BUILDING BRIDGES

Winkie: And that's when I, you know, as I was growing up, I got real involved in social justice and doing things at the school and starting things up and trying to connect. There was such a rivalry of schools because of sports and also race and economic stuff and so, we built some bridges. We had a group that met on Sundays. That was a mix of the schools. And we met at the school and talked about race.

Lauren: Was there a reason that started or was it just that there are growing tensions?

Winkie: It was growing tensions. And there was a young man that I knew that got killed at the high school not at Catholic Central but at the high school. And he got stabbed and the guy got off. And his name, the guy that was killed was Ralph Stinnett. And I knew him. And I remember going to school the next day and having to be sent home because somebody said something and I went off. And then the nun kind of grabbed me up and I wasn't in trouble. She just listened and I was mad and hurt and just - it's not right. So after that, I and some other people started just pulling people together, you know, and talking. Cause it – our football games, we couldn’t even play at our schools, we had to play at Wittenberg. South and North football games were like, we had to play on a neutral ground because it was that bad. And it was race and it was eco – it was money. And so it was just a lot of – you know it’s just all that hate and all that fighting and stuff. And there was a lot of us that were tired of it. And so we just started trying to build some bridges. And I was so glad to be part of that and be a part of starting that up. And so, that’s probably why I do what I do now.