,\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2160.0,2280.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"thinking it was worth a whole lot of money. And the funny part about it was we\ngot to the court, and I was the only one there without credentials. When I say\nthat, I didn't have no college credentials. All I had, was saying that I\nbelonged to this society, and that's part of what I did.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Your experience spoke for itself.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. And I gave my testimony, and the lawyer tried to knock it\ndown because I didn't have those credentials. But my testimony was so clear and\ninformative that he couldn't deny it. And the funny part about it, the judge on\nthe bench at the time, I sold him artwork. [Laughter]\n\nSo he says to the lawyer, \"I think you're walking up the wrong avenue.\" He\nbacked off. The funny part, after it was all over with, they took my testimony\nas opposed to the other people. And this other lawyer, the lawyer for the\nMurphys, had like three people there, expert people, and they all came to me and\ngot my card. I've done work for them since then, too. I haven't done any work\nfor the lawyer though. I've done work for the people at the gallery since then.\nBut it's been interesting. [crosstalk]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I don't know of any others around here with your reputation. It's\nhard and far between to get anybody that I know of, and I don't say this in a\nderogatory way to our race, but most of us don't have exposure to the art as\nmost of the other people like Italians. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2280.0,2400.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You know, everybody in Europe has a\npainting of somebody. But you see very few paintings at our houses. I got one\nnow. When you come to my house, I want you to see it. I don't remember who it\nwas. [unclear]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Do you think that's changing?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I think we're getting more exposure. Blacks are getting more\nexposure to what we call the \"fine arts.\" And a lot of times I don't know what\nthe fine arts are.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: It's the sophistication of it all.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That's what it is. As people start to want to be conversant in\nthe art thing. Blacks for the most part were not concerned. They'd go to the\nmovies but wouldn't go to an art museum. But more and more, as we become more\ncosmopolitan -- You see, when you're a ghetto, you do as they do in a sense. But\nwhen you start stretching out, then you start to get a larger picture of what's\ngoing on. And art is the thing that is international.\n\nBut most people lived in a ghetto, and they only lived in that section. So why\nwould they be concerned about art? Nobody had art. Every once in a while, one of\nthe young people would have a knack, and they would take it and move someplace\nelse -- New York, send them to Paris. But this guy [Rooks] did it on his own. I\ndon't know of any other Blacks right now in this town who has his knowledge of\nwhat things are worth, and people who are painters, people who do furniture. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2400.0,2520.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And\nhe's done it on his own. He never went to school to do it.\n\nKEN CORPREW: How I distinguish Ron is, and I've been knowing him almost fifty\nyears now -- a lot of people know the prices on things, but few people know the\nvalue. And Ron knows value. Even when we were young, he could see a bottle over\nthere under that tree and he knew it was worth six cents. [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And I'd fight over it. It's interesting.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: What drew you to it?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, like I say, I like doing it.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: How many do we have in Baltimore? One or two.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: What?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Other people who deal in art.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, it's a different thing. When I first started was nobody in\nthe whole country.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah. Because I don't know anybody else in the country I would put\nin your class, Ron.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, when I first started there was nobody in the whole country.\nBut, you know, I find that --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Probably a lot of artists, but not curators. [crosstalk]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, right. You know what was interesting about Blacks and art\nwas, and I'll give you two scenarios for it: One is Jacob Lawrence, and another\nis Romare Bearden. Romare Bearden became Black when it became fashionable. When\nhe could benefit from it. Jacob Lawrence was always Black. Because first of all,\nhe couldn't pass. Romare Bearden is the same complexion that you [Schaaf] are.\nYou couldn't tell the difference. You know what I mean? Jacob Lawrence was real\ndark skinned. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2520.0,2640.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Jacob Lawrence was given the opportunity to become one of\nAmerica's greatest artists. And when I say that, in 1936 Fortune magazine did a\nsix-page article on Jacob Lawrence and all his works up at the time in the\nHarlem Renaissance period. He couldn't take advantage of it. He did not know how\nto take advantage of it. He didn't have the -- how do you say it? Our problem is\nthat we're always afraid of being rejected, even though we know we're going to\nbe rejected. Because we always think we're going to be rejected, if you\nunderstood what I just said.\n\nAnd I think that was one of the things -- why he could not, or he did not manage\nto take advantage of that opportunity given him by Fortune magazine in the\nmid-'30s. Bearden took advantage of the situation when he was -- before he\nbecame -- when it was considered passé to be Black. Because nobody knew the\ndifference. But he was also there giving out stuff to Howard University and all that.\n\nThese guys didn't understand the history of Blacks and art. And they didn't\nbother to try to learn the history of Blacks and art. There was a fellow by the\nname of [Robert S.] Duncanson who was an artist in Canada before the turn of the\ntwentieth century, 1900, in the 1880s. And there's an interesting story. He was\nconsidered the greatest realist artist at that time. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2640.0,2760.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"He painted outdoor scenes.\nAnd it was just like looking at the scene. He was one of the first. And they\ndecided to give him an award, the Queen Victoria Award, at the time. And they\nhad him come to England.\n\nYeah, this is a great story. I'm full of these stories. And you can find them in\nthe Afro-American archives. But you know when he got there, they discovered that\nhe was Black, a Negro, of Negro descent. They refused to give him the Victorian\nAward at the time. That was their mentality.\n\nKEN CORPREW: They didn't do their homework.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. That was England, which was the most racist.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: France was the only place we had a haven in Europe.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Haven. That's where we could go, you know, we could be accepted\nand that was France.\n\nKEN CORPREW: You could go to Russia, too.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, Russia at that time. But that was only because of politics.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Nineteenth-century Russia. This is before Communism.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: No. You couldn't go to nineteenth century Russia. Russia was not\naccepting us. You might find one person who went to Russia.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: We had Russians came over here that got accepted.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: We couldn't go to Russia.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: France was the place we could go to.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Fance was an interesting place. I'll tell you two very interesting\nstories about France. The greatest swordsman ever known was a fellow by the name\nof Saint George. That was his name, Saint George. That's where you see Saint\nGeorge and the Lion, the English thing. That's what they were talking about.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2760.0,2880.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The English wasn't proud of them.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right. Yeah, but he was a Frenchman. And he was, I have a picture\nof him, and he was mulatto. His father was Ethiopian, and his mother was French.\nAlexander Dumas is one of the greatest stories.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He was White.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. A Frenchman. But Alexander Dumas is another one of the great\nstories. Alexander Dumas was given what they call a roast, and that goes way\nback, in the early nineteenth century. The Ambassador to France at the time was\nsupposed to sit next to him, and refused, and the Ambassador from America, the\nsame, and refused to sit next to him at the roast.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He did The Three Musketeers?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Right.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: One of the greatest stories.\n\nKEN CORPREW: What about [Alexander] Pushkin?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, Pushkin's an interesting subject. Pushkin is, first of all,\nnot of African descent. Pushkin is of colored descent but not of African descent.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Who was his father? Who was his mother?\n\nKEN CORPREW: I don't know.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, I'm telling you he wasn't. He was of what you call nomadic\ndescent, which was Black at the time.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Nomadic descent?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: In Southern Asia, he was of that Genghis -- What's his name?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Genghis Khan. [crosstalk]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I know the records don't say it, but all you do is ask those two\nquestions: Who was his father, and who was his mother?\n\nKEN CORPREW: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=2880.0,3000.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492/transcript/39224/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But you haven't told me --\n\n[END PART 3]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117492#t=3000.0,3120.0"}]}]},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 4 of 4 - pims0091_Rooks-2_02.mp3"]},"duration":1578.03102,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/content/4/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-peabody.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/117/493/original/pims0091_Rooks-2_02.mp3?1624270975","type":"Audio","format":"audio/mpeg","duration":1578.03102,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Rooks_4_OHMS_20220804 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RONALD ROOKS: When I think of Russians, I think Mongolian --\n\nKEN CORPREW: No, that's the Soviet Union. That's not Russia.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Czar Russia was what you call the northern Asian [unclear]. What's\nthe Ukraine?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Part of the Soviet Union. But that's Eastern Europe.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But what was before that? Well, you know, in Poland they have\nBlack Poles.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah, they do have Black Poles. But the question becomes, how did\nthey get there? Some of them came with [unclear] --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Some of them lived there for five hundred years.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Yeah, some of them lived there much longer than that, because they\ncame out of Greece, Montenegro -- [crosstalk] or out of Africa.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, you know, Finland also was, at some point, hooked up with Russia.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That was after the war.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Completely White. No Asiatic at all -- but then Russia picked up\nthe whole thing, and they amalgamated it. That's what happened -- amalgamation.\nYou've heard of Black Russians and you've heard of White Russians. [crosstalk]\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=0.0,120.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"There's an interesting letter in the Eubie Blake collection\nfrom one of his friends in Paris urging him to come over because of the\nopportunities there for Black musicians.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, France was the only country, not the only, but it was the\nfirst country to embrace Blacks. That's why I'm so proud my first name is\nJacques. [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: So did Blake go?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: He didn't go. He stayed here, close to his family.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know, the migration of Blacks to France -- that's the place\nwhere they had open arms.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, but that was in 1920, that transitional period.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Avant-garde.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, avant-garde, and whatever they called the music, because\nthey were just getting into American -- the acceptance of jazz. I find that\ninteresting. After spending two years in Germany, the acceptance in France was\nno greater than any place I was at.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I think so. French Morocco. France has been involved in Africa a\nlong time, much more than Germany and the other countries.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Well, England was there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: England and France are the two.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But the French, and they were involved in the period of\ncolonization and did not leave the type of --\n\nKEN CORPREW: Legacy.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: They were basically the interlopers, like we are in certain\ncountries. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=120.0,240.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"You know, we went there, and we took advantage of situations, and\nthey made a big legend.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They call the French people in the army, the French --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The Foreign Legion. That's an interesting story -- the reason why\nthe French Foreign Legion got the accolades and the names that they had was\nbecause it was, like they said, a foreign legion. It was not only French, it was\nGerman --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: There were a lot of castaways. There were ex-convicts.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: There was everybody, everybody.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They were running from the law and all that sort of thing.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: And they were happy to send them there because of the simple fact\nthat they were getting rid of them. [crosstalk]\n\nKEN CORPREW: But all that was the scramble for Africa.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: They were putting flags every place they would go.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Germany was a part of that -- Europe [carving] up Africa.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I'm going to change the subject, because I've got a question\nthat I'd like for you all to respond to. What about the music scene in Baltimore\ntoday? Where do you think it's heading and where would you like to see it go?\n\nKEN CORPREW: I've been able to look at it over the last -- I started in 1952 --\nthat would be a little better than fifty years, right? September '52 I came to\nMorgan, so I've been looking at almost fifty years. And you're talking jazz,\nright, as opposed to all Black music?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=240.0,360.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I didn't put a bracket around it.\n\nKEN CORPREW: That's why I asked the question. Well, okay, but I'll deal with\njazz. Jazz looks like, to me, it has expanded. There are many more venues that\nyou can go and hear it. Even churches are now giving concerts. Musicians have\nmany more places to play. Now, I'm not up with all the top young musicians in\nBaltimore, but I do have at least one friend who is a listener and one friend\nwho is a performer, a singer. [unclear] He was playing out at the Baltimore\nMuseum of Art last Saturday, and he also came out with a CD, and he's a\nBaltimore fellow. And it looks like to me it is constantly expanding. I would\nlike to see it expand more, and I would like to see the concept that my friend\nKen Dorham wanted so badly -- for it to be played in much larger venues, more\nconcerts than bar rooms or that kind of thing.\n\nBut I think in the popular vein, hip hop has the day, but I know nothing about\nhip hop.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Who is the musician who just had the CD coming out?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Timmy Shepherd. Yeah, that's my buddy.\n\n[INTERRUPTION] ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=360.0,480.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: What is your view of the music scene today and what would you\nlike to see?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, you know, I have been very closely involved with the music\nscene because one of my ex-wives [Ethel Ennis] was pretty well renowned,\ncertainly in Baltimore. She's getting older. She can still sing, and a lot of\ntimes you don't get that break to be holding a long time. I traveled with her\neverywhere. We went to Europe. Back here she was in New York. Actually, crazy\nenough, she never had a real advisor. Red Fox [George Fox] was the guy who\nbecame her manager because I didn't have time to run up and down the road. I was\nthen a practicing lawyer. Anybody who wanted to be a judge, you know you had to\nbe around. And so, I didn't want her to travel. I did travel for a long time,\nand I said I can't do it anymore. And she got very upset.\n\nAnd finally, when she was up there singing at the Red Fox -- you ever heard of\nthe Red Fox Lounge? Well, that's where we met Red Fox and his wife [Reba Fox]\nand she [Ethel] started singing there. And she wanted to really stop going on\nthe road so she could be home. So this was her home base, between gigs. She\nwould turn down gigs so she could stay home with her husband and her family and\nfriends. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=480.0,600.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ethel could have been even a much more renowned personality and singer\nif she hadn't been so local in her desires to stay in Baltimore. And I was very\nfrustrated because I thought that she was at that time as good as any other\nfemale vocalist in the country. [crosstalk]\n\nAnd she was not giving up that thing. She was just homebound. She liked to be\nwith her mama and her friends and her husband. I said, \"Hell, I'll go with you.\"\nI went with her for a while until I got to the point where I realized she wasn't\n[unclear]. I was disappointed for her. I think she could have gotten far more\nexposure if she had stayed on the road. Benny Goodman really gave her a boost.\nShe sang with Benny Goodman for quite a while. He took her to Europe.\n\nKEN CORPREW: 1958.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: 1958. He [Goodman] and Ethel used to have a game that they would\ndo in rehearsal. They would toy with the other musicians. Her ear and Billie\n[Holiday's] ear -- I would hit something and they'd say, \"Who's that?\" People\nwould say it's so and so. They'd say, \"Who hit that bad note?\" He said, \"There.\"\nHe said, \"You're damn right!\" [Laughs] And they had a real thing going. Benny\nGoodman loved Ethel Ennis. He thought she was one of the greatest female vocalists.\n\nBut she was a home girl. She really wanted to be more home than she was away.\nAnd of course, when you're off the scene, people forget you.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Touring's a hard life.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: She had three records, three recordings which did fairly well.\n\nKEN CORPREW: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=600.0,720.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\"Hey, Jacques, have you seen Louis?\" [quoting lyrics to song Ennis\nsang, \"Hey Jacques\"] [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I never thought about that.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I'd be in there, and she'd say, \"Hey, Jacques,\" and all the\npeople would look at me. Every time she'd say that I'd get all puffed up. It was\na fun time. We had a good time. We really did. [unclear]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: What's her brother [Andrew Ennis] doing?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He's still playing. But he's drinking too heavy. You know, the\nmusic scene now is not like it was.\n\n [INTERRUPTION]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Jack, you were saying she could have been better, which she could\nhave been, but she was the best out there. You know, I'm a vocalist person. I\nlove vocalists.\n\nMy first and deepest love is for Ella [Fitzgerald], and after that is Barbra\nStreisand. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=720.0,840.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"After that, we talk about Caterina Valente, and then Ethel comes in\nfourth in there. Then after that Sarah Vaughan, you know, and Dinah Washington.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Where does Chris Connor come in? You used to be crazy about Chris Connor.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm still crazy about Chris Connor. [Laughter]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: But I get into that vocal scene. You would have loved to have\nbeen with Benny and Ethel. They used to have a thing. He'd say, \"Hey --\" like to\nthe horn guy. And one time Ethel said, \"It wasn't him. It was me.\" Guy said,\n\"She's right.\" [Laughter] I was there, man. It blew my mind. I thought it was a\ngrandest thing. Oh, she could hear. She had an ear, man. And Benny, he had to\nlaugh. He was really a tough guy.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm a vocalist person. I love female voices. Still to this day. I\nlove female vocalists. In fact, my daughter buys me a gift, she buys me either a\nrecord by Barbra Streisand or a book by [unclear], you know, the writer. Because\nshe knows I love them -- those are my things. When it came down to Ethel, I've\nalways maintained Ethel was one of the greatest.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Oh, she is.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Ethel is one of the greatest. I'm putting it like that because\nshe's still here. And she carried a note, to me, like Ella. [crosstalk]\n\nYou know who I also loved listening to is Ethel Waters. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=840.0,960.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But, you know, I'm\ntalking about the people that I was really associated with growing up. You know\nwhat I mean? Those are the people like you say, Chris Connor and June Christy, I\nwould listen to them all night long too.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: There are two other female singers in Baltimore. One's dead,\none's still with us. Ruby Glover, you know her. What about Shirley Fields?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, Ruby was really more or less self-made. She taught herself\nhow to sing.\n\nKEN CORPREW: And didn't have a great voice, but she could hit a tune.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Shirley Fields could sing. There were a lot of great singers in\nBaltimore City.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Baltimore was noted for a lot of singers. How about Tiny Tim?\nLittle guy, he weighs about ninety pounds. And he could -- [imitates deep\nsinging voice]. [Laughter] I get shivers. I could almost pick him up in one hand.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. Tiny Tim, he could sing.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: He could sing. He can still. Doesn't have the same like it was\ntwenty, fifteen years ago.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=960.0,1080.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"What about the fellow that used to go to the Casino, and he would\nnever be working, but he would always get up and interject and sing.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Did he go to Douglass [High School]?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't know what school he went to.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Who?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I'm trying to think of his name.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I think I know who you're talking about. What's that boy's name?\nHe was a track man. He used to run track and field.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But he would always get up and sing.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Gee. I can't think of his name now.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Somebody will remember.\n\nKEN CORPREW: But if you get the chance to hear Timmy Shepherd -- Timmy can sing.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I used to work on the door at the Casino. I was doorman. I\nweighed about a hundred and twenty-five or thirty pounds. And every club you\nfound guys that would come in there and they'd say, \"Where is the bouncer?\" I\nsaid, \"That's him behind the bar.\" [Laughter] It was me. But the guy behind the\nbar was Newton. Newton's were like, heavy, guys who were heavy set, and Newton\nwas head bartender. I was supposed to be assistant manager. [Laughter] And they\ncome in. Guy says, \"Where's the manager?\" I said, \"Right behind the bar.\" [Laughter]\n\nKEN CORPREW: Was the guy you were talking about Judd Washington? [phonetic]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: That's his name. But the Club Casino was a fun place. And all the\npeople came. The Comedy Club with the boys -- the fellows. They ran a nice club,\nbut the Casino was the place. And Comedy Club, I always thought it was the\nsecond place because --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: When they built the music room back there, ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=1080.0,1200.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"it became the place to\ngo for a long time.\n\nKEN CORPREW: What about the one that turned into a furniture store? Yeah, all\nthe way up the top Pennsylvania Avenue.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Oh, that was Tijuana.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Tijuana. Yeah, Club Tijuana.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: The numbers man had the Tijuana.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Was that Mr. [William Lloyd] Adams?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: No, not Adams. There was another. Adams was the older guy. He was\nlike the patriarch.\n\nKEN CORPREW: You know where Beneficial Insurance was on Franklin Street?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah.\n\nKEN CORPREW: That was a Black insurance company. What was the guy's name who\nowned that?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't know his name.\n\nKEN CORPREW: You know who I'm talking about?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah. I remember, but I don't know his name.\n\nKEN CORPREW: He owned it.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: But I thought he was from North Carolina.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I don't know where he was from. The fellows over in the Comedy\nClub --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: The Dixons.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I want to show you some photographs. Some of these, I think\nprobably might be before your time, but a couple of them you might recognize.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Anything before 1980 --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: [Laughter] He's old as a hill. Count me out of that -- He's got\nhis gray hair more than ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=1200.0,1320.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"[unclear] --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I've had gray hair since I was thirty.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: It's just something that grows in your genes. What do you do, you know.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: My grandfather had pretty white hair. Watch that you don't sit on\nthat tape.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: You don't want to do that. Now, some of these I do know.\n[Showing pictures] Church Anderson and his wife.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't know them [unclear].\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Oh, yeah. I've seen this guy but I never was personable with him.\nI remember him. I do remember her. Yeah, but I never talked to them, or\nanything. I remember, though.\n\n [unclear]\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Nobody that I ever knew personally.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I've seen this group. I was just trying to remember -- I thought\nthey were gospel singers. Piccadilly Pipers, they called them, and Bonnie Davis.\nHow about that?\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Who was this, Tommy --?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: What was his last name?\n\nKEN CORPREW: Is this Chick Webb?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: No, it's not. He made his own drums. He was a Baltimore\ndrummer. And that's all I know about him.\n\nKEN CORPREW: Here's another picture of him -- he looks like a little guy.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Yeah, he is a small guy. [unclear]\n\nKEN CORPREW: When would you say this is, Ron? What is this, the early '40s?\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's early '40s.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yeah, they would be.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: That's late '40s, early '50s. ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=1320.0,1440.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember that name [crosstalk]. I\ndon't know him. He don't look --\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Let me see, Ken. [Looks at picture] Got me.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I've never seen this guy at all.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I think that's Church Anderson.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: You think that's Church Anderson, right there?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I think that's Church Anderson.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Looks young.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He looks different, yeah. But this is the interesting one, I\nthought -- right there.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: I haven't seen this one. [unclear]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I don't think these two guys are musicians. This guy used to hang\non Dolphin Street. That looks like somebody I knew that hung on Dolphin Street.\nAnd I don't think they were musicians. I didn't know him at all, but I know the\nname Church Anderson. I've never seen those pictures before. Now, who did those\npictures, you remember?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Church Anderson's brother, who used to be a photographer at\nthe the Royal.\n\nRONALD ROOKS: I know who you're talking about -- he used to do portrait\nphotography. He used to run around and take your picture like they do at the\nresorts, and say, \"If you want it back, you give them the card.\" But I don't\nknow these two guys. I've seen them, but I didn't know that that's who it was.\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yeah, well, Church Anderson's brother is apparently still up\nin New York, but I haven't been able to track him down. And I've asked for him --\n\nRONALD ROOKS: He's still living?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Still living.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: You know Ethel's husband, Earl [Arnett]?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: Yeah.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, he can give you --\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: I should stop by. I'm supposed to see him this summer.\n\nJACQUES LEEDS: Well, tell him we met and we all had a swell time with you ","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=1440.0,1560.0"},{"id":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493/transcript/39225/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"and,\nyou know, Ethel and Earl, when you mention Jack, they'll say, \"You got us the\npassport.\" [Laughter]\n\nRONALD ROOKS: Do you know where he is in New York?\n\nELIZABETH SCHAAF: He was living in the --\n\n[END OF INTERVIEW]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://streaming.peabody.jhu.edu/collections/1178/collection_resources/44168/file/117493#t=1560.0,1680.0"}]}]}]}