Ms. Dolores Clay Interview

Part One

[[00:00:00]] Jewel and Tracy in convo about Shady Grove Baptist Church – talk with Ms. Clay about Ross Hill Elementary School

[[00:06:00]] Ms. Clay discusses the “real” Black Bottom: Paradise Theater – Jewel says mother knows someone whose mother ran a prostitution house in Black Bottom – all of them going over book on Paradise Valley

[[00:09:00]] Ms. Clay and Ms. Christine make clear that most folks from the Black Bottom are gone – discuss apartment building on West Grand Boulevard and Brush that once had a beauty parlor in basement and a bordello

[[00:12:00]] Ms. Christine says she can put interviewer in touch with two 90-year-old folks who lived in Black Bottom – shows Tracy where her grandmother lived on map, baby showers, bars, clubs – long since run over by the freeway – Miss Clay mentions Flame Show Bar and Joe’s Record Store on corner, Fortune Records, Silver Grill, all on Hastings

[[00:15:00]] says these businesses were all Black-owned – including Rosa Bar – numbers exchanged

[[00:18:00]] Ms. Clay recalls how riots started on 12th Street, how Black Bottom was a very small area despite Black people living “from the Boulevard all the way East”

Part Two

[[00:00:00]] Ms. Clay gives Jewel contact info on others from Black Bottom area – a Teola Hunter and others

[[00:03:00]] Ms. Clay recalls how she used to go to Flame Show Bar, though she wasn’t a bar person – goes over various business owners from the community

[[00:06:00]] Going through photographs in book – various figures mentioned but no detail given

[[00:09:00]] Family members talked about – tangent

Part Three

[[00:00:00]] Ms. Christine talks about schools she went to (Cass Tech among them), age she got married, death of first child

[[00:03:00]] Father got job on John R – lived downstairs in two-family flat – son was born on West Side, but ultimately, “We’ve lived so many places in Detroit, honey. I can’t remember all that.”