Memoirs of a Highland Park Player

by Ronnie Rivers

Overview

Born as Ronnie Eugene Rivers on March 15, 1957, third son of six siblings that include two older brothers and three younger sisters. I was raised by my mother, Thelma Rivers, and my grandmother Nettie Harris. I graduated from Highland Park High School where I excelled at football, basketball, baseball, track, and swimming. I won the all-city diving championship in my senior year 1975. I attended Highland Park Community College where I majored in business and I minored in dance. I also took over my dance instructor’s class when she left. I became a teacher as well as a student at the college. I then attended the Detroit Business Institute, and I also graduated from Austin’s Modeling School and Agency. I became a professional model and modeling instructor and started my own modeling troupe. I started teaching modern dance and aerobics and became a personal trainer and masseuse. I became a proud father of three beautiful children to whom I devoted my life for their happiness and security.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496937599
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	09/08/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	140
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Memoirs of a Highland Park Player

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By Ronnie Rivers

AuthorHouse LLC

Copyright © 2014 Ronnie Rivers
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-3760-5

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CHAPTER 1

The history of highland park

It was a bright summer day in August of 1963. I was about six years old when our family moved from the east side of Detroit to Highland Park. Man oh man what a difference. It looked like a place right out of a fairy tale. Every street was lined with beautiful, leafy trees. There were trees in everyone's backyard. There were apple trees, cherry trees, plum trees, and peach trees.

I can remember walking down the alleys and gathering grapes from the fences of our neighbors backyards where grapevines were in abundance. My mom never had to buy fruit from the market. She would give us bags and tell us to go to a neighbor's backyard and get fruit there. Also, the city of Highland Park made sure that the streets were always clean. You would see the street cleaning trucks sweeping the streets and alleys twice a week. Highland Park was beautiful and growing up there was every kid's dream.

Before Highland Park became a city the area was undeveloped farmland. In 1818 the land was purchased by Detroit Judge Augustus B. Woodward and then by another Detroit Judge Benjamin F. H. Witherell who was the son of Supreme Court justice James Witherell. Neither of the two judges proved successful in building a city on the land. But later, in 1873 a Post office called Whitewood gained possession of the land and soon Highland Park was recognized as a community within Greenfield Township and Hamtramck Township.

When the construction of the Highland Park Ford plant was completed in 1909, the area's population grew considerably with the demand for employees. Henry Ford opened the first assembly line at the Highland Park Ford plant in 1913 and in 1918 Highland Park was incorporated as a city. By 1920 the population had grown from 4,120 residents to 46,500 residents. An expansion of this magnitude set records for increases in population and allowed Highland Park to resist takeover efforts from Detroit.

As business in Highland Park continued to grow, traffic from Detroit to Highland Park became congested. Davison Avenue was initially the only street linking Highland Park to Detroit. And by 1940 this became a problem since the streets were always over crowded. On March 17, 1941 the Highland Park City Council approved a proposal to rebuild Davison Avenue as a six-lane, limited-access highway. By 1944 the Davison Freeway was open and ran through the center of the city.

Many companies opened up shop in Highland Park and jobs were in abundance. Life was good for the residents of Highland Park until the late 1950's. During that time, Ford Motor Company closed its Highland Park plant and moved to other cities and took the tax base with it. Also, in order to live closer to their jobs, most employees of the plant moved out of the city and many others were laid off. Because of the layoffs street crime increased and the white citizens began to flee the city in droves.

Now, up until the late 1950's the residents of Highland Park were 90% white and they were leaving behind a beautiful city and their large gorgeous homes. Soon, Blacks began to populate this awe inspiring city. They were more than happy to move into these grand homes once owned by the upper class white folks. Most of the Blacks who migrated to Highland Park were from the South and had escaped from racism and inhumane treatment. This city known as the "City of Trees" was like paradise to them.

Thirteen years after the Ford plant closed, my family moved to Highland Park. I was a young boy and I knew nothing about Henry Ford or any of the problems that the city was having. I was just happy to be there. I was the third of six children whom my mother raised as a single parent. During her pregnancy my mother had been hoping for a girl since she'd already had two boys. She said that she was fed up with boys and wanted a daughter of her own. So when the nurse told her that I was a boy, my mother became upset. The nurse had then asked her if she had picked out a name for me and my dear mother replied "No Damn Mo". The nurse asked my mother if she really wanted to name me that. My mom replied "Yes! No damn mo!" The nurse then told my mother that she could not name this beautiful child "No damn mo".

My mother wanted a baby girl so bad that she didn't even want to look at me. But God fixed her. He made me the prettiest little baby she had ever seen. I had a head full of curly black hair, two big brown eyes and soft caramel colored skin. Once my mom finally decided to take me from the nurse, she fell hopelessly in love with me and forgot all about having a baby girl. At each holiday event after my birth my mother would tell that story to our family and friends, not realizing or caring that it was traumatizing me.

My mother was the type of mother who would love you to death but if you got on her bad side she would beat you to death. Like most black parents back then she taught us to respect our elders, teachers, neighbors and the authorities. We had to show respect or be liable to getting either slapped or knocked down. My mom really cared about us but strangely she didn't care about our feelings. She took great pleasure in our embarrassing moments and loved to humiliate us. However, she always taught us that family was everything and that we must stick together no matter what. She said that no one should ever come between family and that we should always love and protect one another.

My mother (Thelma Rivers) was born and raised in Detroit, Mi. However, her mother (Nettie Harris) was born and raised in the South where she saw slavery and the inhumane treatment of Blacks. My grandmother would gather my brothers and sisters and I together and she would tell us many stories of the injustices that Black people of the South had to endure. She said that we were lucky to have been born in the North. She taught us about racism and the prejudices in the world. My mother added that we might not be living in the time of slavery but we are and will always be living in a time of racism.

"Don't ever think that the white man will ever treat you as his equal or as a true friend," my mother would say. "They will smile in your face then stab you as soon as your back is turned. She said that whites have been taught by their parents that they were better than Blacks and they believed it. She also said that they were taught that Blacks should be serving or be subservient to Whites and are incapable of reading, writing, adding and subtracting. White parents teach their children that Black people are like animals-monkeys with tails and they believe that too. Ain't that a trip?" All black parents had these conversations with their children because as children we didn't understand prejudices, racism or why black kids were treated differently than white children.

I grew up in a time when black people were being emancipated. Slavery no longer existed and Blacks were protesting segregation, racism and the inhumane treatment being inflicted upon them by whites. Blacks were finally being allowed to buy their own homes although they were being red lined by the banks and real estate companies. For instance, blacks were only allowed to move into certain areas. If a black family moved to a white community they were forced out. The whites would burn crosses in the front yard of a black family's home and make signs that read "Get out Nigger!" They would also threaten to kill the family if they didn't move out.

Racism was alive and strong in those times since segregation had been recently abolished. This resulted in black children being bused to white neighborhoods and allowed to attend school with white children. Those changes did not sit well with the white parents or children living in the community. They began trying to intimidate the black families by beating them up every chance they got. You would see black parents and children being beaten by mobs of whites for merely trying to live in the same community with them.

Years after the Ford plant closed its doors more white people left the city and more black people began to populate the neighborhoods of Highland Park. By the time my family moved there the ratio of whites to blacks was about 50/50 and the whites were still flying out in droves. Pretty soon, Highland Park became a predominantly black community. Yet, it was still run by whites. The white people owned all the businesses. Mostly all the teachers were white. The police officers, firemen, doctors, nurses and store owners were all white. But there were some blacks that were able to get jobs depending on how much crap they were willing to take from their master- I mean their employer. You see, when I was growing up racism was as common as a cold and if you were black you suffered from it.

As a young black kid growing up on the streets of Highland Park during the 1960's I witnessed a lot of racism and change. I learned about heroes who stood against racism by watching Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his freedom marches. I watched clips of how the white police force and white extremists of the community beat and killed peaceful black protesters. I saw Black Panther leaders giving rallies and speeches in our communities teaching us about racism, black power and black pride. Malcolm X, as well as the leaders and teachers of Islam including the Muslims educated the black communities on racism.

The 1960's was a decade of turmoil. Many leaders who were against racism were being assassinated- John and Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Metgar Evers and Malcolm X to name a few. It was a time of rebellion, not just for blacks but for whites too. Whites and blacks were protesting the Vietnam War. Blacks were protesting segregation and unequal rights and hippies were rebelling against an unjust government. Even J. Edgar Hoover was misusing the F.B.I. for his own racist and personal agenda.

I remember going to school and taking swim classes. Swim class was mandatory for every grade and all the males had to swim butt naked. It was very shameful to swim butt naked from elementary school through high school. Later, I came to find out that our middle school swim teacher was gay. "Ain't that a trip?'

After all this turmoil, there came a new birth known as the Baby Boomers. This population explosion came after WWII. The Baby Boomers were a new generation of people who possessed a different mindset. They didn't think like the people of the thirties, forties, or fifties. They didn't follow the traditional thinking of their forefathers. They had their own way of thinking and they did their own thing. This rebellion started in the fifties with rock & roll. The children fell in love with this new sound. It was a sound of independence and self expression. Parents didn't like it and most of them tried to forbid rock and roll and stop its growth but the kids embraced it and defied their parents. So the rebellion against society began.

The rebellion started with the white children, not the black children. Black children didn't have the guts to defy their parents, teachers, neighbors, or police. Back then, anyone could discipline a black kid so we were very careful not to offend an authority figure. Yet, things were a little different with the white kids. They were allowed to get away with murder, so they had no problem being rebellious.

There was also a new birth in the black community. The black man in the sixties didn't think like the black men of the thirties, forties or fifties. The black man of the sixties had heard it all and saw it all. He was fed up with all the subservient behavior, the racism, the lies, the brutality and inhumane treatment. The black man of the sixties was being educated by his mother and his grandmother and the small number of fathers and grandfathers. On his list of priorities were getting an education, learning a trade and learning to survive on his own.

This new era of black men were learning the truth about black history, black pride, self pride and self worth. They were being taught how to fight back and not be docile men but strong and aggressive black men. Educated and angry, this new breed of black men weren't going to let the white man put them down, hold them down, or knock them down. They were going to fight for their right to live a decent, respectful life and take whatever hand the white man dealt them and make the best of it. They would not only play that hand but succeed with it.

Because racism was so prevalent, it was hard for a black man to find a job other than shining shoes on a corner, washing dishes, cleaning tables, sewers, sweeping floors and taking out trash. So a number of black men decided to develop a hustle- a way of making a non taxable income. An income that you don't receive in a paycheck and that is not controlled by "the man." The hustles included: selling stolen goods or drugs, gambling, running numbers, prostitution, scalping tickets to ball games and concerts, fixing cars in the neighborhood, painting houses and garages or being a jitney (someone who taxis people from the grocery store to their homes using privately owned vehicles). There were many ways to earn a living without having a job working for "the man." Finding a hustle and doing an assortment of odd jobs was how the new black man survived in this new climate of change.

I grew up believing that Highland Park was the best city in the world. It was beautiful. I would describe it as a gigantic park with houses and buildings. The bushes and trees were well manicured and there was fresh fruit in abundance on their branches. We would enjoy the scenery and activities of Palmer Park, where children would fish in the summer, ice skate in the winter, play tennis, hand ball, basketball, baseball, foot ball and soccer. There were bike trails and hills to climb and you could go sledding when there was snow. The city was a beautiful park.

Highland Park boasted five elementary schools complete with playgrounds, basketball courts and baseball diamonds. There were two middle schools with basketball courts and baseball diamonds and one high school with everything. All of the schools had swimming pools. We had a recreation center at Ford Field. There was a running track, basketball courts, a baseball diamond and a football field. Highland Park was a training center for ball players and athletes.

We also had the YMCA and the Boys Club center where we would go everyday and play games like table tennis, billiards, wood shop, basketball, baseball, four square, checkers, chess and marksmanship. Highland Park was a middle class city with three movie theatres: The Palmer Park Theatre, The Six Mile Theatre, and The Krim Theatre. We did not have to leave the city to go to the movies. Our city also had two hotels: The Holiday Inn and a Howard Johnson hotel. Highland Park was also the headquarters for Chrysler Corporation. We also had Palmer Park as our unique playground. There was a variety of activities to keep our young minds occupied. This was a dream city to a kid and I loved it. And like most other kids growing up there, I took advantage of everything the city had to offer- good and bad.

CHAPTER 2

The Community

Everyone who lived in Highland Park knew that it wasn't just a city. Highland Park was like one big family. Many blacks from the south had migrated there and brought along with them that "southern hospitality." They held the mentality that "it's the man against us and we need to stick together." Single parent households dominated Highland Park and many of the mothers there were really close. I can remember having friends on five or six different streets and being able to spend the night or have dinner with them on any occasion and the same was true with my family. My friends were always allowed at my home for mealtimes and sleepovers. That's how things were back then.

One of my fondest memories was the block parties. Every month the city would allow us to block off our street so that no cars could drive through. People would set up tables and chairs in the streets and every one would cook and bring out food. I can remember dancing in the streets and having so much fun. After one block party another street in the neighborhood would have a block party the following week and we would go party with them.

Our community was so close, that if one of us kids were caught doing something that we shouldn't, anyone's parents could and would discipline us. After disciplining us, they would take us home to our parents where we would receive another spanking. Now, derived from either the pangs of slavery or from the part of the bible that speaks of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, spanking is a form of punishment common in the black community. Our teachers were allowed to spank and paddle us. Sometimes they would even beat us with yardsticks! Then we would get sent home with a note about the incident and we would get it again. All that beating sure kept me on the straight and narrow.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Memoirs of a Highland Park Player by Ronnie Rivers. Copyright © 2014 Ronnie Rivers. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

CHAPTER ONE: The history of highland park, 1,
CHAPTER TWO: The Community, 10,
CHAPTER THREE: My Boyhood Years, 15,
CHAPTER FOUR: Boosting in the park, 23,
CHAPTER FIVE: Shots were fired, 38,
CHAPTER SIX: Poor Buddy, 45,
CHAPTER SEVEN: Sports in the park, 51,
CHAPTER EIGHT: Modeling in the park, 59,
CHAPTER NINE: The Competition, 64,
CHAPTER TEN: I'm a drug dealer, 71,
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Defending our hood, 76,
CHAPTER TWELVE: My Homies, 81,
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Beatdown, 84,
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Audition, 96,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: I meet Thomas Hearns, 106,
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: My new career takes off, 112,
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: I found God, 121,