Director Kameron Donald takes us through the story of DeLong's Bar-B-Q Pit, one of Ann Arbor's most famed bygone eateries.  In a history told by Diana McKnight-Morton, one of DeLong's founders, we learn about the idea for the restaurant being born out of the many heads that popped over the backyard fence during family barbecues and hear about the many people, Ann Arborites and those much more far-flung, who numbered it among their favorites.

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.

Diana McKnight-Morton attended Jones School as an elementary student in the 1950s. She remembers growing up in a multi-racial, industrial neighborhood that resisted urban renewal. Her father, Robert Thompson, ran DeLong’s Bar-B-Q Pit on Detroit Street for 38 years.

Diana McKnight-Morton was born in 1944 and grew up on West Kingsley Street in a racially mixed neighborhood. Her parents Robert and Adeline Thompson ran a successful carry-out restaurant, DeLong’s Bar-B-Q, on Detroit Street for 38 years.

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Shirley Beckley was born on July 30, 1942. She was raised by her mother on Wall St. and attended Jones School, Mack School, and Bach Schools in Ann Arbor. Shirley started as a housing manager for the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, later becoming housing director in Lansing and Muskegon. She reminisces about working at Jacobson’s, dances at the Dunbar Center, businesses on Fourth Avenue and Ann Streets, and tense racial incidents in the schools. Shirley continues to be deeply involved in social justice issues at the local level.