South Bend's Own Words IU South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center

A Mississippi native who moved to South Bend in 1944 speaks about Black businesses on the west side. 

 

Elmer Joseph came to South Bend from a resort community in Mississippi. His family was financially well off, yet still deeply impacted by Jim Crow segregation. He attended an all-Black school—and experienced a huge culture shock when he moved to South Bend to attend Central High. 

 

Elmer remembers some of the many west side Black businesses around Linden Avenue.* He even opened up a business of his own, running a tavern on Chapin and Western. 

 

In 2003, Civil Rights Heritage Center historian David Healey sat down with Mr. Joseph. They talked about his experiences growing up on the west side, and what life was like for a Black business owner here in the mid-twentieth century. 

 

* Quick note: During the recording, the host says Linden Street instead of Avenue. He must have had the last episode with Odie Mae Streets on the brain and got his wires crossed.



This episode was produced by Jon Watson from the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at IU South Bend, and by George Garner from the Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

 

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/. 

A 1931 graduate of South Bend’s Central High School talks about her experiences growing up in a resort town of Kentucky, and the discrimination she experienced as a white-passing African American woman both in the south and in South Bend. 

 

Odie Mae Johnson Streets was born in Chicago before moving with her family to Dawson Springs, Kentucky. In the 1920s, she moved to South Bend both so her father could find work at Studebaker and so she could go to school beyond the sixth grade—a common end point in formal education provided to most Black students in Dawson Springs. 

 

In 1996, Odie Mae sat down with her niece to record her life’s story. She spoke about growing up in Kentucky and Indiana, challenging racial discrimination at Central High School by joining the swim team, seeing South Bend’s Birdsell Street evolve into a multi-racial neighborhood, and how her four children lived their own lives in South Bend and beyond. 

 

This episode was produced by Nathalie Villalobos and by George Garner from the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

 

 

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/. 

Gail Brodie lived her entire life in her beloved west side community. She even has an honorary street named after her. 

 

Her mother, Annette Brodie, was a long-time community activist during the late 1960s. Annette pushed city leaders to provide basic services, like paving their dusty, dirt streets. Gail took on her mother’s community work and became as trusted, and as vital a resource. 

 

As a generational homeowner, Gail had a privilege and a perspective of the west side of South Bend, Indiana different than some of her neighbors. 

 

In 2007, Doctors Les Lamon and Monica Tetzlaff, along with student Derek Webb, sat down with Gail. They talked about her upbringing in the shadows of her mother’s community leadership, her unique perspectives on the community’s evolution, and how she answered her own call to community service. 

 

 

This episode was produced by Nathalie Villalobos by George Garner from the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

 

 

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/. 

Andre Buchanan grew up in South Bend’s east side African American community in a house that, today, is threatened by the rampant construction of the Eddy Street shopping areas right by the Trader Joe’s. During the mid-1940s, when he was in the fourth grade, Andre was one of the first students of color to attend Saint Joseph Catholic grade school. Despite living and going to school on the east side of town, his family worshipped on the west side at the multi-racial Saint Augustine’s Church. Andre’s father even helped build Saint Augustine’s. 



In 2007, Indiana University South Bend student Imani Ingram and professor Les Lamon sat down with Andre. They talked about his different treatments between predominately white and Black South Bend schools, his experiences with discrimination at the Natatorium, and his perspective as part of the east side African American community. 

 

This episode was produced by Jon Watson from the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at IU South Bend, and by George Garner from the Civil Rights Heritage Center. 



Full transcript of this episode available here.

 

 

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/. 

Over the past two years, doctors Jamie Wagman and Julia Dauer from Saint Mary’s College collected local stories of those impacted by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. 

 

Last year, they gave a public presentation with clips from some of the narrators who graciously shared their stories. They did it again this past September at the Saint Joseph County Public Library with new narrators sharing a different set of stories. 

We shared the first presentation as a special on this feed last year, and we’re doing so again now. 

The full versions of these oral histories are preserved and accessible through the Civil Rights Heritage Center’s archives, and today we share the most recent public presentation. 

 

This episode was produced by Jamie Wagman and Julia Dauer from Saint Mary’s College, and Nathalie Villalobos and George Garner from the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

 



Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/. 

Ruperto Guedea lived the majority of his life in the United States straddling multiple cultures. Born into a small mining community in northern Mexico during the late 1930s, his mother and father brought their family across the border just after World War II. His first school was openly hostile towards Spanish speakers yet did not teach him English. After moving to Chicago, he fit right in with the Polish and other European immigrant families who also knew no English. He met and married a woman whose Mennonite faith traditions were significantly different than his. Together, they got involved with the new influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants that transformed the Elkhart and Goshen area into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural community. For Ruperto, it meant reflecting on his personal transformation between his Mexican, American, and Mennonite cultural identities. 

 

In 2007, Indiana University South Bend’s Cynthia Murphy sat down with Ruperto. They talked about his parents, his youth in Mexico, and his incredible journey over six decades in the United States.

 

This episode was produced by Nathalie Villalobos and George Garner from the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

 

 

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/.