John W. Ronick, “Change in an Era of Social Upheaval in the US,” Hist 150 Honors Spring 2021, Conducted by Teagan Davis, March 12, 2021.

Introduction to Interview
The following interview addresses many different social movements, significant historic events, and attitudes from the 1950s into the early 2000s. John W. Ronick is my grandfather and he grew up during a time full of tumultuous interpersonal relationships as a result of these social movements. Ronick and I discuss the impact the Cold War had on his childhood and adolescent years, the integration of schools, the Vietnam War and the draft, his experience with the Women’s Rights Movement, and finally the aftermath of the terrorist attack on 9/11. As a white, working moderate in the 1960s, Ronick witnessed all of these events from afar, but still remembers them vividly.

As I discuss later in the “Research” section of this post,  many civil rights and social movements tried to appeal to the the white moderate. The detachment of many white Americans in relation to the Civil Rights Movement is clear in this interview; although Ronick lived through all of the major social movements of the late 1900s, his commentary illustrates the “backseat” role that many in this country took towards social progress. As you read through Ronick’s experiences from the 1960s onward, imagine how his experience might be drastically different from those of a woman, a person of color, or a member of the LGBT community. He had the luxury of not needing to be aware of many issues, and not needing to be involved in social movements because of his privileged status in society.

Biography
John W. Ronick was born on December 4, 1941, in Grove City, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a tool and dye maker for most of his professional career, and his mother took piecemeal jobs here and there to help supplement the family income. After graduating high school, Ronick attended Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, where he studied to receive a Bachelor’s degree in math. After he married in 1963, Ronick transferred to Eastern Michigan University, from which he graduated in 1965. Now living in Dearborn, Michigan, Ronick began working for Ford Motor Company as a computer programmer. Ronick worked for Ford Motors for two years before moving on to various other companies where he continued to be a computer programmer.

Interview
Teagan Davis: My first question for you is, can you tell me a little bit about your teenage years? And maybe how they were impacted by the Cold War? Were you ever afraid of attacks? Or how did your parents and friends view the situation, that kind of thing?

John W. Ronick: I guess, in my teenage years, there wasn’t much influence from the Cold War. It wasn’t really until I got into college in 1960 that I became really aware of some of the issues. I mean, it was always known prior to that the “Russians were bad.” Everybody knew that. But the severity of the issue never became clear, especially when that Cuban Missile Crisis [October 1962] thing started. I was living in the fraternity house at the time and, of course, we didn’t have a TV, and we were all sitting around the dining room with the radio on and listening to Kennedy talk about what he was going to do. And we’re all getting ready to pack our bags, figuring that we’re getting ready to go to war. And fortunately, it took us a couple of days to get over that, I think three or four or five days, I don’t remember. But kind of got resolved quick, but in that period of a few days there, we were all pretty nervous about the whole situation. And then once that blew over, then everybody went back to remembering the Russians are bad. And we got over the worst of it.

TD: Gotcha. Okay, so that was one of my next questions was your reaction, I guess, to the Cuban Missile Crisis. But you answered that for me. So next question is, are there any instances of protests during the Civil Rights Movement that you can remember happening in your area or any movements that really stuck out to you at the time that maybe weren’t happening around you?

JWR: I guess my first recollection of any of that was with the Rosa Parks situation, which, you know, that was covered in the news. Of course, you got to remember back in those days, we didn’t have cell phones and the internet and computers and even TVs. So, you know, the news cycles weren’t what they are today, you didn’t get instant notification on anything that was happening. So those things tended to kind of grow over time. And that was one of the things that was pretty widely covered in the newspaper. And then on occasions when I was actually able to see the news on TV. The other thing relative to that was at the time of that Detroit riot. We lived in Dearborn, and on the first street in Dearborn, outside of the Detroit city boundary, we lived in an upstairs flat and had a back porch. And I would get home from work during that period and sit out on the back porch, drinking a beer and watching Detroit burn. [TD: Wow.] And that was, I guess that was the only real impact I ever felt from any of that. And at that time, that was right after your mother was born. And I think she was maybe about five or six months old, somewhere in there. But that was pretty a pretty significant event. And my only real experience with any impact of any of that kind of stuff.

TD: In seeing that, like basically right in your backyard, did that kind of inspire any kind of anxiety or fear or anything like that?

JWR: No, I wasn’t too concerned. You know, we knew it was gonna be in — kind of contained in Detroit. So even though we were real close to Detroit, you know, at that point, Dearborn was pretty much a white enclave. So there wasn’t really much concern. It was probably even at that point in time, I think there were a lot of Arabs in Dearborn. After that period is when it really started flying.

TD: Gotcha. So, my next question is, can you describe the sentiment around the integration of schools that you noticed in your area? I know you mentioned in the pre-interview, that where you were living when you were young wasn’t super diverse. But do you remember hearing people talk about it or how they felt about integration?

JWR: Certainly, when I was in high school there were no discussions. I mean, it wasn’t even a topic, I think, that we were aware of at that point. But later on, as it became more of a national issue people talked about it. And, at least in my circle, it was kind of accepted to be a pretty serious issue.  I didn’t actually know anybody that would have been against that. You know, it wasn’t like some of those Southern Democrats who preferred to shoot black kids rather than let them go to school. [TD: Right.] There weren’t any issues like that in any of the circles that I was involved in.

TD: And how did you — do you remember how you felt maybe seeing some of the stuff on TV about people being so just adamantly against integration? Do you remember how you felt?

JWR: Well, you know, it wasn’t uncomfortable, but I wasn’t an activist by any means. I mean, I was busy. I was working 12 hours a day, through a lot of that. So it wasn’t really something I became concerned about. Except, on the occasion, when I would read something about it. You know, you feel bad, but I wasn’t about to go try to do anything about it.

TD: All right, so my next one. So I know you were raising my mom and my uncles during the 60s and 70s and on. But what was it like to have young children during such a tumultuous time? What with Vietnam and the Cold War? Like, were you ever afraid for their safety, or just like anything like that?

JWR: I wasn’t at all concerned. I never felt there was any threat to anybody. You know, I knew a lot of people that went to Vietnam. And I knew a lot of people — a lot more people, actually, that came back from Vietnam. Actually, I got drafted. I forget when, like ’65, maybe. But I flunked the physical. Because [TD: That was lucky.] unfortunately, yeah, I unfortunately, I had a chunk of bone in my knee. And they felt I wouldn’t be able to slog through the jungles with that issue. So they rejected me, which I was quite happy about.

The biggest memory I have of that period is regarding the anti-war protesters and Jane Fonda and, you know, that group of people. And the way that a lot of these veterans were treated when they got back, you know, it was like, they’re over there, slogging through the mud and dying and people over here protesting the involvement and even protesting it to the point of personally attacking these people when they got home. They [the protestors] were the ones that were making the policy decisions to get them involved. Right, that was uncomfortable. And in the news at that time, wasn’t even particularly supportive of these people. It had tended to irritate me. But, you know, that was my main recollection of that period.

TD: And I guess that kind of leads into my next question. I was gonna say, like, during the Vietnam War, what was your opinion on the draft? Or like, maybe even your opinions on the reasons for going to war? Do you remember?

JWR: I didn’t, I didn’t think much about the reason and I wasn’t actually against the draft. I mean, I was mildly upset when I got drafted. ‘Till I realized that it wasn’t going to have to go, but I was against people that protested the draft and people who ran to Canada to avoid getting drafted. I didn’t like that. I felt that you know, the country’s in a war and you get drafted, well you go fight the war. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

TD: And next, I have what was your opinion on the Women’s Rights Movement? Were you supportive or just kind of ambivalent? And was your — was my grandma, your wife involved in any way?

JWR: None — no way really, other than being a woman. She was — you know, back at the time I got married, women couldn’t have like their own credit cards. They couldn’t get credit without their husband signing on for them. And women who worked were generally assumed to be secretaries. You know, if you met a woman and she had a job, you figured she was a secretary. So, we didn’t get involved in it. But, you know, that was — seemed at the time to be kind of an issue. That didn’t last very long, we went and got married in ’63. And then women were gaining some pretty significant rights, with respect to credit and jobs and that kind of stuff.

TD: Alright, and my last question is more recent. On 9/11, what were some of your initial thoughts and emotions after seeing the footage on the news? Like, was there anything — Like do you remember anything specific about your thought process after seeing that?

JWR: Yeah, I wanted to go kill a whole bunch of Arabs. I mean, I found that it actually made me quite angry. And I felt that we should just start nukin’ ’em [bomb them] and get this thing over with once and for all. And beyond that, you know, I was supportive of our involvement in the war over there, even though there were no specific objectives. Of course, at that time wasn’t clear that that initial involvement was going to go on for 20 years. But I was angry. I guess that’s the bottom line.

TD: And do you remember, just kind of going off of that, like, do you remember any — what other people around you kind of thought? Did they agree with, “Yeah, like, we need to go over there,” or were they kind of a more cautious approach, like, “We shouldn’t really be getting involved?”

JWR: Nobody that I knew was cautious. I mean, everybody thought that we should just go over there and just obliterate the assholes.

TD: So I guess, maybe just to close off, if, and I know I didn’t include this in the list that I sent you, but do you have anything just in light of like, all of the protests and movements and just general social change that you’ve witnessed throughout your life, do you have anything that you would want to tell people going into, I guess, just going through life? Like do you have any advice or just anything that you would want people to know?

JWR: I’m not a philosopher, as you know. The one thing that I’ve been saying most of my life about this whole civil rights thing and Black Lives Matter type things going on — Well, first of all, things haven’t changed in my life, with respect to race relations. I mean, there’s really no improvement as near as I can tell. And what you have is occasional flare-ups, that get people to focus on the issue for a period of time. And then things calm down, and they forget about it, and they go back to their Facebook and Twitter and get on with life. But if, and I’ve been saying this for years, the problem is education. If we spent as much money on trying to educate people from these disadvantaged areas, whether they’re black or white, doesn’t matter, as we spend on all the programs, like for instance, the latest $1.9 trillion relief bill that was just passed, to give free money to all these disadvantaged children had that kind of money been spent over the years in education, not only for the disadvantaged types, but also everybody else with respect to the issue. I think we might have actually made some progress in the last 50 or 60 years. I don’t think we will make any more progress in the next 50 or 60 years unless people come to the realization that everybody needs to be educated with respect to these issues. So, I guess all I’m saying is we need to pour more money into education than a lot of other social programs if we’re going to solve this problem.

TD: I definitely agree with that. So, that is all I have. [Cut off: Thank you so much.]

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Research
As Ronick mentioned in the interview, he was never incredibly involved in any of the social movements or protests that we talked about. However, I was interested in researching the role of white moderates in the Civil Rights Movement; I had watched historical movies and documentaries that emphasized the importance of the white moderate in achieving civil rights at the federal and constitutional level, so I was motivated to do some of my own research to see what else I could learn. In a Washington Post article, “In March on Washington, white activists were largely overlooked but strategically essential,” author Krissah Thompson writes that although many middle-class white Americans did actually believe in social and political equality for Black Americans, but they “felt personally disconnected from” the movement.

Thompson explains that many Americans, regardless of race, were galvanized to support the movement after the “Children’s Crusade” in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The images of children, who ranged from ages seven to eighteen, shocked millions of white Americans into recognizing that segregation and Jim Crow were not victimless or nonviolent institutions (Clark). The shock of the “Children’s Crusade”, which occurred only six months before March on Washington, gave the aforementioned event a much-needed boost to elevate the movement to the forefront of Congress’s mind. Everything I have mentioned above is by no means trying to say that white Americans were the masterminds or the impetus to the Civil Rights Movement, simply that the movement required support from the majority of the country, and while moderates were just that majority.

Bibliography
     Clark, Alexis. “The Children’s Crusade: When the Youth of Birmingham Marched for Justice.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Oct. 2020, www.history.com/news/childrens-crusade-birmingham-civil-rights.

Thompson, Krissah. In March on Washington, White Activists Were Largely Overlooked but Strategically Essential. 25 Aug. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-march-on-washington-white-activists-were-largely-overlooked-but-strategically-essential/2013/08/25/f2738c2a-eb27-11e2-8023-b7f07811d98e_story.html.

Commentary
     The interviewee approved the above transcript on March 23, 2021. No changes were requested.
To prepare for this interview, I hosted a pre-interview with Ronick over Zoom (which was recorded) on February 28th; during the call, we discussed some of the topics I would be asking about, and got some preliminary biographical information. On March 14th, I hosted another recorded Zoom call where I asked Ronick about the topics we discussed in the pre-interview. After the interview concluded, I ran the audio file associated with the recording through Otter.ai, which produced a semi-accurated transcript of the interview.
During the process of transcription, I made an effort to maintain Ronick’s original words, even if they were slightly confusing to read without the accompanying audio. I did this because I found it interesting to be able to hear where his mind went in response to my questions. I also added indefinite articles (a, an, the) which are hard to hear or completely inaudible in the recording.