Sharon Gillespie was born in 1945 and raised by her grandmother in Oklahoma before moving to Ann Arbor with her mother at age nine. She remembers redlining in Ann Arbor and the breakup of the historically Black neighborhood she grew up in. She helped raise two younger sisters while her mother attended ophthalmology school at the University of Michigan. Gillespie excelled in her career as a typesetter at local businesses. After retiring, she has been active in volunteering at homeless shelters and hospice programs. She was married to Raymond Gillespie for 21 years.
Additional comments from Sharon Gillespie:
"We no longer have neighborhoods, how sad that gentrification destroyed our neighborhoods.
We have no meeting place, they took away Ann Street, Riverside Park, Island Park, etc.
We lost the Ann Arbor Community Center and the only thing we have left to call our own is the Elks and that is becoming iffy.
We don't have any substantial black businesses here.
Our youth don't have that family familiarity that we had growing up and don't seem to care.
The old neighborhood picnic is going down hill and young people won't step up to keep it going."