Lavelle, Robert R., March 26, 1973, tape 1, side 1

Lawrence Howard: We're on our way.

Robert Lavelle: I'm Robert Lavelle. I was born in 1915 in Cleveland, Tennessee, the son of a traveling minister who believed that anywhere the Lord felt he should go, he went. And therefore the eight children born were all born in different cities and states. [laughs] And I honestly lived in eight states before we ended up in Pittsburgh in 1923. My father died in 1925. Otherwise, I don't know where we would have finally been.

Howard: What kind of minister was he?

Lavelle: Church of God Minister.

Howard: Church of God.

Lavelle: Yeah. That's Anderson, Indiana is its base.

Howard: What church was it here, Bobby?

Lavelle: Lincoln Avenue Church. Yeah, it was on Paulson then. They were building a new church out there now? Yeah. Next to Lincoln School. Yeah. In fact, yeah, I went to Lincoln School. And I had early experiences, for example, when we were in Saint Louis and my father was going to start me to school and we walked past this pretty school. I said, There's a school. He said, No, that's not the one you go to. And we went to the one over about a block away and I says, I won't go to that one. It was falling down, you know. And I didn't know why I wouldn't go to that one except that it just wasn't pretty, you know, like the other one. And I had no knowledge of civil rights. I just couldn't understand why I had to walk past that one to go to the other one.

Lavelle: So I didn't do it. And my father, a wonderful man, says, You don't have to either. So we went back to Chicago. [laughs] It wasn't much better, of course. [laughs] And but when we came to Pittsburgh in '23 there, I think I got my first knowledge of my relationship to other people in that we were all scattered and this was the way we lived. Anytime we moved into a new city, our furniture was always 2 or 3 months behind us and so we would be farmed out to different people's homes. And my older brother Claude, two years older than I, we were always usually paired. And so we we were living up in a place called Penn Township. It's now Penn Hills and up where people could keep chickens and that type of thing and, but it's right next to the city, of course. And but there I learned the ideas of sharing, you know, that I didn't--that I guess, are part of my belief and my feelings of responsibility, you know, relationship to other people. And I think this is important because a lot of people get confused with me. They say you're supposed to be an economic person. You're always talking about moral issues. And I say, well, there's there's nothing that isn't moral based--it's the basis for everything. And once we get away from that, well, then we lose our way and we get into this maze of uncertainties and and doubts, and therefore we don't progress and we're fearful.

Lavelle: And so I sort of have to say this so that you'll have an idea where I'm coming from.

Howard: But in a way, that is it, Bob. The traditional economics of the Adam Smithian variety was fundamentally based upon values anyway.

Lavelle: Oh, sure. Oh, sure. And the Chinese today, for example, have the same type of civilization, the moral civilization, where they don't need police state, where they don't need all this money going for extraneous things, and where everyone is committed to trying to do something to build a community. And this might make me a communist, you know. [laughs] But at the outset I'd like to say that the two businesses I head--a real estate corporation, that's the land and the savings and loan, that's the money [simultaneous laughter] are inextricably bound in the economic fabric of this country and if I were to--if people were to say that I am trying to destroy it, well, then I'm trying to destroy myself and I don't think that that would hold. But nonetheless, I think that these things need to be said. You know, they just have to be part of any thing that happens, because what we're talking about are really moral issues. You know, we're talking about people, deprived people, who don't have any control over their lives. And this is always true. And there's always someone up there , good, well-meaning people who know what's best for the other people.

Lavelle: And of course, they're never going to give them anything but crumbs because no one gives away power. And so the deprived people in the areas that we're going to talk about, of course, are never given anything but from the largesse of the the power that says that you will have this and therefore nothing happens except frustrations and bitterness and eventually, you know. But that gets into [laughs] the things that my life in terms of I was--because my father died, I dropped out of high school. And I stuttered so badly and I had so many fears. And I was--I hired myself out to everyone that would take me because there was no relief. And I'm grateful for that, though, because had there been a relief, I would have--they'd have given us maybe 70% of what we needed and then we would have had--I'd have been running numbers or something like that, you know, to make the other 30% that I needed to exist. And so we didn't have that. And again, it was just a mother and eight kids ranging in age from one and a half years to about 24. And I was at the time, nine when my father died. So I hired myself out as I said, you know, I shined shoes and I plucked chicken feathers and I cut the people's grass all around.

Lavelle: And I washed the windows there for people. I ran errands for them and I cleaned the barbershop floors. And I did--I would average about 60 to $75 a week after school. And this way I was able to buy my own clothes and to feed myself in the cafeteria during the day and to still give some money at home to help meet the mortgage payment. And so that was sort of the my existence up to about 17 when I--or rather 16 when I finally dropped out of high school, 11th grade, and took a full time job. Depression was on. I was washing dishes at Boggs and Buhl's department store on the North Side. It's not there anymore, but it was a store similar to Kaufmann's, you know, smaller. And it was there that I learned a lot about the fact that I wasn't going anywhere. And so I started back at Schenley Night School, and that was in '35--'33, '33. I dropped out of school in '33, and I went back. I was in Westinghouse at the time, I went back to in Westinghouse, by the way, was about 3% Black at the time. You know it's now 100%. And I was--I started there in seventh grade and went through to 11th grade.

Gary Walters Now, let's break here and check to be sure we're getting a good reading.

Lavelle: So I went to Schenley Night School, was accredited--accredited, and I completed my requirements for a high school diploma, which I got in '35.

Lavelle: And I found I could--still couldn't do anything. So I was academic subjects. I tried to figure what it was I could do that would try to get me some type of ability to be my own self, you know, to be able to command some type of salary and respect. You know, when I--when I went for a job and someone said, What can you do? I used to say anything. And the guy said, okay, type this letter, do this. [simultaneous laughter] I couldn't do anything. So I--I finally decided I needed to learn something I could work with. And I felt maybe I wanted to be a court reporter and then having a stuttering problem and all I was so concerned about and I tried to figure some job, you know, where I could work, where I wouldn't have a lot of verbalizing to do. So I, I went back to Schenley Night and I started taking shorthand and typing. I took four years of it and bookkeeping and business law and all the different subjects I could take business wise. And it was there that I started to--and I got a job at the Courier because Ira Lewis, the president of the Courier, had two daughters, and one of them I went with.

Speaker: Which one?

Speaker: Jane! [laughs]

Lavelle: The youngest one, right. [laughs]

Lavelle: And so he felt that maybe his future son-in-law, if I was to be, you know, should maybe have a job somewhere or something like that.

Lavelle: So I got the job there and I was working on the press and wrapping papers and cleaned the floor and whatever. And that--the first day there on that job, I worked 27 straight hours, 27 straight hours. I went in at 9:00 one morning and left there at 1:00 in the afternoon next, the following afternoon, because what had happened, Joe Lewis had knocked out Max Baer [laughter] and the the demand for papers came from Chilandswitch [??], Georgia to Midnight, Mississippi to all these places, you know, that were different and no one knew where they were. And calls were coming in all night long and the presses were running and I was all in wrapping papers. Of course, everyone else was too, you know, the other people. But we didn't even know how to get them there. So I went down to the baggage station down at Pennsylvania Railroad with Bayless, the circulation manager, and we got a lot of train schedules, baggage train schedules, train schedules, period. And we started routing, mapping ways to get these papers to these places by baggage, you know, And we were able to get these papers on consignment, you know, going out. And every time we would try to take a break while the telegrams would keep coming in, you know, send so many papers. And The Courier, of course, was the largest Black institution outside North Carolina Regional [??], something like that at the time--it was.

Lavelle: And Joe Lewis was all Black people had--

Howard: You mean in the U.S. In the U.S.

Lavelle: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, were in 48--46 states at time. There were 48 states. We were in 46 of them. And my job was routing these papers to these places in addition to doing all the other things. And of course, I learned about the railroads and I learned about transportation. I learned about a lot of things just by this type of thing. And I got $10 a week for it.

Howard: Right.

Lavelle: [laughs] That's right. I worked 80 or 90 hours that first week. And when I came out of out of Ira Lewis' office with the five and five ones that he counted out to me, and I walked out of the office and there was Daisy Lampkin sitting there--you never knew Daisy Lampkin. Daisy Lampkin was the vice president of the NAACP and vice president of The Courier. [laughs] And so she says, Hey there, give me a dollar. I said, You must be crazy. I just $10 a night. Give me a dollar for what? Well, the NAACP membership and I worked too hard. I'm sorry. You know. Well, you know, she went on, well she got the dollar, you know, 10% of my wages. She got 10% of it for NAACP because we were reading about the Scottsboro Boys, you know, who were sentenced to death for so-called raping, you know, these girls who were on this train with them and all, you know, and I and I started and I knew these issues, you know, And Miss Lampkin, Daisy could put it to me so well and so right there.

Lavelle: Well, that began my first, I guess, exposure to relationship to people in Alabama and people everywhere else. See. And it's a high price 10% of your wages for when when you're only making $10. But it wasn't a high price when I thought about these people, see, but this was part and parcel of everything. And we kept on to these courses. And I finally went to Mr. Vann, who was the assistant Attorney General at the time, appointed by Roosevelt and head of The Courier. He was a very prominent attorney. Quite a great mind. And he was, you know, just a big guy. And he liked me. You know, he was nice. And I would drive in different places. We'd talk. And so one day, though, I said to him, I said, Mr. Vann, I think that The Courier needs someone to do their--keep their books in a better way than what they're being kept, you know, to really organize. We're getting big and and we really should have our own auditor. And because we were calling in White people, you know, to come in and do books and he said, Well, yeah, but we don't have any.

Lavelle: I said, Well, why doesn't The Courier pay my salary, pay my tuition at Pitt? You know, I said, I'll even go at night and I will guarantee that I'll return it to The Courier. And so he looked at it. He thought it was a pretty good idea. He said, I'll talk it over with Ira, that was Mr. Lewis. So I didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks. And I finally asked Mr. Lewis, I said, I made a proposal to Mr. Vann and I didn't hear anything on it. He said, Yeah. He said, We felt that, Mr. Vann and I talked it over and we felt that you were more valuable to us in general, all-around work. This way you'd have a specialty, you know, and we wouldn't have your uses for general, all-around work. You know, it didn't take me long to understand that they didn't want me [simultaneous laughter] to have something that where I could even a Black person didn't want me to be able to say, Look, I can do this and I want to make this. You know, they wanted to continue to have me as a flunky, so to speak. And so that was, of course, a big thing. It was--it hurt me and it angered me and it did a lot of things to me, but did enough to me to make me say, well, I'm going to do something myself.

Lavelle: So I talked to my mother about it and she said--well, we didn't have any money. You know, my mother was an invalid and I had a power of attorney and everything because I sort of had a business sense, you know. And she says, but I said, well, I just have to start the school as I can't just do this, you know? And she said, Well, all that I have are a couple of these industrial insurance [buzzer sounds] policies. So should I just keep going? So the I said, well, let me--what value do they have? And so each of them were about $500. And so I found that one of them had a value of about $87. And my mother gave me that policy and I cashed it in for $87. And the Pitt tuition at the time was $10 a credit. And so I came over with $50 of the 87 and told them that I wanted to start. And I was so deficient in my high school that I had to you know, they looked at my record and they said, No, you--it wasn't a very good record, but except when I was going to night school at Schenley Night, my high school wasn't good because of my problems of stuttering and all and kids laughing at me. And I would duck the times when I had to give talks and things like that. But anyway, I'll try to make this brief. [laughs]

Lavelle: I decided, though--I told them when I registered here that I wanted to get into degree status and they said, Oh, you know, how do you plan to make it? And I said, well, I don't know. I just think I should be degree status. And there again, I was sort of discouraged, you know--but no one gave me any encouragement, you know. But I just said, well, I have to do this. And, and I didn't think I'd ever finish, but yet I felt I should be degree status. So I took a three credit course in English, the regular freshman composition English and two credits in accounting. And that was my basis and everyone, even my family said, What are you taking English for? What good's that going to do you? I said, Well, if I'm going to get credit, I have to have, you know, basic things. And I knew my deficiencies and I didn't have much encouragement from anyone. And when I would be walking up the--up and over the hill from The Courier to classes and I'd see all my friends riding by in the May evening and Hey, Bob, come on. You know, I had to go to school. Oh boy, you, you know, they shake their head. But, and sometimes I wondered if I was crazy, but came on and at the four years of it, I had about 22 credits at the four years.

Lavelle: And but at this time, of course, the war is on and it's 1943. And I had been exempted for two years because I took care of my mother. But my older brother was also claiming her. So finally the both of us worked at the Courier. He was in advertising, Frank, and so they called--draft board, called him in, and he says, Well, I'm older, take my, take my younger brother. [laughter] So it actually happened. So they said, Well, we're going to take you. And I just got married. So, I had thought the end of the world had come for me when they said they were going to take me. But it turned out that was a beginning for me. They had me in the Navy and I fought it because nothing but mess people in Navy, you know. And I, and they had me in there until they found out I was colorblind. And they thought I was faking it. And--and it turned out I wasn't faking it. I didn't know I was colorblind until I looked at those charts and see those numbers. And so I got--got out of the Navy and they drafted me and sent me to Indiantown, to Washington, Fort Meade, with all the rest of the kids from here. And I was there four days for these indoctrinations and everything. And then we were sent to Indiantown Gap. That's right up here near Harrisburg.

Lavelle: We got in Harrisburg and we were assigned to a port battalion. You know, the port battalion unloaded the ships, you know, labor battalion--all Black. And I was sitting in the mess hall that first night, we just got in and it's a giant mess hall, I guess 2 or 3000 people eating. And we all have our nametags on us. I've been in the Army five days and I hear someone calling on this big loud speaker, Private Robert Lavelle, you know, And so I heard it. I said, huh, it must be another Robert Lavelle. So I kept on eating and there was a lot of guys at the table sitting there. So the call came through again real more loudly, you know. And so I listen, it's funny, but no one knows I'm here, you know. But the rest of the guys at the table were looking at me, You know, they said, What's your name? Hey, what's your first? I said, Robert, they're calling you. I said, No, no one knows I'm here. So next time, boy, it says Private Robert Lavelle report immediately. So-and-so said, Well, I better go see. So there's a Black second lieutenant waiting there and you hear your name being called. Well, I didn't know it was me. You know, I didn't get it right away. I wonder what was the matter--my wife or something. But he says, you know, you from Pittsburgh?

Lavelle: Worked at the Pittsburgh Courier? Went to University of Pittsburgh? Yeah. Come with me--I haven't finished eating! But I went with him, and there I was, brought before Lieutenant Colonel, who was very nervous and everything. And he was sitting in this pouring down rain in a little barracks place. And I didn't know what was really happening, you know, I've been here only five days. And he says, so this guy started reading my record to me--clerical, you know, shorthand, typing all these things, you know, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh courier, you know. Yeah, yeah. He says, Well, you're going to stay here and you're going to, he says, we need you. And I didn't realize why, but they had a cadre, you know, to form battalions. You know, they would send men to form battalions who were experienced and so forth. But what they would do, they would get rid of their, their GFU's. You know, the people that, you know, guys that mess up and they sent as a cadre to form this thousand man battalion--port battalion, guys that couldn't read and write couldn't do anything. So this colonel, lieutenant colonel, you know, had this responsibility to get this battalion together ready for overseas assignment in three months. And he had didn't have anyone who could do anything. So he was going through these records. You know, he and he had a corps of half Black and half White officers, which was good.

Lavelle: You know, I got my first chance to see Black officers, you know, but none of them had command. But they were there and they had me at the first just start doing things. You know, They he said, Well, I got to know who, he said, I have an assignment here of all these people. He says, I have to have morning rosters, duty rosters, have to have financial statements, have to have all these things. And he says, you can do these things. I said, I don't know anything about Army. Well, you get together, these are the regulations, you know. He says, I'll give you any men you want. He says, but you got to get started here because he said, by tomorrow morning we have to know what we're doing. And I worked all night. It's a fact. But I started selecting people from these records, you know, and I started building the cadre around me of fellows who knew something about typing, knew something about clerical work, knew something about administration. And I received the title of Battalion Sergeant Major. And honestly, without a day's basic training, without anything. But of course I didn't have the stripes yet, you know. But, but I--that's right. It was a fantastic situation. In fact, the general of the camp, when he found out there was a guy with shorthand when they come up for a general court martial.

Lavelle: And I had to go up there and well, the colonel was really hot then, but I was the hottest guy in the camp, you know, really. And it was amazing situation. And I had never had any roles like this, you know, being thrust in responsibility where I had to to make decisions. You know, I had to do things and this colonel was dependent on it. And so I was sitting there reading the regulation with one hand and typing with the other, you know. But what happened was, inside of a week, I was a first--private first class. And the next week I was a corporal. The next week I was a sergeant. And two weeks after that I was a staff sergeant. Two weeks after that I was a tech sergeant, two weeks after that I was a master sergeant. And inside of six weeks I had all the stripes up and down. And, and--but I had, I had an organization going too, you know, the thing I had to get out there and form the battalion and everything for the [??] dress. And I didn't even know how to march or about--face, you know, they taught me all night. But it was pretty strenuous, strenuous. But a funny thing happened. I got a pass to go home because my wife was pregnant and the colonel was, I was his boy! You know. But he gave me a pass to go home and I went home about three weeks later with these sergeant stripes on my arms and everyone had seen me leave, you know. [laughter]

Lavelle: So right away they had the MPs pick me up for impersonating a non-commissioned officer. [laughter] And, but I had my orders, you know, that I had typed up myself, of course, at the Colonel's. And they let me go that way.

Howard: Who was the colonel?

Lavelle: Oh, yeah. Colonel Bush. Oh, he was a great guy.

Howard: Colonel Bush.

Lavelle: Yeah, great guy. And--but they finally relieved him because he didn't do things as fast as the Army thought they should. And he brought another guy who was supposed to be an efficiency expert and he had problems. And that's where I started finding out about people. I mean, people that I used to think were big people and didn't have any problems, I found had many problems [laughs] as I did. And it was quite helpful [laughs] to me to find that other people were the same as me, because when I was a little kid and shining shoes in Wilkinsburg and I didn't have enough sense to get off the street at night, in the evening on a Saturday evening when these hooded people would come and they'd have these horses hooded and they--everyone would be gone. These the street would be sort of quiet. There wouldn't be a Black person around but me and I looked at one horse because it always fascinated me to see a horse hooded. And I noticed these spurs sticking out from under the sheet.

Lavelle: And I lifted up the spurs and hands [imitates hitting sound] hit me. You know, hit my hand [imitates hitting sound], get away, boy. You better get off the sreet. And I recognized the leggings as well as the voice. I'd shined those leggings [laughs] that day in my barber shop, you know, And I knew the policeman. And it really--it again did something to me, you know. I mean, the fears of not having any, any power and not having anyone to respect you, not having anyone to-- [simultaneous speaking] --no matter what you were trying to do. You know, I was--I was biding by all the rules, you know, I was, but I wasn't articulating this. But I knew that I was trying to, to be a good person. And I had no defense for somebody, you know, hitting me and telling me get off the street. Although I guess it wasn't an unkind thing. He could have used a crop, you know, the horse thing on me. But it was--

Howard: Was that the Klan, Bob?

Lavelle: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wilkinsburg, yeah. They're now the Birchers. Oh, yeah, man. Yeah. And yet it was a holy city, a church on every corner. Yes, sure. And saw no relationship between [laughs] the holy city and and man's inhumanity to man, I guess because I found that I wasn't a person. And but this is--this was the biggest thing of all, you know, in the Army when I ran across this type of thing.

Lavelle: And when I became an officer, when I--

Howard: When was that?

Lavelle: In 1944. I--see, reading the regulations and all when we, I shipped us overseas, the battalion overseas. And I had responsibility for three, $3 million worth of equipment, I didn't even know what it was. I had cranes, I had high lifts, I had pallets, and jeeps and I didn't even know and winches, and gear and stuff, you know? And I had manifest and manifest, you know, and I knew what a manifest was, but, you know, this is learning. And I got overseas and there was all this stuff waiting for me. And, and we started setting up our tents and I had responsibility for these 1000 guys, you know, supplying them. And a tidal wave comes the third or fourth night and washes out everything. And lucky none of us were were killed. And there we were, bereft of anything. And I started requisitioning and couldn't get anything. Oh, I was a warrant officer then, I became a warrant officer two months after I was in the army. You know, warrant officer is a guy--

Howard: Yes. [laughter]

Lavelle: And I was in supply. But I had to read the regulation. This same colonel, though you know, when he found out he needed a warrant officer of supply, Lavelle you're it, you know, and moved another guy into this slot I was. Okay, I learned how to be a warrant officer supplier and went before this court, you know, to answer the questions became.

Howard: And so I shipped the--I had the responsibility to ship the outfit overseas with all the equipment, you know. And so when I got there and we didn't have any equipment and I couldn't get anything, well, requisitions meant nothing. And we had 1000 men. So, you know, I never had any command positions or anything and didn't have one then actually, because a supply, a warrant officer was just an administrative type person, but no one was doing anything else. I, I got--I had trucks, so I got some drivers and I said, let's go find something. So we went out and started going reconnaissance and the island couldn't find anything. We came to Pearl--Pearl Harbor. So I went up to the gate and wouldn't let me in, the army, you know, only letting the navy in. And I said, well, I just want to talk to somebody. And there was a CWO there, though, another warrant officer, you know, chief, chief petty officer. And he says, what is it you want? And I explained my situation to him. So the guy let me in and he called and made some arrangements with some other people. You know, all the ships that were sunk that were, you know and all, they had--they were salvaging them, you know, scrapping them. They had just--they only had warehouses and piles and stuff. No end. You know, we just anything we needed, they had it.

Howard: So instead of slit trenches, I took commodes, flush commodes, you know, that they had in these ships and all. And this colonel that I was telling you about was an engineer, engineering, right. And we we were the only outfit in the island with flush toilets [laughter], and everyone else had slit trenches. And we were the ones that washed out and we--and we didn't--we had lost everything we had.

Howard: This is '44?

Lavelle: This is in 40, yeah, '43 and going into '44. And, but I'm just sort of giving you this background to show you what the Army did for me. I mean, this is what opened up the world for me. See, because at this point, I'm, I'm doing things that I have to be doing to exist. And it's sort of what I always had done, but I didn't realize it. And this colonel, you know, who's being--everything's being done for him, he gives me a superior on my rating sheet. You know, a superior in the Army is a fantastic rating. And, but it's that superior that got me back to the states to go to OCS [ed. note: Officer Candidate School] because they needed people back here who had experience overseas and who knew different things. But I got the call to come back here right at the time when the outfit was being assigned to Philippines and Leyte. You know in the thrust forward.

Howard: What was the number of that?

Lavelle: 504. Port Battalion. Ran into a guy just last week--

Howard: I was in 587. Lavelle: --who was in the same.

Lavelle: Is it? Is that right? [laughter]

Howard: That's right. In the Philippines. Anyway.

Lavelle: Is that right?

Lavelle: Yeah, but my outfit has broke up. We became--there were five, four companies that became separate companies, you know, that went to separate areas. One went to Leyte, one went to Saipan, one went to--and the other two were in the Philippines proper. But I left it in Hawaii. Howard: You went back. Lavelle: Yeah, right. Oh, man. Howard: To where? Washington? Lavelle: No, to Fort Lee. And I became a commission officer there. But there's where. See, when I got back there, everyone, I was a big deal, you know guy--warrant officer overseas, you know a class. And so right away the guy gives me the assignment to march the company to the you know, these guys who got off this train to the barracks. I couldn't march anyone. I didn't count cadence, you know [laughs]. But that's where all this started coming out. And boy, this West Point guy when he found out? Well, he was very upset. He was a guy that never did--had his basic training. And he gave me three weeks to find out what it was about or wash out. Half the outfit did wash out. But of course, I found out what it was about. I just stayed up all night, you know? And so when he gave me an assignment of commanding, of being a sergeant and then you have to work, and then he had everyone else have something happen to him all the way up to the to the battalion commanders.

Lavelle: I suddenly, as a sergeant, was a battalion commander in OCS. And this meant I had responsibility for this whole class, which at this time was down to about 120. I started about 240 and I had to take them to class, 23 subjects every day and then take them on the field trips at night and then get them back together, you know, and it's amazing what happens, how you can perform, you know, when you sort of have to and-- Howard: Did you go back overseas, Bob, again? Lavelle: No, I went back to, um, I didn't stay at Lee because I wouldn't take the, the segregated set up in the officer's club there. You know, I would have I had a guy agrees a pad for me, you know. But Colonel Watson, the guy there, he was a great White father. And I wasn't about to be his boy, you know, and I well, at least I didn't openly, you know, I just said that I said things that got me sent back to California. And there I ended up with a provisional company, a quartermaster company. And that's where I was separated, finally out there as a first lieutenant. But I was offered, offered, offered a regular army captaincy to stay in.

Howard: Is that '46 now?

Lavelle: That's '46 now. Regular Army captaincy. But I and boy, everyone would give their right arm to take it. But I just said, man, I can't stand this light, you know. And it wasn't any you know, it's just a fake life. And I came back here at the $50 a week job at the Courier and trying to make my way and, you know, with my family, my wife and my one child at the time. And we had another child in '48. And but at this time, I'm really struggling at The Courier because courier is not really giving me any type of recognition, so to speak, you know, opportunities. They--things were pretty well crystallized while I was away in terms of how they wanted things. So but I was still in school and I got a bachelor's from Pitt in 1951, and since I still had oh, GI Bill did that, though, you know, I was taking 14 to 16 credit hours at night and going and working The Courier during the day. And then I went back to--one of the courses I took in '47, seminars course in real estate because I had a free hour and I just felt I should take, you know, instead of horsing around, I decided to take that course and I got very interested in that.

Lavelle: And I continued to take them. So when I got my bachelor's, I decided since I still had time on my GI Bill to go back and take a master's in real estate and insurance, which was a new school at the time, chaired by Arch Wood--Archibald Woodruff. And there were about seven of us in that school. In 1954, four of us completed--three of us completed. And but there's a whole lot of stuff I'm skipping that that is relevant, such as in '51, I had a--well, I almost finished with honors. I guess I had four C's. That's all I had. The rest were all A's and B's and and I was pretty good, you know, I mean, I had I sort of knew what was going on and the campus was swarming with people from Hines and Koppers and Steel, steel and everybody. Not a soul. Not one person interviewed me. Nobody. Howard: For a job? Lavelle: That's right. For anything. That's right. And in '54, when I completed the master's year in real estate and insurance and walked into National Union Fire Insurance Company on University Place right here, I don't think they're there anymore. I walked in there with my diploma that day.

Lavelle: I said, here I am. I'll be your agent, you know. Well, I couldn't get past the front desk to fact and had more qualifications than anybody. And there were 4 or 5 kids, 4 or 5 people who were in insurance in my master's classes courses, you know, during the three years who were saying, Boy, Bob, we'll be glad to have you. And when they talked to whoever it was they had to talk to, they weren't you know, they didn't say any more about it. And so I had to become a subagent with a firm in town in order to even write insurance. I couldn't write it myself, a subagent. I couldn't get taken on by anyone. That's 1954. It's unbelievable. A guy who plays by all the rules, you know, and still can't participate. So I came out of the. Yeah. I came out of The Courier in '56. Opened my own real estate office and had an answering service and my wife would come in during between hours that my kid--that the kids were in school. And so I was able to work in the evening time to sell houses and stuff when I became a broker in '51. Real estate broker, I became a salesman, '49, after taking a seminar course.

Howard: I'm in no rush. I just was checking to see the time.

Lavelle: Yeah, right, right. Yeah.

Walters: I'll interrupt you when this needs flipped.

Howard: I get that. Very good background. Yeah. Both the conditions and the attitude and the development. Lavelle: Right. Howard: What was Pittsburgh like when you got back from the war?

Lavelle: Well, it was like it is now, except that it didn't have the redevelopment areas going on. The Renaissance was on that you have read about and know the coalition of Lawrence and Mellon interests to bring it about and what had happened during the time that the war was on, you know, was this understanding of what had what they planned to do. And it seemed that there was a plan derived wherein the people who formerly lived in the areas near the industries that downtown represented, Pittsburgh had and still has the home port of a lot of major industries, you know, like Westinghouse, US Steel and Alcoa. And these people had formerly lived in the areas, the periphery of the downtown when it was good, you know, back in the late 1800s. And they had moved on, you know, and when the housing became older and they wanted to get away from some of the smoke and grime and, you know, moved out a little bit somewhere else and sold their home to a lesser advantaged income person who in turn sold to lesser event income person, White person always, of course. So by the time there was no lesser advantaged income White person to buy and it's still trying to find a way to keep it maintained. Well, that's when a Black person, you know, becomes the occupant, not the owner, however, the occupant of the property. And so the slum develops always on the periphery of the downtown areas, you know, the first areas where people could go into their work and come back. You know, this is a way of slum develops. And of course, the Black person is a victim of it rather than the cause.

Lavelle: But he's blamed for it, you know, without any because it's always easier to blame someone than to recognize your own responsibility. So Pittsburgh was like that. And with the area around the downtown, the downtown being renewed, so to speak, with the beginning with the point area where equitable, equitable life, you know, came in with their plan and they started this major type of rehabilitation, renewal and all that. And the Wabash Railroad determined, you know, that it was not going to exist. And so the area started taking on a plan. And I really wasn't part of the plan. I don't know how it evolved except that as I saw it and as I'm relating it, but there was a National Geographic story on it. I don't know if you have that that magazine. You may check it at the library. On Saturday night, you know, when I was coming here, I looked for my National Geographic copy of it, but I had long since given it out. But that National Geographic copy was my ability, was the research and resource of my ability to understand what was going on. Because I guess few Blacks took National Geographic, you know, I did for my kids because I wanted them to understand, you know, of course the TV, it started going away, but that National Geographic issue was somewhere between '63 and '65, as I recall. And I brought it to one of the meetings of Citizens Committee for Hill District Renewal. This is a group that we have formed in 1963 to stop the bulldozing of the Hill District.

Howard: The Citizens Group for--

Lavelle: Citizens Committee for Hill District Renewal, CCHDR. This was to be the umbrella group to coalesce all the Black groups, neighborhood groups in the Hill [ed. note: the Hill District] under one umbrella where these they would send delegates to this group and we would work together and try to make sure every group was viable and doing what it could do best to try to improve and help. But what we ran into there, of course, was the autonomy of the neighborhood groups and the zealous power of their power, you know, and the feelings of.

Howard: Who were some of the groups, Bob. Do you remember?

Lavelle: Yeah, the well, the largest one was the Hill District Community Council. And that still exists on paper with Walter Worthington as the executive of it. They have a dinner once every two years or something like that, but that's about all they do. But I was a member of that too. What I'm saying is I was a member of every group and everything that there was, I was a member of it, and that's why I could see the need for this, although I wasn't the catalyst for this. Lynn Hill, if you know Lorenzo Hill, he's Hill House president, and Mrs. Pace, she was the owners, landlord and tenants council head landlords and tenants council. A name like that, she could better give you Mrs. Frankie Pace. Yes, that was another group. And Lynn Hill be in the interested in. There were three there were three settlement houses at the time Hill City and Anna B. Heldman and Soho Community and they were formed into one Hill House you know all two. And they their job was to organize, help the community organize to self-help, you know, to protect and do itself. But of course, it was funded by the federal funds that control, I mean by the community chest and all these agencies that are whose boards constitute the people in power and the corporations and the institutions and all, and therefore who really don't have any ability to see that that they're dispensing their largesse and their prejudicial standpoints or whatever they feel. And again, well-meaning but not understanding that what the communities were really trying to do, all they couldn't articulate it. It was to have self-determination. This is still the issue, see, but it becomes confused with all the other stuff.

Howard: And what were they organizing about? I mean, what were the grievances that they were organizing to resist?

Lavelle: Yeah, well, the further bulldozing of the of the Black areas without any say in what happens to it. Now, it wasn't that we weren't saying that the areas didn't need attention. What we were saying was--what I was saying was and everyone of course brought to it their experience and backgrounds and understanding and why I was there was to try to bring mind to it, you know, so that we could all what we were saying was that we had the right to have a say in what happens to us, just as simple as that. See, but that can get so confusing, see, because people always feel that they know what what you know, they know what's best for you. But that's paternalism, that's condescension. And that's all the things that that we always have, whether it's government or whether it's agency or whether it's institution or whatever it is, you know, it's superimposing this these values that they already know what is best.

Lavelle: And yet. If anyone looked historically, they could see that that this is the same road that all civilizations have traveled to defeat. You know.

Lavelle: That that--that you somehow have to try to suffer through the building of self development of individuals who in turn, once they are fully developed in terms of understanding of who they are, what their purpose in life is, what meaning of life is, then they can start seeing their relationship to other people who have to help them to bring about these things because they can't live alone.

Howard: Now, Bob, were there--speaking on the details of this in the bulldozing. Were there arrangements for relocation of people, as you recall?

Lavelle: Well, yeah, they call up Bob Lavelle. [laughs] I had a real estate office, you know, in the Hill, and there was another White real estate office in the Hill that cared nothing about the Jill. Of course, you know, they lived outside the Hill and they controlled most of the Hill and owned a lot of the properties. But people would call me and I was--I would try to help relocate people. Even in terms of rentals, that meant no money to me or anything, just from trying to be, you know, to help relocate people. But the how the--