{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/5x25b00p2s/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Turner, Larry (Int. #1)"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/548/original/OHA_Mark_2.0_Transp._copy.png?1752767076","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Narrator(s)"]},"value":{"en":["Larry Turner (Full Name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Refer to as"]},"value":{"en":["Larry"]}},{"label":{"en":["Narrator Pronouns"]},"value":{"en":["he/him"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interview Summary"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eIn the rumble of memory, Larry Turner paints a portrait of his upbringing, a tapestry woven by the hands of his Black mother, Beauty Turner. Larry’s story unfolds in the shadows of the Robert Taylor public housing project, where hardship and resilience has connected this community. Through the lens of memory, Larry highlights how Beauty’s resilience and nurturing spirit shaped his identity and values. Her influence instilled in him a deep appreciation for family and community bonds, illustrating how tribulation can forge connections and strength within a neighborhood. He describes how Beauty navigated the challenges of their environment by instilling a “pathway of resistance” in her children and those she encountered. This pathway was not merely about overcoming obstacles but was deeply rooted in principles of love, unity, and respect. \u003c/p\u003e (summary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Public Housing Affiliation"]},"value":{"en":["Former Resident"]}},{"label":{"en":["Public Housing Locations"]},"value":{"en":["Robert Taylor Homes"]}},{"label":{"en":["Content Warnings"]},"value":{"en":["Substance (drugs or alcohol) use and/or addiction and/or trade","Physical Violence","Death","Hospitals","Gangs","Known Perpetrators"]}},{"label":{"en":["Themes/Topics"]},"value":{"en":["Community Activism/Organizing","Architecture/Design","Family","Personal Responsibility","Identity","Freedom","Creative Practices/Outlets","Mental Health","Poverty","Memory"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keywords"]},"value":{"en":["writing","GHETTO Bus Tours","reclaiming language","believing in yourself","surviving violence and gangs","twin sister","prison","“the people”","Tupac","prison pipeline","freedom fighter","end of life in hospital","\"Voice of the Voiceless\""]}},{"label":{"en":["Decades Covered"]},"value":{"en":["1980s","1990s","2000s"]}},{"label":{"en":["Life Dates"]},"value":{"en":["1975 (Birth)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Race/Ethnicity"]},"value":{"en":["Black, African American, and/or African Diasporic"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interview materials available"]},"value":{"en":["Audio—.wav","Index (in Aviary time-sync)","Transcript—in Aviary time-sync","Transcript—polished PDF","Finding aid—rough PDF","Curated in podcast"]}},{"label":{"en":["Oral Historians"]},"value":{"en":["Troy Gaston (Interviewer)","Liú Chen (Interviewer)","Troy Gaston (Post-Production by)","Sharon Lanza (Post-Production by)","Liú Chen (Post-Production by)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interview Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-07-08 (Recorded)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Method of Interview"]},"value":{"en":["in-person"]}},{"label":{"en":["Recording Location(s)"]},"value":{"en":["625 N. Kingsbury St. Chicago, IL (Both)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Audio Quality Notes"]},"value":{"en":["slight echo-ish quality (recorded in a large converted warehouse space)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Additional Notes"]},"value":{"en":["Oral Historian key takeaways: In the vivid recollection of his past, Larry Turner describes his upbringing as a tapestry intricately crafted by his Black mother, Beauty Turner.  Larry’s story unfolds in the shadows of the Robert Taylor public housing project, where tribulation has connected this community. Through the lens of memory, Larry highlights how Beauty’s resilience and nurturing spirit shaped his identity and values. Her influence instilled in him a deep appreciation for family and community bonds, illustrating how tribulation can forge connections and strength within a neighborhood. Turner also reflects on the profound impact his mother had on the communities around them, particularly in the context of growing up in Robert Taylor Public Housing. He describes how Beauty navigated the challenges of their environment by instilling a “pathway of resistance” in her children and those she encountered. This pathway was not merely about overcoming obstacles but was deeply rooted in principles of love, unity, and respect. Turner emphasizes that these values were essential for fostering resilience and collaboration among individuals facing adversity. Through her teachings, Beauty created a framework that encouraged her family and community members to support one another while striving for better lives despite the difficulties they faced in public housing.  Turner’s reflections paint a powerful picture of a woman who not only faced external challenges but also drew upon an internal reservoir of strength derived from familial bonds and community support. His narrative serves as a testament to how love can empower individuals to confront hardships with bravery.  Larry Turner’s insights into his mother’s character reveal that bravery is often cultivated through love, responsibility, and the unwavering support of those around us. His recollections serve as an inspiring reminder of how individuals can rise above their circumstances when motivated by deep familial connections.  —written by Troy Gaston, interviewer and post-production contributor 2024"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eEach oral history interview is considered to be co-created, ‘joint work’ among the oral historian, narrator, and, in this case, the National Public Housing Museum.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eNPHM manages the components of copyright (reproduction, distribution, adaption, performance, and display) using Creative Commons Licenses. Most interviews are shared with Attribution and Non-Commercial 4.0 International licenses (CC BY-NC 4.0 Deed), meaning that they can be reproduced, distributed, performed, and displayed for the general public IF the user:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eCredits the co-creators (Attribution), and\u003cbr\u003eDoes not make money from the usage (Non-Commercial). \u003cbr\u003eNarrators also have the option to apply a No-Derivatives License to their interview(s), meaning that the public is forbidden from adapting the work. These works are published under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003ePlease contact the NPHM Oral History Programs Manager if you are interested in downloading a copy of any of the interview materials (audio file, transcript, or finding aid contents).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eNote that the final decision about whether to share downloadable copies and whether to allow usage remains with the narrator. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eWhen using an interview from the NPHM Oral History Archive, use the narrator's full name the first time you reference them. Use the narrator's \"Refer to As\" name in additional mentions of their name. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003ePlease use the following formatting when citing the interview in academic settings:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eBibliography Example\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003ePegues, Janetta Sue. Interviewed by Francesco De Salvatore. National Public Housing Museum Oral History Archive, [insert URL], recorded June 18, 2018, accessed June 2, 2024: pp. 10-15.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eBibliography Format\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e[NarratorFullName in Last, First Middle order]. Interviewed by [InterviewerFullName in First Middle Last Order]. National Public Housing Museum Oral History Archive, [insert URL], recorded [write out full date of interview], accessed [write out full date of most recent access]: pp. [pages of transcript cited]. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eFootnote Example\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eJanetta Sue Pegues, interviewed by Francesco De Salvatore, National Public Housing Museum Oral History Archive, [insert URL], recorded June 18, 2018, accessed June 2, 2024: pp. 10-15. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eFootnote Format\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e[NarratorFullName in First Middle Last Order], interviewed by [InterviewerFullName in First Middle Last Order] National Public Housing Museum Oral History Archive, [insert URL], recorded [write out full date of interview], accessed [write out full date of most recent access]: pp. [pages of transcript cited]. \u003c/p\u003e"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eIn the rumble of memory, Larry Turner paints a portrait of his upbringing, a tapestry woven by the hands of his Black mother, Beauty Turner. Larry\u0026rsquo;s story unfolds in the shadows of the Robert Taylor public housing project, where hardship and resilience has connected this community. Through the lens of memory, Larry highlights how Beauty\u0026rsquo;s resilience and nurturing spirit shaped his identity and values. Her influence instilled in him a deep appreciation for family and community bonds, illustrating how tribulation can forge connections and strength within a neighborhood. He describes how Beauty navigated the challenges of their environment by instilling a \u0026ldquo;pathway of resistance\u0026rdquo; in her children and those she encountered. This pathway was not merely about overcoming obstacles but was deeply rooted in principles of love, unity, and respect.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eEach oral history interview is considered to be co-created, \u0026lsquo;joint work\u0026rsquo; among the oral historian, narrator, and, in this case, the National Public Housing Museum.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eNPHM manages the components of copyright (reproduction, distribution, adaption, performance, and display) using Creative Commons Licenses. Most interviews are shared with Attribution and Non-Commercial 4.0 International licenses (CC BY-NC 4.0 Deed), meaning that they can be reproduced, distributed, performed, and displayed for the general public IF the user:\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eCredits the co-creators (Attribution), and\u003cbr /\u003eDoes not make money from the usage (Non-Commercial).\u0026nbsp;\u003cbr /\u003eNarrators also have the option to apply a No-Derivatives License to their interview(s), meaning that the public is forbidden from adapting the work. These works are published under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003ePlease contact the NPHM Oral History Programs Manager if you are interested in downloading a copy of any of the interview materials (audio file, transcript, or finding aid contents).\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eNote that the final decision about whether to share downloadable copies and whether to allow usage remains with the narrator.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["National Public Housing Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["National Public Housing Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/548/original/OHA_Mark_2.0_Transp._copy.png?1752767076","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/260/068/small/POHA_Biographical_Photos_%285%29.png?1736465553","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Turner__Larry_Interview__1_Audio_Clean_2022.07.08_(1).wav"]},"duration":4297.819,"width":640,"height":40,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/260/068/small/POHA_Biographical_Photos_%285%29.png?1736465553","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-nphm.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/260/068/original/Turner__Larry_Interview__1_Audio_Clean_2022.07.08_%281%29.wav?1736464860","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":4297.819,"width":640,"height":40},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Turner, Larry_Int #1 Transcript  [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú Chen:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, hello everyone. Today is—we’re in July already, right? July 8, 2022. My name is Liú Chen. I also have—Troy, you want to introduce yourself?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=0.0,15.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTroy Gaston:\u003c/strong\u003e Troy Gaston, from the Robert Taylor Housing Projects.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=15.0,17.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And Larry?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=17.0,19.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLarry Turner:\u003c/strong\u003e And I’m Larry Turner, Robert Taylor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=19.0,22.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Great. Great. So today, Troy and I are interviewing Mr. Turner about his mother, Beauty Turner. And just before we kind of dive into that part of the interview, can you just tell us the year of your birth? And when did you live in public housing, what years?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=22.0,43.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I came to public housing and that had to be in 1989. My year of birth is 1975. So I been with my mom for a nice little time before she passed away. So I experienced, in Robert Taylor, if I pretty much have to take a glimpse in the life to remind me of what happened. My mom started out, she was just an individual who really wanted to try to make a difference. But she wasn’t quite sure of her confidence level at a certain point, when she started. She was like, into writing poetry, she would write beautiful words, and she wrote words of encouragement, try to be there for people and she would pretty often write the stuff, like do a little list of what she wanted to write, and she would ball it up. I will go over to it and I would be nosy, as most kids often are, pick it up and see what she had going on, on her paperwork, just reading and I read these beautiful words, and she didn’t feel as if they was worthy for the public yet. I would secretly take her paperwork that she had and send it out to the newspaper, and they actually would love her work. So she pretty much started getting people inquiring and calling and she would think it was a joke, and they really wanted to hear from her. So when she would take her paperwork and go from there, and they started calling her and talking to her, she saw a need for people to be able to fight for their rights and have a voice. Cuz she used to call herself “the voice of the voiceless.” I used to think it was like profound, cuz I’m like, ‘How can somebody who don’t speak for themselves have a voice?’ She say, ‘That’s where I step in. I speak for those who want to speak and say the things that they wish they could say.’ So she was actually a beautiful person in that way. So if I really think about what all she did for the people, she gave them an opportunity to stand up for themselves, give them a difference even though your address might be 60653 at that time, or 60609, for the people who actually was in Robert Taylor, who knew the little district in the area. She would make them stand up for themselves, no matter what your zip code was, say you have a difference, you’re fightin’, your home is your home, no matter how run-down, it will probably look outside, your inside was always a different environment from your outside, because you had family.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=43.0,181.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you for sharing that. I want to start with just like, what are some early memories that you have of being raised by your mom?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=181.0,190.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e My early memories of my mother, by her being a Black lady, was ‘Discipline.’ She played no games. She will make you do what was necessary, even if you didn’t understand her purpose of doing it. She taught you how to utilize your mind to its fullest capabilities. She taught me that my mind was a sponge, it could absorb whatever you put in front of it. And she taught me just basically ‘Believe in yourself.’ No matter what your income level was, she taught you to stand up and really go for what you believe in, and believe that God will make a way. So from that point, she also taught me, ‘There’s a time for everything.’ It’s a time to play, it’s a time to be serious, it’s a time to understand where you’re coming from. And it’s a time to be attentive and pay attention to your environments. Cuz anybody who really came from Robert Taylor or anywhere of that district know at any given time, violence could show its ugly head. It could be shootings, it could be fightings, it could be misunderstanding, it could be disputes. Even sometime when you got the most important stuff that you call your own, somebody could take that from you. They could break in your home through walls, they could do all kind of stuff to set you back. But no matter what the setback was that we encountered, she showed us that we can overcome it. Don’t go by your circumstances, go by what you believe that you could be. She pushed education. Cuz she knew where we was at, education was a precious thing. Most people didn’t necessarily graduate because they was probably dead before 21. Or they was either in situations that they didn’t want to be a part of, or they was a part of the dope game. Cuz our building had a serious infatuation with dope. Drugs, heroin, you name it. These was the conditions in which Black men pretty much stood around and tried to make money, because at that point, nobody was getting jobs. Everybody in the building was pretty much limited in their income. As far as Section 8, public housing, or you was either limited to food stamps, your daily check, or either child support, if you knew who your baby daddy was to be able to pay. It was circumstances that you wouldn’t be familiar with, that you encountered, that was just rough. So you really had to find a way to escape the pain, whether it was through writing, through drawing, through findin’ activities on the outside, through finding sports, or just anything to pretty much keep your mind occupied. Cuz every day, people compare Robert Taylor—if you really want to, the people who don’t really seem to know or understand it, some of them can actually compare it to prison. Because a lot of the times you wasn’t able to go outside and be free and encounter the people and really be able to enjoy your circumstances. You was in the house, because at a certain point, you knew that they were gonna be shootin’, you knew it was gonna be some kind of fightin’, you knew there’s gonna be some kind of misunderstanding. So a lot of people—as far as my mom, she would engage people when she need to, but she would stay to herself in the house and she would speak family morals. She would want us to be together and be closer. Or she would be with her twin sister down the way, 5201, for the people who pretty much knew my mom, she would be over there with them, spending time with them, laughing and joking. But there was always a time that she was focused on her mission, giving a voice to the people who felt that they had no worth or voice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=190.0,390.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e But, I can also give you earlier childhood memories. I remember a time that my brother, he was just starting out in the Mamba League, and he was doing football. We had not a dime to our name. I went outside, I got a little micro-job hustling, caddying for people, carrying they clubs. I bought him the shoes that he needed to be able to be in the sport. And guess what? My brother became a champion because he won the Mamba that year to actually win for Washington Park! There was plenty of beautiful activities that took place that people wouldn’t be aware of. All they saw was the outside. A crumbling building, people standing on top of each other, piled up, trying to fight to survive and live. Nobody ever took the time to take the glimpse on the inside to see the heart of the people and what they were going through. Cuz if I came home every day, I wanted to take a shower but I was forced to take a bath—you got to endure. When you pretty much didn’t have the things that you need as far as food, simple necessities of life to be able to survive, it was hard. You had to go to food pantries, you borrow from your neighbors, the little stuff that they had, and you pray that you was able to just make it to the next day. I can think of so many childhood memories before I ever encountered a job or any kind of money, looking at an empty refrigerator, closing the door, praying that there’s gonna be food in there when you open it. But we all knew our reality, when there’s no food in the refrigerator, if you don’t make a means to make it happen, it’s not going to be there. This magical food I used to pray would be there, it never showed up. But I would often leave and go outside, go to school, get food from there, or I would go to neighbors and get food from them. Or my mom would find a way to make things happen. How often she made it happen, I don’t know. I think sometime in miraculous ways, maybe she was a miracle worker. Cuz sometimes she made things happen out of the blue when it wasn’t available. My mom’s life, towards the tail end probably got glamorous, but in the beginning, when we first started out like any other Black family, it was a struggle to be able to make a way. I remember a Christmas that she had gave us when we was young, where $5 food stamps actually made a difference. She gave us a $5 food stamp, wrapped us some raisins inside of a newspaper bag, and gave it to us because she wanted us to at least have some form of humanity or some form of Christmas. Cuz she didn’t get her money and things wasn’t happening the way she wanted, but she still showed you no matter how hard your situation is, there’s still some love, you still have support, and your family will be there. There was never a day in my life that I would think that I would be without my moms. I thought that she was immortal, that she would be there forever, moving along, making the distance and actually doing and making a way for us. But whoever knows what’s the calling of God. Her moment was to be able to fight for those who pretty much believed that they had a place to stay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=390.0,569.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e My mom’s mission, I read sometime later in some of her paperwork, cuz I still have a lot of it. She wrote the reason that she initially started this was to never be homeless, to never feel homelessness around her. Cuz she saw the results of what homelessness did to people. It broke them down. It made them feel like they was less than human beings and strugglin’ to get a better way. Cuz I think the only way to truly understand something is for you to briefly go through it and see what these people encountering. She did that. Often I didn’t understand the mission, but I actually see towards the tail end, after she done been gone for almost 15 years, of what her mission really was. To actually bring people together, give them unity, make them have some dignity, humanity, and self perspective and fight for things that matter to them. Cuz the smallest of things matter to people. And we don’t even realize it. It could be something as simple as like when we first came in, Troy was talking about his education. It could be something as simple as fighting for a class that you believe is going to make a difference in your future line of employment. It could be something as different as ‘Hey, I want to be able to show them what I can do,’ fighting for your beliefs. It can be something as simple as, Hey, I believe that I make a difference.’ Everything that we start with, I know this, even from the training that my mom taught me up to now—cuz they say you train somebody right, they never walk away from what you trained them to do. But you never know what the mission is that this person training you to do. Sometime a person just training you to survive, cuz they go based off of their instincts or how they know how to survive. Cuz think about it. Even with our 60609 zip code that we lived in, you could go maybe 15-20 minutes up the street, you downtown. They’re living the life and they’re loving it, or you can go to the lakefront, they filling up they boats, they putting thousands of dollars in there for just fuel. I used to scratch my head and wonder, how can an individual put $1,000 worth of fuel in they boat, when there’s people barely eating? Whole buildings of people struggling to be able to make it. People strung out, falling over, trying to make a difference and trying to figure out where they at. I used to look at people who pretty much used to be strung out on drugs and different things, people who give up. But maybe I was mistaken. A lot of them probably are some of the strongest individuals who just gave up at that moment, they had a temporary moment of weakness. Cuz if you talk to anybody who ever been on any kind of drug who reform, they some of the most religious, some of the most fighting, some of the most carefree, some of the most individuals who done had experiences that we will probably never have. Cuz we ain’t brave enough to step out of our comfort zone to do something different. Even though they see things that ain’t initially there, maybe they imagined, or maybe they fantasize about something different. But I often look at it now that I’m older, maybe these people are just escaping their pain. Cuz they had so much of it that was coming at them at once. You strugglin’ to pay rent, you strugglin’ to pay lights, you’re strugglin’ to put food on the table, you strugglin’ to send your kids to school, you fighting for the things that you believe in. You fightin’ for the things that matter to you, you’re trying to see to it you make it out of the building to get to where you need to go without getting robbed or attacked or beat up. Cuz Lord knows, when you stay in Robert Taylors, every kind of street gang you can name. Cuz right next to each other, I think they did intentionally used to have GDs [Gangster Disciples] in one building BDs [Black Disciples] in another building, and they be fighting for no reason. Some of them be cousins and friends. But guess what? Bullies never thought about the casualties they was gonna create, all they did was kill. So it was just a different way of looking at things. So I even look at the way that we interact with each other, the way we handle things, the way that our celebrities, we hold them to a higher standard. But when we gonna start holding ourselves to the same standards that we hold these celebrities to? We look at them as if they makin’ a difference, we believe in they wealth and things of this nature. When you gonna believe in your talent and your abilities? Cuz believe it or not, they was once struggling artists or AKA bums, trying to make a way out here beggin’ for what they needed to be able to do something different. Cuz they had a vision, a dream, or something just wouldn’t leave them. A deep-seated desire or root to be able to do what they need to do. Cuz guess what? I learned, as I come up, education is a wonderful thing, but experience and love and passion and talent and raw energy and ambition is what gets you where you need to be. Cuz some of the most educated people is some of the dumbest individuals to interact with people, cuz all they see is the book. I see the written instructions but if I can’t execute, it’s a useless book. It’s like saying if I can’t understand the paragraph in front of me or the things that I’m writing, how is it gonna make a difference in my life if I can’t execute it and make a difference in my life? It’s like they say, knowledge is power. Power is power, but the knowledge to know when to use and how to use it is the key comprehension. Any other questions?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=569.0,862.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e I guess, I think I got one question for you. Hearing you talk about the necessary need for bravery that you saw in your mother. Where you think she got it from?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=862.0,878.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Believe it or not, I think my mom got her energy from a place of pain. My mom dealt with a lot. You had three kids, low income, fighting to get up, to be able to do the things you need to do. I didn’t know my mom was sick. So that’s probably another thing for her to fall on cuz she probably had the Tupac mentality: time is limited, let’s get this out here where we need to be. But I think her strength came from a place of pain. Got tired of struggling to get food, tired of trying to reach out and figure out. Cuz let’s say you got three kids: one might be okay, the other one might be having they issues, and then the other one might be getting recruited by street gangs. So now you tryin’ to figure out how do I save my family from this hardship of what’s goin’ on. So I think a lot of her strength came from just being a Black woman, dealing with the things that she dealt with on a regular basis, in pain. I think pain is the greatest motivator of anybody to do anything in their life, to move forward. Cuz when you’re hurtin’, you just want the pain to stop, you want somebody to care. You want somebody to reach out, you want somebody to hold your hand.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=878.0,945.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e And then, I’m even gon’ be honest, even with my lady next to me—Denise White, for all of who might be listening. She told me that some of the greatest things you could do is love and hold the individual and let them know you care, cuz you know not what they’re going through. My mother told me the same thing one time when I told her, I’m like, ‘Mom, I love you.’ I saw her break down in tears, cryin’. I never knew why she was cryin’. I say, ‘Mom, why are you cryin’?’ She say, ‘Listen, out of all the years that I done had you as my son, you never told me in words you love me.’ I often told her, I thought action was the way of showing the person you love them. She say words make a difference as well. Cuz you know that it touches a person’s soul. Words impact people in a way that you never knew that it could be done. But you never know that you hurtin’, reachin’ or touchin’ the person, because you don’t know how they’re gonna receive the words that you give them. Cuz some of the most loving words are some of the most harshest words, but still truthful. I would rather somebody be truthful with me, tell me what’s goin’ on in my life, and let me know when I’m takin’ shorts. Or if I’m comin’ directly, or I’m comin’ too harsh, and I need to calm down. Cuz the way that you pretty much know, the greatest of leaders have to be a follower too. You got to follow the mindset of your people, you got to follow the spirit and know where they comin’ from, to actually know where your people goin’. But you also got to have a mission, you got to see yourself finishing and completing the mission before it actually starts. If you can’t see yourself completing the task, and actually reaching it and figuring out. It never said you have to have everything to be able to make this plan come together, but you got to at least see a beginning and an end. I started, I walked towards it, it was some stuff that happened in the middle that probably threw us for a loop, but somehow I finished. Cuz they say the walk of a thousand miles start from one step. I’m stepping towards my dreams because it started with somebody actually who cared about me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=945.0,1062.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e I think to rephrase your question, I think the way that she got her strength, she had a supportive family and people actually loved and cared about her. To be knowing that something’s different. Cuz think about it. She also had a moral compass. I can tell you somethin’ right but if you know it’s wrong, you’re not going to follow what I told you if you feel deep in your heart you wasn’t raised this way, this ain’t right. You’re gonna go with your belief. It might cause conflict down the line, but you’re gonna know that you followed the desires of your heart. At least nobody can fault you for followin’ your heart. It’s just like, even with the turn, a U-turn, we take that, for example. If I’m going in one direction, and I’m not happy with the direction I’m going, I could always bust a U and go a different direction to find the destination that I really want. And the reason I know that, when I was in traffic, y’all traffic down here in downtown is so twisted and so spent, I had to go on the expressway just to go straight. After I spun around and was on the block. I was on Ontario going towards Kingsbury, I had to actually get on the expressway towards 290, get off again, spin around, to come here. But I was determined for some reason to come here to show the legacy of people who actually made a difference. Cuz in my mind you asked me about Beauty Turner but it wasn’t necessarily about Beauty. It was about any family in America that’s struggling to try to make a way. It was about any young Black who wanted to fight for their way. But guess what? I ain’t only fighting for just the Afro Americans, I’m fighting for anybody who pretty much believe that they got a dream and a desire to make a difference. Cuz guess what, Martin Luther King worked with all races. Even your man Malcolm X, who fought and believed that an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, eventually started fighting for everybody. Cuz he saw a need for this thing called love. Cuz everybody fightin’ and strugglin’ and battlin’ and wantin’ to find where they fit in, they purpose, they life, they desire—it’s all a seed of love. Cuz if nobody ever cared about you, nobody ever told you anything, nobody ever reached out and said, ‘I love you, I see somethin’ in you, somethin’ special, keep going, keep fighting, keep going.’ People would have gave up a long time ago. You know how many people out here who actually had a dream who gave up on it because nobody believed in them or nobody reached out? That’s like even with R. Kelly, even with all of the conditions that he goin’ through and all of the things that he went wrong with, he still had the desire to sing his heart out, to give somebody hope for somethin’ more. His personal demons that he was dealin’ with, that was his own issues, but he still reached out to somebody despite what he was going through to make a difference. I feel that in everybody I encounter, cuz I always try to help. Sometime I get burnt helpin’ people, but it never stopped me from reaching out and still tryin’. Cuz apparently, I might have been they blessing to be able for them to get to the next level, even though they might not always admit it, to know that you need somebody else. I think we as Afro Americans—even with my mom, she taught me sometime, we too proud to ask for help. We too proud to seek something greater than ourselves, we pretty much believe it’s gonna come together. But if I got four neighbors, and we all got food, and we cut it into little pieces, at the end of the day that tell me that we all gonna eat. Despite who put what in the pot, you’re still gonna to eat.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1062.0,1261.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e I got a follow up question.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1261.0,1262.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, go ahead.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1262.0,1263.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Hey I’m here. I got two hours on parking. [laughter]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1263.0,1266.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e You uniquely, like most scholars that’s doing issues on mass incarceration, you link the conditions of living in public housing with prison. Why?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1266.0,1286.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e The reason I did that, because when you first come to public housing, anybody who knew the public housing, you don’t know nobody. So even like when you go to jail, you don’t know nobody. You’re fightin’ for your existence, you’re fightin’ for your means to be able to make a difference and show them that you’re someone important. You’re tryin’ to have your peace of mind, you’re tryin’ to go ahead and then all of that, anybody who done deal with any kind of poverty, know that it’s a form of prison, because you can’t do what you want to do. Freedom means everything. That’s why people fight so hard for money. That’s why the different things that you come across make a difference costs money. And it’s like, my lady told me, everything in this world costs money. That’s why I pretty much connected to, as far as prison and housing cuz believe it or not, if you did something wrong within the public housing, they introduce you to a cop, to a prison, or lockup. Cuz guess what, the way that the buildings are designed, if anybody ever been to 60609, police station ain’t nothin’ but a block and a half away, especially if you lived in 5201 which my Auntie did. Police Station is the next block over, why is that? Cuz think about it. How many of them actually have mental health counseling? How many of them had the YMCA that was freely available for you to do anything? How many of them actually had a real neighborhood structure that actually made a difference? Cuz if anybody ever think about 60609, it was buildings on top of buildings. It was people pretty much livin’ in housing, you had some abandoned housing that might be right next to you. You really had to watch your back. So guess what? Anything in life, neighborhoods, housing, even if you pretty much look at a situation like jail, you still gotta protect and fight for what you believe in and what’s yours. You’re still tryin’ to make a difference of what’s yours. That’s why I connect the two, cuz in some ways you actually did feel like a prisoner. Cuz guess what, if you wasn’t a part of a street gang, you didn’t get along with these people, you was often fightin’ because they would trying to recruit you to their gang. Cuz if they looked at you: new resources, new money, new opportunities, you young, you can do the crimes that I pretty much want you to do, because you will get less time. So anybody who’s ever been in any kind of strugglin’ situation, or fightin’ situations know, that your neighborhood has a way of introducing itself without giving its name. That’s why I linked it to the prison, cuz when I first came to 60609, Robert Taylor, any part of it, Stateway Gardens where we originally started out. Cabrini Green on the West Side [sic] before then. We moved and migrated from place to place because you was only as good as your income. If you couldn’t afford the rent for that month, or that year, guess what your new address was the year following? Whatever she can afford at that time. So that’s why I link the two, because any black male who going through anything—you don’t even have to be a black male, can be a black woman, black male, black children, anybody of the nature who pretty much struggling, going through somethin’, you know, that it’s something coming your way. Cuz I just told you: the means of making revenue in some of these buildings was the drug trade. A lot of them was selling drugs, marijuana, weed, fightin’, going through different things in the neighborhood. So guess what? All of that leads you to what place I originally said: prison. Cuz there was nobody who survived that. Most of the people who had any kind of drug trade, what are they now: strung out or dead. There’s no retirement in drug trade. My mom told me that when she was alive: there is no form of happiness, selling drugs. Fightin’ for what you believe in has its place, but when other people turn against you, that’s when you get to see the competition or how strong you really are.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1286.0,1508.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e And the reason I say competition, everybody on this planet is fighting to survive and live greater lives than they got right now. Some of us just don’t realize that we are part of a greater plan. But it all start with you caring about something, or fighting for what you believe in. Guess what they do in prison? Fight for they understanding, fight for they manhood, fight for their respect, fight for the dignity that they call they own, or just to be able to come out for your family. So if we really look at it, the greatest struggle or the greatest fight that we ever encountered, is keeping our families intact and actually caring about something greater than ourselves, stepping up and believing that we make a difference for our family. So guess what, anybody I done ever came across, anybody you done ever put to the test, they say, ‘Don’t make me choose between you and my family, you’re gonna lose.’ That’s anything. That’s why you’ve been in relationship. You can be married for, we’ll say 30 years. If your wife and your family came together, you’re going to pretty much cling to your wife, whether she wanted to be with her family, guess which family you’re going to be hanging with for Thanksgiving? It’s not going to be yours. Cuz she want it. At the end of the day, your family and peace and happiness in your home makes a real difference. That’s why I pretty much said what I said earlier, of comparing it to prison. Cuz guess what, everybody has some form of a mental prison and don’t even realize it. You’re fighting for your sanity, you’re fighting for your health, you’re fighting for your dignity, you’re fighting to know what’s even going on with you mentally. That’s why we need some of these mental institutions to be online, I see so much in the hardship of our neighborhoods, and what we go through and what we encounter on a daily basis. It’s hurtful. It’s too many blacks, or too many strong individuals who can actually step up and make a difference in these communities. But guess what, we so afraid that we’re not going to blend in, we’re going to stand out, we’re going to do something different, that we’re not even willing to even try to fight. Look at our neighborhoods, when they’re killing our kids. They’re killing our families. A lot of them people who are getting murdered ain’t no miraculous race or somebody who’s different, or somebody who ain’t showing up, it’s us killing us! It’s the same thing that was going on in the projects, I can pretty much tell you that this person took $5, $10 from you, if I get you in the raids, guess who door you’re going to kick in: the person I just lied to you and told you took from you. How can I take something from you if it never belonged to you in the beginning? We all trying to live, we all in the same development, we all in the same place. Ain’t none of us had our names on it! All we had was a running order to say that this space until we couldn’t afford to pay for the space anymore. But a lot of us took on the mentality: this my block, this what I represent, this my home, this that. It’s good to take ownership. But make sure you take ownership of something that really truly do belong to you. Guess what I learned belong to you over the course of the years? Your heart, your mind, your spirit, your belief, your integrity. That’s all that truly belong to you, cuz when you die, the body lays in the coffin. You can’t take any money with you. And then anything that you pretty much went for, all you had was your memory. Cuz to me, the only thing that really lasts at the end of the day is your memory. How do they remember you? Did you make a difference? Did you feed somebody? Did you tell somebody you care? Did you reach out to somebody other than yourself? Did you do anything to make a difference? How you think the Egyptians last for as long as they did? They’ve been dead for 1000s of years. They artifacts and they memories and they ways of life and they hieroglyphics and the things that they believe in, they laws, they principles is the thing that last, because guess what? It started with they moral compass and they want to be remembered forever. Their spirit. Cuz think about it. Anybody who died, you mentioned your name, what do you automatically kindle? Memories. I remember that person. They were with me, they did this for me. I hung out with them. They was good people. We always say positive and beautiful things about the deceased. You never hear nobody saying nothin’ bad. But any individual on the face of the planet got something that motivated them to do it, why they did it, and then how they executed it. We don’t always agree with the method of how they executed, but yet somehow they still do it, and get to the principle or the purpose. Cuz think about it. That’s like if I believe in something you didn’t believe in, why would I have to spend 28 years in prison like Nelson Mandela because I disagree with you? What happened to my freedom of speech, my constitutional amendment, the First Amendment, to be able to speak my mind and my heart? But then you also have the people on the flip side of the coin, ‘Some stuff you just shouldn’t say, don’t say it.’ If it came to my heart, my mind and God gave me this thought, why wasn’t it meant to be said? You might not always agree with what I say but you should respect what I say. Cuz I’m gonna do the same for you. That’s the thing that we have, this ‘agree to disagree.’ Maybe if we executed it this morning, our neighborhoods and our communities, ‘agree to disagree,’ maybe some of our kids will live. Maybe someone else will survive more. Maybe somebody’s incomes grow, maybe some of the hatred would disappear, and maybe some of the envy would disappear. And we can actually be strong individuals, whether we pretty much fight for this side or that side, at the end of the day, make it about love and family and spirit.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1508.0,1816.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you for sharing all that. I want to ask you a little bit more about your mom’s GHETTO Bus Tours. So I wonder, do you remember anything about when or how those got started?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1816.0,1833.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, well my mom, when she first started her GHETTO Bus Tours, she started an experiment. She wanted to see would people actually pay to see what the experience of the residents would go through. Cuz at the beginning, she didn’t necessarily put it out to scholars, she just wanted to see, would people be willing and interested in the life experience of people going through these developments? So she rented a bus, bus costs more than she made, as far as the tour. But she still did it. She put it together, put all these people on the bus, originally charged them $10, took them around to the different people, talked to a lot of her friends and networked a lot of things to really give you an experience, but something slightly different from what the news is showing. Cuz the news was depicting it of a negative place, hardship, barely coming together. She wants to show you that if you actually reached out to the people and actually saw where their heart’s at, that they would care and give you something different. So it started out, believe it or not, as an experiment, just to see, are people interested in what we do? But I guess that’s like anybody else, any celebrity or anybody who created a difference. Do you want my brand? Do you want what I bring to the table? Or do you want my value? Same thing she did. Brand yourself. Remember her thing was GHETTO P. Her bus tour, she put it together because she felt like it was a need for it. And that all went back to: not wanting to be homeless, not showing the experience of what people went through, and actually tried to show you a different understanding of the people of this development. That’s why she started it. She wanted to see, would it make money? She wanted to see, would people care? And then not only that, at the time, there’s another tour going around, it was like a ‘gangsta’ tour. I think she probably slightly mimicked a little of her idea from there as well. Because hell, they was making money.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1833.0,1945.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e [speaking close to the mic] You got any memories—I’m sorry. [sound quality back to normal] You have any memories of any memories of your mom thoughts about community?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1945.0,1953.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, I have many thoughts of my mom about the community. Cuz even at some of the hardest points of her life, she still reached out to people and she still felt like unity was the way. And the reason that I pretty much say that, she would talk to people that I used to look crazy at her to talk to. She would take some of the people within some of the most worstest situations, then actually give them stuff out of our home when we had limited stuff, and our background. So to answer your question, and I want to be 100% precise, she loved the hell out the community that she was in. Ain’t no way for me to be politically correct with it, she loved the hell out of them people. She actually believed that they was the future, she believed that they made a difference. And then they also embraced her when she was at her worst. When she didn’t have money, they would give her $10. When she didn’t have the things she need, they would reach out. So guess what? You can’t turn against your resources, you can’t turn against your base and the people who actually made the difference for you. Or as we like to say ‘crossing over.’ At the end of the day, she loved the hell out of the community that she was with. Cuz sometime I used to look at her like she was crazy. ‘Let’s move out of here! Let’s go!’","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=1953.0,2020.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e But that was later on when I didn’t realize the power of the people that she was dealing with, or the fact that she was a Black Panther. I ain’t realized that she had different organizations and groups that she was reaching out to, to really make a difference. I didn’t know that she knew all these celebrities in the beginning. I didn’t realize that a tour and reaching out in unity really made a difference as far as people. Cuz even when she died some of the most interesting and most profound people came to actually see her. I ain’t never saw nobody who, even if you pull them up right now, their whole death and funeral is on Google. You can actually tell her name and go from there. She’s laying there like the queen that she is, go on from there. If she didn’t make a difference, and she didn’t believe in unity and she didn’t believe in fighting for her rights and the different people, that church would have been empty. Nobody comes to a service in the middle of the day, scheduled at 1, 2 o’clock in the afternoon when you’re supposed to be at work, on a Friday, or a Saturday, whatever day it was, cuz you know, sometimes it gets foggy when death take over, and fill the church. She actually had Channel Five there, she had Channel Nine. She read about different people who actually made a difference in her life. I watched her in her last moments. Even towards her death, her heart still live on. The brain died, the heart was still going, lettin’ you know her love was greater than the body that it was in. So when it came to it, she had deep unity. She had the love that was so profound, if you was to put it in the ground, a tree would probably come up, or a rose or flower or somethin’ would be different to actually reach out and make a difference.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2020.0,2120.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e My mom was so powerful, but I saw her as a regular human being. ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, Mom, stop it.’ Guess what? If my mom had actually listened to me when I was joking, telling her to stop or she had low self esteem or low confidence, guess what the bus tour would be? Scrap, paper. Cuz guess what? People’s words actually made a difference. She didn’t care too much what the outside world thought about her, she cared what her immediate family thought about her. That’s why she fought so hard to try to make a legacy of something different. Cuz think about it: how many people actually want to speak for those who can’t speak up for themselves? You know how cold of a room that is? When you standin’ up, thinking you got a crowd of people to support you, when you turn around, you fallin’ the ground because everybody just stood back, because they didn’t have the heart to step up and support you? It was hard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2120.0,2166.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e But as far as her unity and her love, I could say, right now: she’s been dead for 15 years, and you still got people calling me and inquiring about what her next move would have been, how she would have been doin’, go on from there. So she must have did something that was amazing that I’m calling you 15 years later. And some people come sometime, call and talk to me—didn’t even know she was dead. Didn’t even know she was affiliated with my family, didn’t even know different things going on, because sometimes when you love somebody enough, you bury them like a treasure. You believe that they got so much worth you don’t want the world being able to access and hold them. Why you think celebrities, when they have babies, don’t automatically give you a picture? They wait until they’re strong enough to speak for themselves and actually fight, because that’s they treasure. They bury it to stop people from being able to reach and get to it. But guess what, even with her body being gone we couldn’t bury her heart cuz the love still was well and out here in the world for the people who actually was making a difference. Cuz guess what? Unity is a hard thing to hold on to, without equality, without harmony, without justice, without people fightin’ for what they believe in. Lovin’ and not doing anything about it is a waste of energy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2166.0,2237.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e But she actually did somethin’. She created the tour. She stood alongside of the people. She was the voice of the voiceless, and even when my mom greeted you, if she was still alive, and I would know that she’s in this room—she had two words. You knew that it could be a loving words, or you knew that it could be, ‘It’s time to put our boots on to do what we need to do.’ It was “Hey love.” And she said it with the most compassionate fight within her. It was “Hey love.” You don’t know if somebody’s coming at you saying, ‘Hey love, we finna go over here to this other project to get these people rallied together and fight because the police done went upside somebody head.’ You don’t know what it is. You just know that your parent or your loved one gave you a confrontation of “Hey, love.” “Hey, love” could be ‘I love you.’ “Hey love” could be ‘Hello, how your day going?’ “Hey, love” could have been ‘Hey. Hey, love.’  Depending on the tone, things change. Notice how I did that? How I changed it up? It was a loving confrontation. [gently] “Hey love, hey love.” “How you doing love?”  [more sternly] “Hey love.” [laughter] Now you know you’re in trouble. But you know you still gotta deal with this person, cuz this is the person who truly love you. And anytime she gave you discipline, you knew it was for a good reason. Even if you didn’t understand it. Nobody understand 15 years from now, your words finna make a new race of people. Make them strong and fight for the independence. Nobody know that your words that you say right now might change somebody or touch them so deeply that they’re gonna touch the mind that’s going to change the world. Like Tupac used to say. Or better yet my mom used to say, ‘Absorb all the information you can cuz you never know when you need to utilize it. Because that mind is a sponge. It’s made for more than a hat rack.’ I used to be like, ‘Mom my hat look good on my head! But I’m still going to do what you teaching me.’ Cuz I used to always be the funny one, but still serious to the point that made the difference, and used to love competition and poetry and everything else. Guess where I got it from? Never even knowing it because in the beginning when my mom first started her poetry and her writing, she didn’t have confidence in herself. She would actually grab the stuff, ball it up, and throw it away. Because she didn’t feel like the public was ready. I said ‘Damn the public, I love you enough to put it out there, and whoever reachin’ and embrace it, they’re going to get it. And those who don’t get it, maybe wasn’t meant for they understanding and they didn’t deserve it. So, that’s my form and my mindset of my mom, and how she told us and how it came to unity.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2237.0,2389.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e I love hearing you talk about your mom, you clearly have so much love for her.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2389.0,2393.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, she made a difference. Even when—at the tail end of her life, it made a difference. Nobody want to share their mom with the world. Everybody wants they mom to be in the front room, wearing her robe or whatever outfit she got, spending time with them. You want them looking over your shoulder, making sure you good, cuz in most people’s minds, mom don’t have a life for her own, mom belong to us. She don’t belong to y’all. But at the end of the day, any human being, if you want them to be free, you want them to be whole, you gotta give them room to be able to grow and allow them to have a separate life away from you as well. So I loaned the world my momma, cuz my mom had a purpose. At the end of the day, I still was able, when everybody else couldn’t reach her or couldn’t do nothing, I could still call my mom, say ‘Hey Mom, you good?’ And if she was going through somethin’, she would probably talk to you, call you back or she would send you an email. Now you readin’ the email, helpin’ and workin’ it through it. My mom did been to galas, different people pretty much invited her because they saw her purpose. Everything was free, all inclusive. My mom did touch the souls of people who pretty much didn’t believe that they could make a difference. She created her bus tour. Guess what, my mom even wrote music. My mom was in the point of writing books. Cuz she had this book she was coming out with called “Behind the Wall.” Nobody knew that. She also had three documentaries that she came out with, one was called “Interrupt the Pipeline,” you can probably still find this movie right now that she pretty much talking about how when people go to school, smallest of incidents can make you end up in prison and how we need to break this pipeline and stop people from going to jail so they can have a real future. And she was also talking about expungin’ people’s records. Cuz she was saying past mistakes or bad incidents shouldn’t change you from your future of creating a new life. My mom was pretty much on the move of really making a difference. They compare her to all kind of freedom fighters and different things. But at the end of the day, you know what I call my mom? Mom. I didn’t see her as being no freedom fighter, or being no Harriet Tubman, fighting for the freedom, get to the freedom of the Promised Land. To me, the Promised Land was my momma. Cuz at the end of the day, even when she died, we donated her organs to multiple people. Guess what she did with her organs? They flourished and save lives. Who knew my mom was a female Jesus? Ehh, let me rephrase that, cuz a lot of people get mad when you compare yourself or any comparison to Jesus. But she saved people’s lives the same way he did. That was my point.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2393.0,2547.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e Why this community? What about this particular community, that brung out so much light in her, so much power in her? What was going on in this particular community that brung this, right, power house?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2547.0,2564.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e You want to know about why she select this community? ‘Member my first key words that I said? Poverty, but then I also take it back: a need. Nobody ever go where you’re not needed. If you make me feel unwanted, most of the time I’mma open up the door and leave. You go where you’re needed. So believe it or not, I say a need, there was a need or a desire for somebody to be stronger than what was here. Cuz in the beginning, everybody believed in themselves, but if nobody had a need, there would be no need. Cuz think about it: what made Superman so great? He had a menace who was always doing something that forced him to have to show that he was strong and show his power. If Superman never encountered anything, or Batman never encountered anything, or had the archnemesis or a need to make a difference, there would be no Superman. There would be no Wonder Woman, there would be no Batman. You actually have to find something that challenge you to be better than yourself. And guess what? Poverty, the need for somebody to care, the need for somebody to make a difference. People gettin’ strung out, people mental health issues, people who was homeless, the need of this community made my momma who she was, to be able to step up. She could have been born in a rich neighborhood. She could have even been selected to have a rich family. God do many things. But at the end of the day, he saw a greater purpose and a need and desire for her to be here. 60609, or Chicago as a whole. Cuz guess what? She traveled to other cities and different messages in different areas, but she still brought the message: you can make a difference. Don’t let your circumstances change who you are. Fight for what you believe in. And guess what? That was homegrown Chicago. 60609.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2564.0,2670.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Hell yeah. What did I want to ask you next? So, as you know, we are doing this oral history training, and that’s what we named after your mom, because we think she embodies all of these values that are so important…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2670.0,2686.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Which she did. I won’t ever take that away from her, she did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2686.0,2690.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. So if she were—I try to not ask too many of these types of questions—but if she were here today—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2690.0,2695.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Feel free. My heart and my question-answering is open to the world. [laughter] And at the end of the day, my mom and her legacy live on forever. So there’s probably millions of questions that could come. And millions of feelings that can be invoked, and millions of thoughts that could come. And I embrace it all. Cuz every day I close my eyes, she’s still here with me. But guess what, there’s a void in the world, because who’s still stepping up, fighting, where she left off? That’s what we forget, life is like a baton, you got to hand it off to the next person to allow them to run the race that you couldn’t complete. It’s like Martin Luther King, when he went on top of the mountain, he told you that we is going to get to the Promised Land, but he wouldn’t get there as well. Now, he’s being celebrated all over the place, you can’t go too many places without seeing his image. And we got presidents and different people who came behind freedom [phonetic]. Let’s think about it. It’s like me, if I was Martin Luther King, or anybody of great statue, who pretty much were fighting for the destiny or the belief that I made a difference in people, nobody wanted to go on the podium and get shot. You think that my mom actually wanted to go into the hospital, knowing that she wasn’t going to come out? Cuz she was probably sicker then she realized, but she didn’t want to embrace us with that, but she still deal with God demand for her to do. That’s how I feel about life. You have to step up with their desire to walk away. Most people will encounter real situations and real problems don’t want them problems. They fight to get out of it. They tell theyself this is not what I’m gonna do. I’m not going out there. I’m not gonna deal with this. I’m not gonna do it. But guess what? God said, You know what? Take a moment. Gather yourself and your thoughts and get out where I told you to go. Cuz at the end of the day, you still gonna end up where you need to be. And your time is still pretty much anticipated when you’re going to be arriving. We all dream of a beautiful home, we all dream of beautiful cars. We all dream of having luxury items on us. Well, what if your destiny ain’t the luxury items, but to create the items for people to wear? You still get money, but you’re not being seen as much. What if your desire is to actually go up and talk to people and be a spokesman for the companies that didn’t originally want you. Guess what? If that was the desire of your heart, and that was a desire of God how can you deny me to step in? It’s like a door can be closed to you. But the window still open. A door and a window can be closed, but you got a crack to the side. Nobody told me how to get in, you just said I had to go in. Sometimes I could go in mentally through your mind and your heart. I don’t physically have to be there. We could have did this interview over phone. And guess what, it still wouldn’t have the same magnitude, the same power, the same structure to be able to reach the people who actually truly need somebody to care. But saying I love you. It’s not a hard thing, but still powerful words. You can block me in with blocks, brick me over the top, give me a little piece of air. Well if I got a desire to live on when you take them bricks down, guess who’s going to be fed on the other side and still alive and well. And probably well taken care of. And you’re gonna say who fed you? I’m gonna say, You know what, when I came in here, it was a desire for me to make it and somehow God gave me water. It rained that night. It dripped in here and I was able to drink water. I’m gonna say you know what a cricket somehow got in here, now I got nourishment. And I’m coming out stronger and better than I was. It wasn’t something I wanted to eat. But somehow I still made it because that was the desire of my heart and my God could come forward.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2695.0,2907.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e So I want to go back to the question that I had for you. Which is, what do you think that she would want these students to, or participants to know and and really think about as they’re getting ready to interview people and become oral historians. I mean, I don’t know if your mom ever saw herself as an oral historian, but she really was in a way…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2907.0,2924.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e My Mom saw herself as a freedom fighter. But my advice, it comes from my heart, I’m also gonna give my mom partial credit. But this is truly my thoughts to you. I say if you see something you desire so strongly and you actually want to make a difference and you goin’ for your first interview. Sit your chair down, pull it back. Sit yourself in a position where you’re facing the person and always look them in the eye, when you getting ready to face them, cuz the mutual respect is being seen, what’s going on, you can always tell when the person is genuine by looking them in they eye. Sit down, figure out what you want to ask this person. Don’t ask them the standard questions that everybody will ask them. Ask them something that actually makes a difference and move them. Cuz believe it or not, everybody’s passionate is about something different, but you never know until you reach it. And then also, when you get ready to interview this person, don’t see them as the celebrity that they might be. Don’t see them as somebody greater than you. Equate yourself to being equal cuz you’re a human being. They bleed and die the same way that you do. Don’t be afraid to step up to somebody and actually talk, cuz a lot of the times with public speaking, we create this invisible barrier of caring what people think about us and what we’re going to say. And you kind of shell yourself down, because you don’t want to be ‘out of line’ as they say, cuz everything seem to evolve around discipline. But her words most likely would be to you: focus on your mission, follow your heart and your dreams, and make them respect you through the whole conversation no matter what you do. Because at the end of the day, you got to live with any results and consequences that come from it, so get the best possible means, within that subject matter. Bring out the best in them, as well as yourself.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=2924.0,3037.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e That’s good advice. Troy, do you have anything you wan to ask next?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3037.0,3048.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e I’m just moved by, just by everything. I guess my last question that I feel like I think is important is how your mom navigated, right, through the different buildings—cuz like you said, your auntie, stay in 5201, ya’ll come from Stateway, but all of these buildings is on along this path for 60609. How did she navigate all those different personalities within those different buildings?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3048.0,3081.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e I will tell you like this, the way that my mom navigated and went through different places: respect. Networking, talking to people, getting to know people, paying attention to their environment, knowing when things get hot, to leave. Sometimes we as individuals don’t know when we need to step away. So a lot of times, they would warn her, ‘Hey, they shootin’ over here, don’t come this way.’ So the way that my mom navigated, she respect people, she made friends, she made genuine connections with people, and they reached out to her. So a lot of the times, her roadmap to be able to get where she needed to go: fellow human beings like ourselves. Somebody who actually cared, made a difference, wanted to talk to her. It was a void in their life and they say, ‘You know what? Let’s talk to Beauty.’ And from that point, that’s how she navigated. And then she also followed her heart. Cuz remember, I told you in the beginning, you can’t be afraid to follow your heart. Your heart might not say 35th and Halsted, your heart might not say 4525 South Federal. Your heart might not say 5201. But guess what, somewhere in the city, your heart is being followed. Cuz you might have a kid on the other side of town that you ain’t saw in about five to 10 years that you want to be there, you’re not going to take no for an answer. If your child and their mom tell you come see ‘em, you’re gonna say ‘you know what, I might not have no money, but somehow I’mma see my child today.’ You get determined. So everything we do is a pathway through another person, through another person to be able to get where you want to go. But somehow in the end, it’s your desired pathway, where you want to go and what needs to be done. Unity. That’s how she got through them buildings. Cuz guess what, if I was the kind of person and I didn’t want you to come somewhere, and I felt like I owned everything, you get this pathway of resistance. What’s the greatest path to beat resistance: love, unity, and respect. So she had all that everywhere she go. Even in other cities, it was amazing. To actually see her engage people, ride on this bus. She could deal with people who have millions of dollars, she can deal with people who had ten dollars. She still treat you like a human being, showed you respect, love and dignity, and still made you feel as if you was one of the family. So: unity, family, and a genuine carin’ of people. Cuz at the end of the day, if people feel like you don’t love them, don’t respect them and you ain’t about what they’re about, they show you the door. And guess what, showing you the door ain’t always a bad thing. Maybe I don’t fit in today. Maybe I’m not a part of this situation. Maybe y’all didn’t evolve past what I want to do. How about I go this way and I create my own thing, but I bet I’ll still see you at the finish line. I’ll still be at that championship game. You still gonna be patting me on my back cuz I’m still gonna do a hell of a job, with or without you. That’s how my momma rolled.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3081.0,3244.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, like Troy it’s, it’s just so moving to hear you talk about your mom and with such passion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3244.0,3250.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e I love my mom with a passion. Period. Even her twin sister, you barely ever really hear anybody mention her. I loved her too. But it was just a different kind of love. You love somebody when you are in their immediate family and you close to them, then you think about how they experience you done have with them. Then you have that minute door that nobody ever really want to go through. That we gotta admit is there: void, the space of them not being there. You love people more when they gone. I don’t understand. You love them when you can’t have them. You love them when they’re not available. You love them when they ain’t reaching them back. You love and try to embrace them like ‘Dammit, I’m good. You gonna love me.’ You can’t force somebody to love you when they don’t love you. They’ll tolerate you, they’ll understand you. But if they pathway and they God tell them to do something different, guess who getting left behind? It’s still a void. My mom’s been gone for 15 years. For the whole first three, four years that she was gone, I couldn’t believe that God would take someone so precious for me as far as my mom. But then I realized that she was a gift and she was a seed and her message was being spread, and that she was going to come out on the other side as an immortal person pretty much. I was the selfish one, to believe that she was just supposed to be here with me. I was the selfish one, who believed that she was only supposed to be within our family. I was the selfish one, who was pretty much stopping her from creating her mission because I wanted her to be there to see my son graduate. You know, whole time that my son graduated—my mom died that year. So he had to go through his graduation not having the person who was in his corner the most, loving him to death, being principal at his school every year. Not having her there, that tore me apart, watching my son, who was a legacy of my mom, her first grandchild, not being able to see him graduate from eighth grade. These types of things touch you in a profound way that you pretty much hold on to any little piece of shred of memory or dignity you can have.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3250.0,3372.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e So to me, void creates love. Cuz when you don’t have it, you want it more. And I guess that’s how drug- and dope-heads look at they situation: I don’t have that drug. I need it. I’m getting sick without it. Guess what? Without my momma, I was sick. I felt certain ways. I wasn’t physically sick, I was mentally sick. Because I was constantly looking for her to come through the door. Various people walking through the street, I thought was my mom. But guess what—reality eventually kick in, it took almost seven to 10 years. I guess that’s a healing point or a perfect number to actually realize that she ain’t dead, she in my heart and the minds, and my memories and I can her bring up anytime I desire, even without Google. That she’s still me because if I look in the mirror, my heart’s still beating, I’m her legacy. I’m still her. And she’s still me. We won. And that’s a crazy profound statement, but nobody ever understand it til they got somebody who loved them who died. Cuz even if you had somebody who was the only person who reached out for you, only person saw value in you, only person who reached out and showed love, that’s the thing you’re gonna cling to. And it could be a different mother—it can be your grandma! It could be your auntie, it could be your sister, it could be your child. If they believed in you so profoundly that you actually was able to make a difference, open up a door in yourself you didn’t know was there—that was your key. To be able to reach your excellence and your dreams to do somethin’ more. That’s my mother. That’s my sister. That’s my auntie, that’s my brother. That’s anybody who I done ever encountered. That’s my bae. That’s my kids. My kid. Notice I say kids with a s because I have a god-child. And I tried to teach, if I can, whenever I do see them, that they make a difference.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3372.0,3476.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Cuz your value and your self worth does not come from what you own. It does not come from what you possess. It comes from how you feel about yourself. That’s the thing, we all have mental issues that we’re dealing with that pretty much don’t make a difference in the end, if you put it down, and you actually start to look at your worth, the difference that you made, and you pick up and put some initial value in yourself, nobody can take that away from you. You can gonna lose everything—you can gonna lose your home, your car, your job, your clothes, your food, your kids, your grandkids. Everything can be left with you, but guess what, if you got the memory and they made a difference, where you think these foundations come from? Where you think these movements come from? That’s from the love of somebody who pretty much want to keep they child and they name and they dignity alive. That’s how I look at my momma; you with me forever. I can go outside, I still hear you whispering in my ear—‘it’s gonna to be okay.’ I can see myself going the wrong pathway. And I can still feel hope within my heart. No, stop. Sit. Think. That’s what a lot of us not doing, we’re not stopping and evaluating our lives and thinking about what matters to us to make a difference. It’s like when you interview somebody, when you interview somebody, you’re not going just to talk to them, you’re going to see what makes a difference with them to be able to give a message or a product to somebody else. Nobody give a damn about your new car. Nobody give a damn about your home. Nobody give a damn about what you goin’ on, we tryin’ to figure out how did you get it. You want the seeds of excellence, You want the seeds of success, and you want the seeds of performance that get you what you need. That’s why we reach out, interviewin’, networkin’, go from there. Cuz apparently it’s somethin’ we like about you that we see within ourselves that we can have, that we reach out to get it. That’s why we interview, cuz we’re digging deeper to find out what matters to you. Cuz guess what, we might have a mutual understanding or a mutual love that matter to me. I want to see what made you tick, what made you think, why did you go there? How did you do it? And what was you doing? If you notice we all want the X, we all want to know the unknown of what made this happen. Sometimes the X is just our desire to do it. And that’s the X, the unknown wow factor: ‘I believe that I can. I saw it in my head. Nobody believed in it, I move forward. And I did it.’ Cuz to be able to throw that ahhh!, that cheer moment, to be able to know you succeeded. That’s what we all looking for: that human connection, that love, that universal holding of hands, that I love you, embracin’ and holdin’. And guess what, I don’t always have to hold you to hold you. I can hold your memory, I can hold your thoughts, I can hold that—your things that you do to make a difference. Cuz guess what, all I have to do is motivate one person and let them know that they made a difference. And they spread my word like gospel. That’s how we do in life. We spread the word, and we become infectious with our thoughts, and pray that the better-ness of us come about. Why do you think they only say good words when you die? Versus bad? That same person who might be in that coffin might’ve kicked three cats on the way to they death. Might have grabbed a dog and ran around the block, but at end of the day: ‘He was a lover of pets.’ [laughter] Still, making a difference.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3476.0,3666.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e I really appreciate that you’re talking about, you know, memory and remembering because that’s really what oral history is all about. Yeah. Keeping them alive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3666.0,3678.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Keeping them alive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3678.0,3678.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Keeping them alive. It’s about creating—yeah, about creating memory and keeping people alive. Yeah. I’m—because you’ve talked so many times about your mom’s writing, I’m curious—I mean, A, I would love to see some of her writing at some point, if you still have it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3678.0,3691.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e When it came to my mom’s writing, you can actually probably go to some of the Chicago Tribune Chronicles, she was on the magazine. She actually won multiple awards, I still got tons of awards that she done won. She used to be in partnership with the Chicago Defender. She wrote various articles within the newspaper. So if you got the Chicago Defendant paper, you can look through there. She also wrote some stuff with Chicago Tribune, she also wrote some stuff with the Daily Herald. So it’s plenty of places. Then she got personal forums and stuff that she did when the internet was first coming about. And yeah, I would love to be able to show you all of what my wonderful mom was: her pictures, her awards, her moments of triumph, even sometimes her moments of sadness. Cuz some of her greatest poems and some of her desires came from sadness. Cuz that was momma. We never knew what was on her mind cuz at the end of the day, get 360 degrees round, you always got something going on and you always come back to the top, the essential purpose of you. Cuz everything we do in life, we tryin’ to survive, we tryin’ to make a difference, we tryin’ to thrive. But we also want to be able to know that we done develop something so strong that it’s gonna pass on to our kids. Why do you think designers make clothes—it ain’t because they like these styles, it’s because they want money to be able to pass on to their kids so they can keep the name going. Why we don’t look at our lives like a brand. Why we don’t believe that everything we do make a difference and why we don’t look at ourselves like social media, or a show? We just as interesting as some of these celebrities, some of us even crazier than some of these celebrities, probably get better ratings. But we’re afraid to step up and do this audition to this thing called life. Cuz we’re afraid of the repercussions and the things that come behind. Well, guess what? To hell with that! Be you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3691.0,3807.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e When, at what point did she name her bus tour? Do you know—and tell me about this, this decision, the GHETTO bus tour, because that’s, that’s a word that’s often loaded but it seems like she was kind of reclaiming the word ghetto.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3807.0,3823.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e I think when my mom started, she was just trying to give the ghetto deeper meaning than what it was. She wanted it to be positive. She wanted it to be something unique. And she wanted to be something profound. Cuz most people think a ghetto is deprived, not having anything. She wanted to bring back the hope to the people, she wants to show them something different. But then she also didn’t want to forget where she was coming from. She wanted to actually utilize something that would be so profound and so negative to make a real difference. So that’s how she came up with it. She got tired of hearing the stereotypes, she got tired of negativity, she got tired people just looking down on her home. It’s like anywhere, you live in the city nobody want to be looked down on. You know, I’m a South Sider. And we often laugh and joke and different stuff about the west with somebody from the West Side and take offense to that, and they say, ’You ain’t gonna talk about my home. You ain’t gonna do the 290 like that.’ That’s how she felt about the ghetto. She fought and defended what was hers. That’s how I fight for the South Side. At the end of the day, you still gotta find some common ground, some kind of unity cuz guess what, you still gotta go downtown. That’s the meeting point for 290 and south. You still got to eventually probably go on the West Side. You don’t want West Side people mad at you when you south. Cuz guess what? There’ll be a misunderstanding. So it’s all about respect. That’s what she wanted, to give them some dignity and respect. Remember my thing I had said the voice of the voiceless, she wanted to give them a voice, people in the White House ain’t listening to the hard desire of the ghetto. If I got millions of dollars and trillions of dollars, I ain’t thinking about what somebody who might have $1,000 in two weeks is saying, you’re gonna do what I tell you. Well, guess what? She also believed in freedom, fighting for what you believe in and standin’ up for what’s right. Don’t let somebody just because they have made your money and decisions make a decision for you. Go what you feel your heart and your desire is. That’s why she changed ghetto, cuz she didn’t like the thought of people looking down on the ghetto cuz they—believe it or not, she also showed me example, the ghetto in a downtown condo, if you go half a step and you had different management and different resources, they was the same place. Actually, was the same structure built the same way you had the same corridors had the same track for you to throw trash out, the same corridors that you come in and out going in for exits. Condo, ghetto, same place.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3823.0,3979.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e I think I got a question for you now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3979.0,3981.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Hey, I’m ready!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3981.0,3982.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e I just want to go back, just a little bit. You talked about making it to the Promised Land, knowing you trying to get these people to the Promised Land, right. But also at the same time knowing that you’re not going with them. Right? You’ve talked about being on her deathbed. Her brain—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=3982.0,4013.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Shutting down from an aneurysm—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4013.0,4015.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e But her heart—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4015.0,4016.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e —is still beating—","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4016.0,4017.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eGaston:\u003c/strong\u003e —is still beating. How do you see the impact of your mother heart still beating, right, on the South Side in all these different communities?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4017.0,4022.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Believe it or not, the way that I look at it, my mom actually passed away at Rush—Rush Presbyterian on the West Side. So she went back to her original roots, cuz she was from the West Side originally. The way that I see it, she had a deep, profound love that not even death itself could take away. Her heart still was beating for a reason. They kept it goin’ because guess what? Nobody ever wants to think that they time is up but the love that you share is eternal and forever. And she showed me that. Cuz without vitals, without brain activity, without any movement, her heart was beating louder than my voice is through this microphone. That’s the thing that she gave. God gave her something so much greater that nobody could touch and take away from it. That was her love. Cuz guess what—what’s the thing that we always embody or have our emblem for love? The heart! That’s what she gave us, her heart. Everything she did in life she put her heart into it. When she finally felt the purpose for it and believed in it, she put her heart in it. That’s why her heart kept going. She knew she wasn’t coming with us. You already in the bed, you already sick. You’re already pretty much deteriorating at that point, fightin’ for your existence to be able to get out of bed. She knew she wasn’t coming. She went into a coma. That’s a deep rest. To be able to relax and take it easy to see what’s on the other side. I had a profound question for my mom whenever she was gonna pull through, but God didn’t want the question to be asked. I’mma ask it anyway: What did you see on the other side? Who was there? Who took you over to the Promised Land? So that let you know, even with your body shutting down, your heart still going, there must be some kind of God or some kind of tour guide in the spiritual world that wants you, that take you where you need to go. But he still wanted to leave an example or a sign that your love—that’s why the heart kept beating. No matter what we did, it kept goin’. Even when they took off the machine, you can still hear that thing. [imitates the rhythm of a heart beat] Boom, boom. boom, boom. boom, boom. Cuz she was livin on. Cuz she didn’t want to leave. Nobody ever want to die. You talk to anybody who done ever went through anything, whoever been encountered with any kind of disease, any kind of mental illness, or any kind of thing—they want to live on. Even a person who have been shot 90 times pray that they still get that beat or that movement to be able to change and revive their life and do something different. Sometime God say, ‘You know what? You did the best that you could do, this is when I take over. Allow me to touch and move you as you need to be moved.’ So apparently God saw my mom as the cover or the shell, he removed her so we could do what we needed to do to be strong as individuals to a fight on, another day.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4022.0,4201.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I think we’re just about done with the, you know, questions that we had prepared. Is there anything that we didn’t ask that you want to speak on?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4201.0,4211.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e You know what? I think the only thing that perhaps I wanna speak on, or what wasn’t asked: What will become of tomorrow? We all think about the past and what happened up to this point. What is our future lookin’ like? Not just as Black people or—just us as the human race. What are we doing to make a difference to be remembered? Everybody think about the Egyptians, the tombs and different things. What are we adding [phonetic] in our lives that we could sit back and say, ‘You know what, dammit, I did that so well, it can never be duplicated, and I’mma gonna be remembered forever.’ That’s the questions I want. What comes of our memory when individuals no longer say our name? Do we lose value because my name ain’t being mentioned in the headlines no more, or I’m not coming from there [phonetic]? What does our future hold? I pray that each and every one of these individual who listen to this, or who actually goin’ through this: you answer that question in your own sweet, profound way, and make this world remember you. Cuz Beauty is remembered. Cuz she did hers. Now do yours. Be goin’ [phonetic], love your mission, and give it all you got.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4211.0,4280.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e That’s a great, great ending note. Thank you so much, Mr. Turner for your time today.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4280.0,4284.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e One more thing— Yeah?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4284.0,4285.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4285.0,4285.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eTurner:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah? If you have any future questions, or anything that needs to be known about Beauty, I’m always available, because I love her. And guess what, since she love y’all, I guess I must love you too. All right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4285.0,4296.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLiú:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4296.0,4297.0"},{"id":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068/transcript/74167/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"END OF INTERVIEW","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://nphm.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2733/collection_resources/137693/file/260068#t=4297.0,4297.819"}]}]}]}