[Johnson?s father, who had a fourth-grade education, worked all his life at a creosote plant operating on the banks of the creek. He took the little bit of money he made to feed his family and buy a piece of land.] By the time he retired, ... his lungs were completely eroded, eaten up. He just made 70. |
Class and race play a big part in it and it's bad communication on the part of the bureaucracy also. |
How can those people rest in peace with an apartment building over them? What is wrong with this city? Somebody?s got to stop these fools. |
I decided I had to do something about it, ... It took from 1999 to 2003 to get that eyesore removed. |
I had time on my hands. |
I had to explain what wetlands are, ... We call them swamps. But wetlands are natural sponges, and we need them to absorb water, to filter pollutants. |
My parents were good, Christian, hardworking people, ... They taught me that if you are right, you stand up for what you believe. They did that, as far as they could. The opportunity has come open for me to take it a little bit further. |
One hundred percent of that goes right back out. We're all volunteers. |
She would stand sometimes hours to get her correct change back. We would stay there and wait. |
Someone kept me from drowning, when I fell into the water. |
The more often I came home, the more trees were gone. It was like my childhood was being eviscerated. There was another OfficeMax or Wal-Mart. ?This is not my home,? I said. I felt in my heart the loss of Turkey Creek. But I think a more dangerous issue is the displacement of our culture. |
They should be able to stand on their own after that. |
We will try to help someone who's trying to help themselves. |
When I was a girl, all we knew was this neighborhood, ... The beaches were ?whites only.? So Turkey Creek is where we went to fish, pick blackberries, recreate. Oftentimes you could see old people walking down to Turkey Creek with their cane poles in their hands. Churches had no pools inside for baptisms then?we all walked down to the creek and waited until the crowd got there. |
When Mrs. Skinner saw this, she just cried and cried, ... Her baby is over there under that apartment. |