South Bend's Own Words

On June 29, 1922, several hundred people attended a special, two-hour evening opening of the new Engman Public Natatorium. By September, South Bend’s Parks Board estimated almost 10,000 people took advantage of the brand-new facility. It is unclear exactly when the white people in charge of the Natatorium first denied entry to African American people—but they did. And as a taxpayer funded, suppose...

Madeline Smothers was born in Rockville, Illinois, in 1917. By 1935, she joined members of her extended family living in South Bend’s east side, soon befriending people in power like lawyers J. Chester and Elizabeth Fletcher Allen. At this time, South Bend was rapidly evolving—but for African Americans who left the South to chase factory jobs up north, they were still confronting the entrenched ra...

Jack Reed was about four or five years old when his mother moved him from Tennessee to South Bend. He absorbed a strong desire to work watching his mother clean other people’s homes. The job he desired most was as a state police officer. The Indiana State Police, however, did not hire African Americans. Jack eventually served as the first African American Battalion Chief in the South Bend Fire Dep...

Dr. Les Lamon was a long-time history Professor at IU South Bend. In 2000, he started the Freedom Summer class that brought students on a bus tour through the civil rights movement in the U.S. South. David Healey was a student in that class. Inspired by his experience, he became an early founding member of the Civil Rights Heritage Center on campus and led the early Oral History program. His effor...

In the 1970s, Ricardo Parra helped organize and direct a new midwest chapter of the National Council of La Raza, a progressive Chicano political advocacy group. Over the following decades, both Ricardo and his wife, Olga Villa, became integrally involved in South Bend’s growing Latinx community. They allied themselves with almost every local organization, like La Raza, El Campito children’s center...

In 1952, three-year-old Ralph Miles moved with his family to South Bend after an uncle told Ralph's father that the Bendix company was hiring.  Ralph’s special needs school gave him work well beyond his grade level. He left that school to attend Harrison and then Washington. The work was on grade level, and way too easy for him. Bored, and without appropriate emotional and learning spaces, he...

In the 1920s, Lucille Sneed’s parents left Tennessee for South Bend to work at Studebaker. They were part of the first wave of African Americans migrating north chasing what they saw as opportunities in factory jobs.  During World War II, Lucille’s brother was called into military service. Lucille took his place at the Studebaker factory.  She stayed after her brother returned. Lucille l...

Do you know someone whose story about South Bend should be preserved?  We're seeking nominations for new oral history recordings. Every year, we'll invite about six people with unique, compelling stories to share how they experienced South Bend's past.  Nominate someone now: https://go.iu.edu/3WVo Learn more about the new oral history recording project: https://mailchi.mp/8d6594f2e6f8/kn...

In 1867, the people inhabiting what we now call South Bend established a corporation to run community schools. Today, few things are as important, or as fought over, as our public schools. This episode shares stories from people who were children in South Bend schools from the early through late-mid 20th century, as well as stories from people who, as adults, fought for change.  Narrators inc...

Dale Gibson was a long-time resident of South Bend, and a teacher at Adams and the former LaSalle High School.  As a white man, he neither experienced nor recognized the segregation happening in South Bend. In college, an attempt to bring a Black friend to a local swimming pool sparked a life-long interest in the anti-war and racial justice movements.  Dale was actively involved with Sou...

Marguerite Taylor is a long time resident of South Bend’s north east side. She’s the daughter of Renelda Robinson, a neighborhood leader honored as the namesake of the Robinson Community Learning Center. As a girl, Renelda got to travel by playing softball for a local chapter of the The American Negro Girls Softball League. She did this when sports not only segregated women, but the few white wome...

Jerome Perkins was one of the first African Americans to serve as a police officer in South Bend, serving from 1952 to 1972. Back then, just like now, deep frustrations over African Americans’ treatment at the hands of police grew ever deeper. Jerome answered a call from the Mayor who hoped to improve community relationships by installing more Black officers. In 2003, David Healey sat down with Of...

Savino Rivera, Sr. is a bilingual educator and coach with two decades of service to the South Bend Community School Corporation. He's the child of two migrant farm workers. When his father left the family, his mother continued farm work to support him and his nine brothers and sisters. With her working almost every hour almost every day, and with no history in the U.S. school system, Savino had to...

Jeannette Hughes' father taught church history. The job meant she and her family moved to many different college towns around the U.S. Being part of a fundamentalist faith group, Jeannette had little conception of a transgender identity. She had, as she called it, “a normal boyhood.” Still, she knew that she wanted her cousins to call her “Sandy,” and felt more herself sitting down to use the bath...

Willie Mae Butts was born in West Virginia. She came to South Bend in 1952 when her husband decided to open a medical practice along West Washington.  Willie Mae devoted so much of her time—to working with her husband’s medical practice, to raising her children, and to many local causes, including as the first African American woman elected to South Bend’s Human Rights Commission.  In 20...

Ben Johnson is best known as one of only thirty people who served all eight years in President Bill Clinton’s administration.  His parents were sharecroppers from Arkansas who moved to South Bend when Ben was a young child. Ben spent many years here, and became a strong advocate in the fight for African American equality. That advocacy brought him into contact with people in power. It encoura...

The late Rep. John Lewis speaks at Indiana University South Bend in 2001. In 2001, Charlotte Pfeifer was Director of Indiana University South Bend’s Office of Campus Diversity as well as a South Bend Common Council representative. That year she led the fifth in a series of events called “Conversations On Race.” The keynote speaker was Representative John Lewis. John Lewis passed away last Friday a...

NOTE: Work on this episode of South Bend’s Own Words started before the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. With respect to the uprisings in cities across the U.S. right now, we wanted to be sure their names were said. There are far too many other names to share, and our city is not immune to police violence. The murder of Eric Logan last year was only the latest in a long...

Jenell Kauffman learned to embrace dual identities. Born with the name John Danforth, Jenell knew as early as age six that "it would be nice" to be a woman. What Jenell lacked was the language of the transgender experience. As a young person, John knew there were people who were cross-dressers, or drag queens. But the world John lived in was strictly gendered: girls wore girls’ clothes, and boys w...

Bishop Donald L. Alford is a staple along South Bend’s Western Avenue. He’s the founder and pastor of Pentecostal Cathedral Church of God in Christ, and also the founder and owner of Alford’s Mortuary. A lifelong resident of South Bend, Bishop Alford graduated from Washington High School in 1957.  In 2007, Bishop Alford sat down with Indiana University South Bend professor Les Lamon, and stud...

Federico served as the first Latino fire fighter in South Bend. While there, his white colleagues gave him the nickname “Chico.” It’s a name he’s grown to embrace. He was born near the Rio Grande Valley to migrant farm worker parents. Chico’s mother insisted that the family stay put somewhere, and through family they found permanent jobs at the Dodd Farm on South Bend’s west side. With a stable li...

Glenda Rae Hernandez embraced the movement for civil rights in the U.S. south. As a college student, she signed petitions not to eat at Woolworth’s until they integrated their lunch counters. She even attended a lecture by a young Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King.  In 1965, Glenda and her husband moved to South Bend. She soon began advocating for her south east neighborhood, became an early a...

Dr. Irving Allen is the son of Elizabeth Fletcher and J. Chester Allen. They were lawyers who, among their many actions, helped integrate the Engman Public Natatorium. As black professionals though, the Allen’s faced aggressions—mostly from their South Bend neighbors and colleagues, but even from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  In August 2004, Dr. Allen sat down with Dr. Les Lamon, David Heale...

Andrea Petrass lived almost her whole life in South Bend. She was assigned male at birth, and though she was able to play the part of a boy, she knew she wanted to be one of the girls. Without any role models of people who had transitioned, she had no language to express that as an option. In 2015, before her transition, Andrea sat down with Dr. Jamie Wagman from St. Mary’s College. They talked ab...

On April 4, 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist. The news echoed throughout the U.S. We hear from five people in South Bend who remember that day and the immediate aftermath: Charlotte Huddleston, Willie Mae Butts, Lynn Coleman, George Neagu, and Karen White.  Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents th...