Dr. Lewis Walker Interviewer Two

Katherine Rapin: Welcome to the second interview. This is our second time speaking with Dr. Lewis Walker. We want to welcome you back and thank you again. At the end of the last interview we kind of moved from your early life into thinking about Kalamazoo in context of your life here. So you moved here in 1964 and to start I wanted to ask you what it was like to be one of the first African-American professors at WMU.

Dr. Lewis Walker: Well, when we came in 1964 from - we came from Ohio State University. And Ohio State had about 42,000 students, was a city unto itself, so 00:01:00coming to Western in 1964 it was really a major step down, in terms of the size of the university. We had about 12,000 students when I arrived on campus. And it was not unlike Ohio State; it was a major, it was a university with largely white professors, male white professors. And that was pretty much what I was accustomed to at Ohio State in my Department of Sociology. I think we had two female professors, both white, no African Americans in the department. And here at Western there was one, a white female in social work. When I came here it was the Department of Social Work -- Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work. So we 00:02:00were combined in a department of three. So my office mate at the time was an anthropologist - Anthropologist, Rob Smith, and so we got along very, very well. He was a wonderful, wonderful man with a Jewish background. So we had some things in common straight away in terms of history of discrimination and racism. So being my office mate, we shared an awful lot. I also had taught a course in anthropology years ago when I was back in Ohio. So we shared that, we had that in common as well. So I was very much welcomed in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social work early on.

KR: Nice, that's great. Are there any memorable experiences in relation to your 00:03:00relationships with students from that time period that you'd like to share? From those early, first few years.

LW: Earlier on, I think I was a novelty when I walked into the classroom, because, most, I would say or rather think, most of the students had never had an African-American professor. And I might mention, back in that time, we were not African Americans, we were Negroes. So again, most of the students, mainly white students, had never had a quote-unquote, a Negro or an African-American professor. So it was somewhat interesting. I was somewhat of a curiosity for most earlier on. And then within a brief time period, I found that I was not just only a curiosity, but students wanted to enroll in my classes. That made me 00:04:00feel very, very good. So the reputation, my reputation as a good professor spread quite rapidly.

KR: Nice. So, during that time period, there was a lot going on in Kalamazoo involving the desegregation of the schools. Do you remember specific things about that time? Were you involved directly or indirectly?

LW: Somewhat. Judge Fox was the federal judge in charge of the desegregation here, but Clem Dobbins, Duane Roberts are some people who come to mind straight away, and Judge Enslen were people I do recall being heavily involved in desegregation of schools here in Kalamazoo. Mm-hm. So at the time I was not 00:05:00directly involved because some things had been set in motion prior to my coming to Kalamazoo.

KR: Do you remember anything about the May 7th Proposal in 1971? It was the proposal to, it was kind of a set of how they were going to go about desegregating the schools with changing the districts and doing busing, to bus students to different schools, to integrate the schools essentially. And it was, there was a lot of controversy around it, do you remember?

LW: Somewhat. Again, I was not directly involved in some of that. But, at the time, it was subsequent to that I became quite involved with the school system, not only here in Kalamazoo but in Grand Rapids in particular, Muskegon, Detroit, Erie, Pennsylvania. I'm thinking about my work with school systems in terms of 00:06:00workshops, with largely, again, white teachers and minority students, in this case African-American students. I did an awful lot of work there planning and conducting workshops with teachers. So I did become, later on, I did become heavily involved with, with that. At the same time I was also keenly aware of what some people would call "white flight" that was a result of the desegregation of the schools here in Kalamazoo.

KR: How did that impact the racial dynamics in Kalamazoo at that time? How would you describe, kind of the racial climate here in Kalamazoo during that time period?

LW: Well, also at that time that we had the Civil Rights Movement going on and I 00:07:00think that the dynamics was one of the racial consciousness, of the injustice of our system. Not just in terms of education, but in terms of police systems, institutions, on and on and on. So, an awful lot of activity, activities were geared toward bringing about a change in education, in our criminal justice system, in housing, in employment in particular. Because when I came to town, housing was a major problem, especially for African Americans. I might have mentioned earlier on when I came to town there were no apartment buildings in 00:08:00Kalamazoo to speak of. So I had to find housing with an African American woman, Mrs. Mary Spradling, here on Dartmouth Avenue. She was kind enough to rent me a room so I could bring my new bride, my new wife to Kalamazoo. So all these kinds of things, these dynamics were going on at the same time and I rather suspect that was a direct result of the Civil Rights Movement and race relations in this country.

KR: Can you talk a little bit more about white flight and how you saw that playing out in the dynamics of the city and where you know the housing and the complications that you had when you were first living here. Was it a few years after that, that you came that you saw white flight taking place, or was it kind 00:09:00of in the same transition as you moving here?

LW: It was about the same when I came here in terms of the transition. But I still think that the desegregation and busing played a major role in a lot of white families leaving Kalamazoo, going especially places like Portage. Portage, as I understood it, had just applied for, it had become, a charter city, the city of Portage. And I think there was an effort around this time, just prior to my coming, for Portage to be annexed, as a part of Kalamazoo. And I also remember when I came to town, there were very few African American families in, living in Portage. James Horn, who was the director of Douglass was one of the 00:10:00few black families at the time, living in Portage and this was by design. They were not anxious to embrace African-American families, and as I talk here it reminds me of another community in this city [sic: state] where blacks were not really welcome - that's Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. Mayor Hubbard was in charge of that city at that time and he made it very clear: We do not want any Negros in Dearborn. And for a long time that held true. Of course today, Dearborn is a place where we find the largest Muslim population in the country, so about 500,000 -- 400,000 to 500,000.

KR: Wow, so coming back to Kalamazoo a little bit, you from the get-go, right from when you moved here, you started to get involved, kind of right away. Could you talk a little bit about the Kalamazoo Resource Development Council that you developed in, I think it was 1967? A couple years after you moved here.LW: That KRDC, the Kalamazoo Resource Development Council, came about as result of police/black community relations. They were not very good and a lot of young people, the African-American youth in particular, felt that they were often, not treated well by the police. And as result of that I, I thought that here was an 00:12:00opportunity to empower young black men and women to deal not only with the police but also with their own community. And so, at the Douglass Community Association, there were this small group of people and they were complaining about police relations and so I said, "Why don't we organize a group of young people to deal with their own issues and the issues involving the police?" So that was the basis for that, the thrust behind the development of the founding of the KRDC program. I'm very proud of that program, because these young people came together on a nightly basis at the Douglas Community Association to be 00:13:00trained in how to survey their community, how to raise funds, and how to implement programs on behalf of the young people in the community.

KR: Can you remember any specific stories about how they went about raising funds or about some of the programs they implemented?

LW: Yes, this was '68. And it comes to mind very vividly because we had planned a fund raising effort when an uncle of mine died in Birmingham near Selma and I was in route to that funeral, but I had left instructions. We had talked about who would do what to raise funds. And one of the things was to talk to the city people, and the foundation that the young people do themselves, not me, that 00:14:00they would go and talk to the city officials, to foundation officials, on and on and on. But I'm saying that this was the same time, this comes to mind very vividly because I was in route to this funeral when Dr. King was killed, mm-hmm. And coming back from the funeral, I was concerned that this would have an impact on their, on their, our ability to raise funds. But when I got home, these young people had raised over $12,000. I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but they would, and talked, as I mentioned to city officials and other people and they had got that kind of money. And I might have mentioned earlier on that these funds were used to provide each member of KRDC with a stipend, a weekly stipend, 00:15:00not very much, 25 - 30 dollars a week that they had, they were appreciative of that. But they also used some of those funds to go throughout the community and survey their own neighbors as to what are some of the issues that we should be dealing with. They also used some of those funds to provide live, I'm thinking, a live band to play at the Lincoln School grounds during the summer, on and on and on - programs whereby they, the young people in KRDC, would go and get adults to come to chaperone these outdoor affairs, meaning that no police officers were allowed in, never any problems. So I'm very proud of that group. 00:16:00And I, I at time to time see some of those members, like Frank Collard, who is still in town. From that group we had two members to go on to a college. Bill Grey comes to mind as one of those students who got his education, college education. So I'm very proud. I look back and I'm very proud of that effort with these young people.

KR: Well, thank you for sharing that story. So you also had a, applied for a grant that was through the Self-Enhancement Services Program that focused on the retention of minority students at Western. Can you talk a little bit about that?

LW: I'm smiling, yes. That was an effort to, the Self-Enhancement Program was an 00:17:00effort to not only recruit African-American students, but to, once they got on campus, but to provide the necessary support to keep them until degree completion. That was major to me. I was concerned when we would go into the different communities, recruit students, and on campus we had students walking around with 10-15 hours of incompletes. I'm saying that because the more incompletes that our students accrued, the greater the likelihood that they would drop out. So Self-Enhancement, Self-Enhancement Program was designed to 00:18:00identify students at risk and to do the necessary, to provide the necessary support to keep those students here. This program was implemented in the college of, the largest college at Western, our College of Arts and Sciences. It was in every department. And all, in each department, there was a Self-Enhancement person who would be in charge of identifying students at risk. Now I'm saying this deliberately. Students at risk, not just African-American students, but all students. I just felt that this program would be one that could demonstrate that we can embrace all of our students, by embracing African-American students, we 00:19:00can also embrace all students regardless of race, creed, or color. And then all professors would submit, on a regular basis, those students who were not doing well. Those students then would be advised, or asked to come in and find out what's going on and what can we do. So I'm very proud of that program as well. Self-Enhancement.KR: It sounds like it was very well received.

LW: It was.

KR: It was started in the College of Arts and then expanded and had a lot of support behind it from other of faculty members.

LW: Mm-hmm. And I just felt that at Western, which is not a Harvard or a Yale in terms of the students that we go out and recruit, we just owed them our best. 00:20:00And I still feel that way. We recruit you. We ought to educate you. You ought to be a changed person once you leave Western, but you have to stay here long enough to get that degree.

KR: Can you think of any specific stories of any students that you worked with through that process?

LW: Let me see, yes. Many come to mind, but let me just go to one in particular. While I directed this program I also was, continued to teach. And, in my class this one woman, young woman, showed up to be really in need of some assistance. She was a senior. And the issue--I'm trying to recall the particulars now-- that 00:21:00she didn't do well on essay exams. So she came into my office and we had to talk about, why is it that you are a senior but you're not doing well on essay exams? And I found out, she said to me, "I am able to do it, to become senior, because I never had any essay exams." And that surprised me. Now, I keep on emphasizing, she was a senior. So there was an opportunity for me to help this student by having her to write a paragraph every single day, seven days a week, and on 00:22:00Monday she had to turn in those essays, which I graded, and pointed out what she had to do. Then, I referred her to a resource on campus to help her. But I'm so appalled that we have students on our campus who are not asked to become critical thinkers and writers, on and on and on. So that's what that program was about: self-enhancement. To enhance yourself. But you have to be aware of it. And again, I just underscore the fact that I, I feel very strongly about this. If we go out and recruit students with certain abilities, then we owe it to them 00:23:00to provide them with the best assistance that we can. And, it's not if--one last bit here: I had a student, an African-American student in my class on delinquency, and she came with several other African-American students. She sat in the back of the room early on, but I didn't know this until she told me later. And I was talking about patriocentricity and family, the black family, on and on and on. And the next class she came to me, she said, "Dr. Walker, if you noticed I left from back of the room and came and sat on the front row," she said, "because I told my friends this man is not going to play with us."

That made me, really made me feel good, that here's a student, and she said, "I came from Pontiac, Michigan," top of her class and she said, "In your class I 00:24:00realized I was not as prepared as my grades suggested coming from Pontiac." So the KRDC program was one that was able to at least make a difference in the lives of some people, and I want to underscore again, it was not just African Americans, but was students throughout the College of Arts and Sciences.

R: Related to that very impactful way that you shaped campus, you were also often called to be a consultant or a mediator in conflicts that were happening on campus. Can you talk a little bit about that position?

LW: Well, often it was something I was called upon to do by the president or 00:25:00presidents, at Western. And I've served under all except two, which means I've been there forever - under Miller, Bernhard, Dieter, Bailey, Floyd - Nelson Floyd, and now Dr. Dunn. But it was mainly under two presidents in particular, maybe three that I did an awful lot of mediation work that dealt with race relations. I won't go into any particular case because of the confidentiality of 00:26:00a lot of this, but issues of where people come forward and claim that they've been, are being discriminated against based on race. Often there were claims of discrimination based on race and sex. So I dealt with a large number of those cases, and being the mediator of. They were not public instances. So again here I will not specify any particular person or persons that I dealt with over the years.

KR: In that process, in our Engaging the Wisdom project, we're especially interested in creating dialogues between people of different races and 00:27:00ethnicities. I was wondering if there were any takeaways from that process as a mediator that you see as applicable in today's conversations.

LW: If I put it in a larger context, I would say, yes. Things that we can take away from, and largely what I would say would deal with insensitivity on the part of people in power or in important positions. As you were asking the question, my mind was looking at something in particular or one in particular 00:28:00that in terms of insensitivity, where one continues to feel that he or she has done the right thing. But in my mind, it's just the opposite. And not that it's due to being insensitive to who we are in the presence of others. One comes to mind is that four black students, African-American students, came to my office at the end of this particular, I was chair at the time, chair of the department, came to my office to complain that they were not allowed to take the final exam. From, by this particular white instructor. Female. And they explained what had 00:29:00happened. They were 15 minutes late entering the test room. They explained according to what they were telling me that they were coming from the east of the city, east side of the city and there's the train track. They were held up by the train. And they said this to the teacher. She said, "No, you were not there. No, because you were not on time, other students had left. They could have communicated with you, the material with you, and you could have gotten some assistance for the exam."

I was disturbed by the fact that she said no. Period. That this would have a dramatic impact on their final grade to be sure. So I investigated right away the train situation. Was there a train at the time the train stopped according to them? It was not a passenger train, it was a cargo train. And sure enough at that time there was this train. You know, did they live opposite or are coming from? I didn't know that for a fact. But I did find out that this teacher allowed a student, white female student, to take the exam after that exam had 00:31:00been concluded. I had the teacher in and said, "Why did you do this? Why did you not allow?"

"Well, they know my rule."

"But does not the white young female student know your rule?"

"But she had an excuse."

"Did not the young black students have an excuse?" I said, "No, you cannot do this. Cannot." Am I going to call her a racist? No. I'm saying you're insensitive to, that you're making an allowance for, for whatever reason. So 00:32:00these are the kinds of things I dealt with. And so in a larger context, I'm saying we have to be aware of our presence and the presence of others and their needs.

KR: Did you feel that you were able to communicate and get through to that teacher, that specific teacher?

LW: I did, yes.

KR: And she came away with some kind of understanding?

LW: Yes, and she left with a better understanding.

KR: And did you think it was through explaining more thoroughly? Like what do you think it took for her to understand to come to that? I mean obviously you helped her come to that understanding.

LW: Well, I talked quite a bit about the issue of race and the meaning of our action and how things are defined at the moment. And often we are thoughtless 00:33:00and we bring our own justifications into situations. And I can understand some of that but I want her to understand more fully the importance of, and what would it have done? What benefit would it have her, would it have been beneficial to her not to have those students to take the exam? Because of the outcome how they performed on the exam, what benefit would it have been to you not to give it to them? On the other hand, how would it impact their lives, their future? And while we're here, to talk again about the present, why are we here? Are we here to do damage to students? So in that larger context yeah, a 00:34:00lot of things we can take away and talk about and should talk about.

KR: Absolutely. And with the events of Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York bringing forward issues of police brutality again, more presently, could you talk a little about the police community relations program that you were called upon to develop in the, I believe it was in the late 60s, a few years after you moved here?

LW: Right. So the interesting thing, the development. When I came to town, there was one African-American police officer, Al Goodwin, and he was often teased that he could not arrest a white person, that he was the one officer who was 00:35:00sent into the black community mainly to keep the black community, keep order in the black community, but not to stop or arrest white people. Now, that was, he was teased about that. I'm saying that to say that there were issues when I came to town in terms of the perceptions of white officers. Again, we only had one black. The perception of white officers in that most of the black people lived on the north side across the railroad tracks. And they felt that, by 'they' I'm saying a lot of African Americans, felt that they were not well treated. And not 00:36:00so much in terms of just arrest but in terms of being treated as a human being by police officers. Dean Fox was the chief of police at the time and we became acquainted. And he was aware of my work, especially in race/ethnic relations and he was concerned about what could be done to bring about better police/black community relations. And I said my work early on in criminology and in social psychology and in my work in counselling, and training in counselling, maybe I 00:37:00could put something together, which I did. And he looked it over and he said, "All of my officers should be exposed to this." And a big chunk of that treatment was quote unquote sensitivity training. How sensitive are you about certain kinds of situations? And once--how one is socialized, that milieu in which one is socialized, places an important view on how one views the world. So that's where I was coming from. With these officers, mainly, in this training to show them that you see the world from these vantage points or these points of 00:38:00views because how you've been socialized and how you were reared and how you're educated. On and on and on. And how there's a culture within the police department that would make you see things, make you act a certain way. So my work there was mainly to talk about diversity, even before that became the currency, to talk about diversity. And how people see you and how you see people and understand the history of, both sides, the history of both sides of this coin. So that was my work and I don't know whether I mentioned to you early on, 00:39:00that I overheard an officer at this time, say to fellow officers, "This is not what I wanted to do. The training's not what I need. It's a waste of my time. Because what I want to do is to deliver a baby and kill a (and used the N word) and to kill." And I was coming down the stairs when I overheard that and he turned around, looked me in the face and said, "I didn't." And I said, "That's why we're here. You need this. You think that all you want to do is to deliver a baby and kill a black person." So that sensitivity training was to open people like that up and let them expose that racism to themselves because they don't see it. Often they don't see it, they're not called upon to see it.

KR: So that training program ran for three years consecutively and how was it responded to, besides that one specific man you mentioned?

LW: I'll tell you. Overall, it had somewhat of an impact. An Officer Lune comes to mind. I'm talking about years ago now, and it's interesting because he pops into mind as one of those officers. I just know for a fact it had a tremendous dramatic impact upon him. And that was manifest in terms of how he would go into the black community and how he related to children. They would see Officer Lune come in and they would run to him. Why? He had candy. He had candy. You know, but, I look back on some of this stuff with a modicum of pride. I really do. We 00:41:00tried to make a difference.

KR: And, how do you think that that experience applies to today's conversation, national conversation, around police relations with black communities and the incredible events that we've all seen blown up in the news lately.

LW: As--excuse me while I take a sip. [coughs] [drinks water] The other day, I'll answer your question this way, the other day I was talking to some people from Al Jazeera about the situation here in Kalamazoo and in the country and in my work. And I made the observation, my opinion, that the narrative has not 00:42:00changed enough for us to see real difference, a real difference in terms of police and minority community relations. By the narrative I'm talking about the perception on the part of some people about black people, especially in disadvantaged communities. That narrative about how, especially black people, view the conduct of police officers and especially, white police officers. And I mentioned Selma, the movie Selma and how at that time, when the marchers were to 00:43:00go across Pettus Bridge and march into Montgomery to talk about voting rights, the officers who stood and brutalized African American people felt that they were upholding the law. That those people coming across the bridge were violators. That Dr. King was a violator. Civil rights, disobedience, disobedience means you're breaking the law. That narrative continues today. That's the point I was making. And that narrative involves the perception, right or wrong, on both sides of the fence. That's not changed enough to make a difference in terms of a situations like we see, we saw in we've seen in 00:44:00Cleveland and in Ferguson and in New York. And this does not mean, in my opinion, that those incidents are representative of the work of police officers. Far from it. But it's all part of the narrative. We asked white people about seeing us as people of worth, that our lives don't matter. That's that perception and these incidents simply underscore that perception. It keeps it alive.

KR: I don't think I want to just ask for answers but drawing on your many years of experience, what do you think are some ways to try to change that narrative?

LW: The narrative has to change, and I have some notions about what is needed for the narratives to change, and it's very complex, and we don't have the time here, to be sure, for me to go into the whole thing. But part of the narrative has to change that, put it this way, we have to pay some attention to poverty first off. For the narrative to really change. And I'm looking at Kalamazoo in particular. We have such an alarming - a lot of people don't know this - an alarming rate of poverty in our city, in our county, you know? And that relates 00:46:00to education, employment, and for people to decide what kind of community do we want, and what must we do as a people to change. What it is that we can do for ourselves that no one else can do for us? That's one, that's one aspect of what I'm thinking about. The other thing is that we must do something about the over-criminalization of our society and I talked a little about this. We have over 3,000 federal laws, over 3,000, and we look at these laws and the 00:47:00sentencing associated with these laws. And then, we look on top of that that there are 300,000 federal regulations most of which can bring a person to the attention of law enforcement. So I'm saying that the, for example, the war on drugs, those laws and the resources put in by federal government to deal with the quote-unquote the war on drugs. And we look at the consequences of that and then we look at how many people are in our prisons. Follow those people through this pipeline from arrest, courts, prisons, then back home and see what happens 00:48:00to a lot of people, they're unable to get jobs because they are now convicted of a crime. They can't get housing. They can't get public assistance, on and on and on. This helps to sustain what Julian Wilson would call the underclass, the poverty. So, when I say that it's a complex issue, it is tremendously complex. So that narrative will go on and on until we begin to address some of these issues. And some things just don't make sense to me, especially some of the laws dealing with the war on drugs where three times and you're out. You have a 00:49:00certain amount of drugs, then you're in for life. I had a young friend of mine who played football at the University of Michigan, was on the football team there and he came out and he had a certain quantity of this particular drug and he was sentenced for life. We worked to change that. Didn't make sense. We worked to change that. He's out today. Again, it's just so complex that I could go on and on and perhaps would not make any sense to you about some of the things in my head that I've got to deal this.

But I might mention that the Walker Institute, my Institute at Western's campus is putting together five forums. Hopefully we will launch one of these, a series 00:50:00of these in March to begin to address some of these issues and the role that particular people must play to bring about a change in the narrative. I'm talking about the law enforcement aspects of it, the prosecutors, the judges, on and on and on. I'm looking now at the key decision makers and the role that they must play. It's our job to help them to understand the issues because all these people believe that they're just doing their jobs. And they are. At the teaching at my institute a couple weeks ago, a police officer made the observation that 99% of the action is professional, professionally done. But yet, when we have 00:51:00incident like in Ferguson and Cleveland and New York, all officers are looked upon as being blameworthy which is unfair. It's not true, but it's part of the narrative. It's still part of the narrative.

KR: Do you think, what do you think about activist strategies as they were in your coming to Kalamazoo in the early years you were here compared to now--the discussions that are happening around race relations and how people are framing them? What do you think of the activist strategies currently? You think that they're working?

LW: The activist strategies?

KR: I guess maybe how people are trying to address these issues.

LW: Excuse me again. [drinks water] I can only speak about the people that I've, groups that I have dealing with or have dealt with recently, I see a sense of or I sense that people want to do something but they're not quite sure what it is that they should do or would want to do. It's not as clear today. . It's not as clear today as back in the 50s and 60s in terms of strategies, in terms of strategies what to do. Because here we're looking at decades of Jim Crow laws 00:53:00rigid laws, institutionalized, that we knew we had to dismantle. This is not the case today. Decades of it, for example, when I say decades of it, for decades you could not go downtown in Selma or Birmingham and drink from a fountain that was labeled white. You had to go to the colored drinking fountain and things like that. You couldn't go to the movie and sit in the place in the movie house that you would like. You had to go to the back only, if you were allowed in. Things were so clear cut. The enemy, quote-unquote, the enemy was clear. That's 00:54:00not the case today. So a lot of people are frustrated and they see some of the disparities and injustices. So it's not as clear cut. We need to do something about the disparities. For example, how would you deal with the fact that if you're driving, you're a black person, especially a young black person, you stand a chance of being stopped three times more than a white person. Not only that but just in a greater likelihood of being asked to exit your vehicle and you stand a greater chance of being arrested sent into the system than a white person. I'm talking about the disparity. I'm not saying that white people are 00:55:00not stopped and arrested, because they are. But the disparity is there. When it's three times more likely for me, how do you deal with that? We're aware of it, but how do we deal with it? We deal with it by here in town, fortunately, by chiefs-of-police coming together saying: "Hey, we can change our policies, we can change our practices, and we have a hot spot. A hot spot means that there will be greater police activity there than over here. We can change this from a hot spot to a hot person. We look, identify wrongdoers, violators, as opposed to simply going into a neighborhood where we have this, a difference of police 00:56:00activity." So based on things we're dealing with, here in town, Kalamazoo, that I'm aware of and I'm working with.

KR: Yeah, that was going to be one of our final questions. I know you're officially retired, but your work is far from over, so I was going to ask about a few other--if there are other things that you are involved in like forums with your institute and other projects.

LW: Well, like I talk about retired. I tell people frequently that, yeah, I am retired. I, in 1999 I retired. I retired from Western, but I did not retire from life. I like to feel that my life has purpose. My purpose is, hopefully, is to continue to make a difference in the lives of other people. Hopefully to make at 00:57:00least make my little milieu, one of peace and love and harmony. That's what I like to think that we can continue, we need to continue to work on. How to make us better people. And this is a global situation. I've fret an awful lot about, not just our community, not just our state or our nation, but our world. Yeah.

KR: And you have continued to really make an impact in Kalamazoo and have felt that by focusing your energies in this specific community that that's impactful.

LW: Yes.

KR: Thank you so much.

LW: Well, thank you so much for asking me to come and chat with you.

LR: Absolutely, it was wonderful to meet you and talk for a couple hours and I 00:58:00wish you hadn't retired from being a professor because I want to take a class with you.

LW: You're kind. You're so kind.