In this video compiled from dozens of interviews from the Living Oral History Project and the There Went The Neighborhood Interview Archive, participants share their memories of food and food traditions in their families, including fishing on the Huron River, hosting Fourth of July barbecues, and even starting a restaurant.

Debby Mitchell Covington grew up in Ann Arbor near Summit Park (now Wheeler Park), and she attended Jones School in kindergarten and first grade. In 1965 when Jones School closed, she was bused to Dicken Elementary and she recalls feeling isolated in the majority-white school. 

Shirley Beckley attended Jones School from 1948 to 1950, and she became involved with the Ann Arbor Public Schools in the 1960s as a parent and ombudsman. She witnessed racism against her children and other students, including a race riot at Pioneer High School.

Roger Brown grew up in “The Old Neighborhood” and has vivid memories of playing in Summit Park next to a junkyard and slaughterhouse. He attended Jones School from 1963 to 1965, and he remembers his friends being bused to several different schools after its closure.

This filmed walking tour was created during production of There Went The Neighborhood: The Closing of Jones School by the Ann Arbor District Library and 7 Cylinders Studio (7CS).

As part of Ann Arbor 200, the Ann Arbor District Library and 7 Cylinders Studio (7CS) have produced a documentary film about the closing of Ann Arbor's Jones School. In 1965, the Board of Education closed the majority-Black school. Ann Arbor joined a nationwide trend of school desegregation during the Civil Rights Era. But for these young students, the loss of a neighborhood school foreshadowed changes to their close-knit community. Gentrification came to Ann Arbor on the heels of desegregation.