Category Archives: Historical Source

This oral history is available as a PDF file. LEEANN LANDS: Would you would introduce yourself and tell me your … Read more »

I remember Four Corners Park back before it was anything, when it was just a bare red clay lot with a couple of basketball court. And I remember being 14 and wanting to play basketball with the neighborhood kids and being a little bit intimidated. You’ve probably heard that Four Corners got its name from one of our staffers back then by the name of Dennis Goldstein (who’s now with Legal Aid). Four Corners became his nickname because it was a popular dance which he thought he could do, but he absolutely could not. [Laughs.] Read more »

Maybe about five years ago everybody used to could go in the community center get on the computers, play pinball, play basketball, everything, but now it’s like there’s only a certain amount of people allowed in there. If you’re not in school, you only can come use the computer if you’re enrolled in their after school program. You can’t go inside the center unless you work there. Read more »

Oh, I love Peoplestown. I love seeing the ladybugs that I don’t see anymore, and the butterflies, and the streets, and all the kids out in the streets playing—just jumping rope, hopscotch, mother may I, Simon says—and the girls dancing, you know. Read more »

I was very much a jack-of-all-trades. The Poverty Rights Office was just getting under way with Muriel Lokey at that time. But a lot of the kind of work that they did, we did on a walk-in basis: somebody’s electricity was cut off, somebody needed to apply for welfare or get Social Security benefits, somebody was having a housing issue, all sorts of things like that, and we’d just go out and do. Read more »