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Linda Grace Morris: Baltimore Boomer Tales from the Hood
Baltimore was the place to be in the 1950s and 1960s, bustling with all the industry and social change about to come. For African Americans, it was a jobs magnet with all the major manufacturers. Those living in Turner Station and Sparrows Point, the company town built to host the Bethlehem Steel Company, had the highest per capita income for African Americans in the nation. Cherry Hill, the only planned community built for African Americans by the Federal Government, lifted many Baltimore Boomers into the middle class. This podcast walks down memory lane through the neighborhoods and good times--despite segregation--that those growing up there can never forget.
Linda Grace Morris: Baltimore Boomer Tales from the Hood
The Doctor is In! -- Dr. Jerry Luck, Jr.'s, Family, J. Carter Luck and Kathy Kyper Luck
Dr. Jerry Luck, Sr., was another iconic member of the Cherry Hill community. Rain or shine, night or day, he was there for us and only charged $ 3 per visit into the late 1960s. According to his daughter-in-law, Kathy Kyper Luck, Dr. and Mrs. Gertrude Luck lived in public housing when they first moved to Cherry Hill in 1945 because the houses on Swale Avenue were not completed yet. Since the first houses in the project to be completed were on Spelman Road, that is likely where they first lived. Dr. Luck practiced there using the living room as his waiting room, seeing patients in the kitchen, and using a bedroom upstairs as his examination room. Now that's dedication!
He then purchased two adjacent houses on Swale Avenue for his practice and residence. The waiting room and office were downstairs in one of the houses, with the downstairs in the other house being the family's living room and kitchen, and the upstairs being the bedrooms. He combined two small bedrooms into one for his sons Jerry, Jr., and Larry. Dr. Luck could not get a mortgage because banks would not lend to black homeowners, so he had to pay cash for the houses--probably about $3,500 to $5,000 each. Listen as Kathy and Carter share their memories of Jerry, Jr., a renowned cardiologist. Dr. Luck's granddaughter, Megan, is married and lives in Pittsburgh. For more information about Dr. Luck, read my book, Cherry Hill: Raising Successful Black Children in Jim Crow Baltimore.
Sometimes I get information that I deem significant after I end the interview. In this case, I should add that while Jerry and I went to the same high school, Edmondson High School, I never met him. He graduated in June 1964, a year ahead of me. Kathy told me how when Jerry went off to the University of Pennsylvania that September, he and three other black students, were not allowed to eat with their white classmates. They had to eat by themselves in a separate room jerry-rigged as a dining room. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964.
Make every moment count! E-mail me at Lindagracemorris@gmail.com and tell me in 25 words or less why I should interview you.
