Watch: Remembering Rondo

(Patricia Lamb) And this year was Rondo Lives Matter to let you know that the people in Rondo still matter and their lives still matter. (Joyce Williams) I mean, this was a community we had. You know, everybody knew everybody because they all grew, you know, knowing everybody. (Jacques "Peaches" Polk) It was home. It was a real home.

(Jim Gerlick) The freeway came through and I-94 came through and took out Rondo Avenue. That was the end of the community and it couldn't recover.

(Marvin Anderson) It's only when communities come together as a whole will it work and that's why we tell the story of Rondo. And we tell the story of Rondo through this Harvest so that people know what can be lost, so they don't have to suffer what Rondo suffered.

(Rebecca Wingo) I'm a historian by training and so I've been working with the History Department to put on a class called the History Harvest. Our partner community is the Rondo community. And what we're doing is that we've invited them here for the History Harvest on one day--we're at the Hallie Q. Brown Center--and people are bringing us their artifacts. The History Harvest model really spotlights that family and local history so that in a way it democratizes American History. Instead of giving heavier weight to the more elite sources that you find in museums, archives, and libraries, you get a different slice of history.

(Amy Sullivan) The purpose of it is to allow people to contribute something towards a public history where they don't have to leave the artifact in the institution. They get to bring their soup toureen, they get to bring their father's trumpet, they get to bring photographs, and then leave with them. And so what we're doing is digitizing them and we will describe them so we'll have an online archive. That website will then be connected to our community partner, Rondo Avenue, Inc. So there will be a direct link right on Rondo Ave for people to go an explore and see what kinds of things came in on the History Harvest.

(Marvin Anderson) The story of Rondo, which I am proud to be a part of as one of the founders of the Rondo Celebration, is to teach that story to kids, to students, to let them know that the history of Rondo can be repeated today unless they're aware of that possibility, unless they're willing to stand up and fight and have your facts right and be vigilant and be prepared to stop government when it takes actions that are contrary to the ecosystem of a community. That's why the story of Rondo is so important to us, to me and the others who are trying to tell it.