Robert Kennard, Architect for Humanity
Trudi Sandmeier 00:00
Today on Save As, we explore the story of two extraordinary men, whose lives crossed, even though they never actually met.
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Cindy Olnick 00:17
Welcome to Save As, a podcast that glimpses the future of heritage conservation through the work of graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Cindy Olnick.
Trudi Sandmeier 00:27
And I’m Trudi Sandmeier.
Cindy Olnick 00:29
So today’s episode is a little bittersweet. It’s a tribute in some ways to a dear friend of ours, Jerome Robinson, who graduated in 2018 and did his thesis on the architect Robert Kennard, who had an absolutely extraordinary life. And I’m going to say at the outset that this episode is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. I cannot stress enough how much you really need to learn–if you possibly can, like read the thesis. I mean, it’s just amazing. And we’re going to link to it in the show notes. But this guy Robert Kennard had an extraordinary life, an extraordinary career, and an extraordinary family. But his story remained untold until Jerome came along and rediscovered it and brought it to life in this groundbreaking thesis that he also admitted was just the beginning, that, you know, he was hoping to open the door and encourage more scholarship on Robert Kennard.
Trudi Sandmeier 01:29
Jerome sadly passed away about a year ago before we had a chance to do this interview. However, we’re extremely fortunate that Jerome recorded a lot of his interviews that he did for his thesis. So we actually have a little bit of his voice. And you’re gonna hear that today, as well as the voice of Robert Kennard himself. And that’s also thanks to Jerome. Robert Kennard did an oral history at UCLA in 1990 and 1991. And Jerome had that oral history digitized at his own expense. So thanks, Jerome.
We’re going to hear from some other voices today, including someone who worked with Robert Kennard, someone who was mentored by him, and his daughter, Gail Kennard, who’s an incredible keeper of his legacy and still runs the architecture firm, Kennard Design Group, that her father established in 1957, which makes it one of the oldest African American-owned architecture firms in the country.
So today’s interview starts off with a little clip from one of Jerome’s interviews so that he’s part of this from the very beginning. Here’s Jerome.
Jerome Robinson 02:34
Hello. My name is Jerome Robinson. I’m a student at the University of Southern California. It is March the 20th. And I’m talking to architect Roland Wiley today. Mr. Wiley, thank you very much for talking to me. What type of architect do you think Mr. Kennard was?
Roland Wiley 02:51
The type of architect Bob Kennard was, is an architect who had integrity, an architect who was passionate about his work, and an architect who was involved in the community. Whatever kind of architect you want to call it, that’s who Bob Kennard was, and that’s the type of architect that I aspire to be.
Trudi Sandmeier 03:18
So now, it’s my pleasure to welcome Gail Kennard to Save As. So welcome, Gail.
Gail Kennard 03:24
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Trudi Sandmeier 03:26
How did you meet Jerome?
Gail Kennard 03:27
Jerome was this burst of energy that came into my office and just couldn’t stop talking. He was so excited.
Trudi Sandmeier 03:38
We’re laughing because if you ever met Jerome, you know exactly what she’s talking about.
Cindy Olnick 03:43
I think I hear him now.
Jerome Robinson 03:44
Boy, I’ve been seeing so many things. I was trying to find things that were relevant to what I was trying to present, you know, even pictures and stuff. I’m just fascinated at the archives, you know, USC has, and I’m just blown away.
Gail Kennard 03:57
But his enthusiasm for the work he was doing about my father was just so validating, because, you know, I knew my father and I thought it was a wonderful story. But to have Jerome come and just take it up, and just go with it. It was just wonderful.
Cindy Olnick 04:14
So let’s start at the beginning. Gail, tell us a little bit about your dad and how he got started.
Gail Kennard 04:20
My father was the fifth child of James and Marie Kennard. His father came from Lambertville, New Jersey. They were kind of middle-class professionals. My grandfather became a Pullman car porter, which was an opportunity for African Americans in those years, and this is the turn of the century 1900s. It was a great opportunity to advance themselves because the pay was relatively good. Working conditions were terrible, but it was an opportunity. You know, he got to travel around and he saw Los Angeles, it was a wide open place. So, fast forward to 1920, they’re in Los Angeles and my father is born. And the city of Los Angeles is booming. And my grandfather decided that they could have a better life if they did what a lot of folks were doing at that time; they were moving to the suburbs.
Trudi Sandmeier 05:15
It’s a quintessential L.A. story, isn’t it?
Gail Kennard 05:17
Yes, yes.
Cindy Olnick 05:19
Seriously, right?
Gail Kennard 05:20
And so he moved all the way out to Monrovia. The family lived on the border between the school where most of the white children went, and the school were most of the kids of color went. So his mother, my grandmother, packed up his lunch every day and sent him to the white school. And every day, he was turned home. So he kind of learned early on in his life that, you know, you got to make your way in the world, you’ve got to fight for what you think is right for you. When my father was in public school, that’s when the first seed of his idea of becoming an architect was planted. My father had never even heard of architecture. Most African Americans were not on that track. And then my father’s older sister Anna heard about this Negro architect in Los Angeles named Paul Williams.
Trudi Sandmeier 06:21
All roads lead to Paul Williams.
Gail Kennard 06:24
All roads lead to Paul Williams in many, many, many ways. Paul R. Williams, as you know, was the preeminent African American architect. And it just opened up a whole world for my dad that was like, wow, if he could do this, maybe I could do it. And he had some encouragement. One of his classmate’s father was the drafting teacher. And he told him, you know, you oughta take a drafting class, you like art. He took a class and that instructor also told him about Paul Williams. You can just imagine, the wheels in his brain are starting to move.
Trudi Sandmeier 07:00
Totally.
Gail Kennard 07:00
Then fortuitously, because they were in Monrovia, the closest community college was Pasadena, and they had an architecture program. And so he could afford to scrape a few pennies together for the classes that he needed to take to study architecture at Pasadena City College. And there were a number of other African Americans at Pasadena City College at that time, or junior college, including one of his very famous classmates. And that was Jackie Robinson, the famous baseball player. So my father and Jackie Robinson were in that generation of people who were striving to do what it has not been allowed for previous generations to do.
So just as he was finishing junior college at Pasadena, he wanted to go to USC to continue to get his bachelor of architecture degree. The tuition was a whopping $10 a unit. He couldn’t afford that. But then the war comes along and he has to go into the army. So he is sent to Europe in the segregated troops. But because he had had some college, he became an officer, and he’s stationed in Europe. And here’s a kid who loves architecture, and he’s got a lot of time on his hands, because in the early days of the war, they weren’t letting the black troops fight on the front lines. So he’s got access to a Jeep. So he’s taking advantage of the opportunity to see all the great architecture in Europe. He fortunately survived the war. He was not injured. Now he’s a veteran, he can get the GI Bill.
Trudi Sandmeier 08:47
That’s right. That was such a gateway for so many people.
Gail Kennard 08:50
Totally, you know, and it was not racially exclusive, he could get the GI Bill as a Black soldier returning. So he goes to USC in the fall of 1946. Some of his classmates were Dion Neutra, the son of Richard Neutra; William Krisel, the great modernist who did so much work in Southern California housing and Palm Springs; William Blurock, and others. And USC at that time was a hotbed of modernism, you know, European design, International Style.
Cindy Olnick 09:25
Yeah, but he also got exposed to a lot of other ideas, including social issues. I think one lecturer who had a big impact on your dad was Frank Wilkinson, who at the time worked for the City of L.A. Housing Authority. Let’s hear Kennard in his own words from the UCLA oral history.
Robert Kennard 09:43
And he spoke to the architects and he talked about how architects need to look at social problems more. We ought to, it’s one thing to design things for very wealthy people and corporate America, but we ought to learn looking at what’s happening with the homeless and with poor people and with housing. And since he was the information officer for the Housing Authority, he knew it very well. So he invited anybody that wanted to in the class and it may have been the whole class, I don’t know. He said, most of you don’t know, but within the shadow of the City Hall, people are living in abject poverty. And he says, I want to show you how they’re living.
Cindy Olnick 10:32
So after graduating from USC, your dad worked with some heavy hitters in modernism, and that was intentional. Here he is talking about how he looked for work when he was just starting out.
Robert Kennard 10:42
I made a list of 10 architects I wanted to work for. One of them was Richard Neutra. So I went to Richard Neutra, you know, I just went down the list. I just sat there and called them.
Wesley Henderson [Interviewer] 10:53
Well, how did you make up the list? I mean, you just …
Robert Kennard 10:57
Well, I knew the architects, I’d made a list of, I think, you know, Richard Neutra’s on the list, Quincy Jones was on the list, Bob Alexander was on the list. You know, a lot of the architects that did Case Study Houses.
Gail Kennard 11:14
When my father had been a student, he volunteered for a group called the Citizens Housing Council. And these were a group of planners, architects, other folks who were interested in addressing the huge housing crisis that Los Angeles was facing after World War Two. Lots of people coming into the city, not enough housing. And the president of that group was an architect named Robert Alexander, who was also on the City Planning Commission. And so my father got to know Robert Alexander. So when he graduated from USC, he went to Robert Alexander’s office, and was hired. And he’s just so excited. He’s working for, you know, an architect that he really appreciates. They’re very in sync in terms of their social ideas about what we can do with architecture to improve the lives of everyday people.
There was an opportunity for a contract to do the largest public housing development in the United States in Los Angeles. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, had applied for a grant and received it to do like 3,300 units of multifamily housing in an area near downtown L.A. Robert Alexander wanted that job, but he knew that he didn’t think he had the portfolio or the credentials to get it. It was a huge job. So, he partners with guess who? Richard Neutra. And they design what’s called the Elysian Heights project. So, my father is working for Robert Alexander and Robert Alexander assigns him to go work in Richard Neutra’s office. So he’s got the best of both worlds. So the idea was to bring the great design quality of modernism to working-class and everyday folks.
Cindy Olnick 13:13
And by the way, if Elysian Heights sounds familiar, that’s the original public housing project that was planned for Chavez Ravine, where Dodger Stadium is now. Of course, it’s highly fraught, a major L.A. story that you may know about, but if you don’t, we’ll link to it in the episode page on the website.
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Gail Kennard 13:56
So by 1950, the U.S. Army was calling up reserves for a new war, the Korean War. So my father gets drafted again. He’s given 30 days to close up his affairs. He had just gotten married, he had this dream job, and he’s got to go. Fortunately, he’s not sent to Korea, but for him it was kind of worse. He got sent to Virginia. Remember, this is post-World War Two, Jim Crow. You know, they were killing Black soldiers who were in uniform in those days. And he really wanted to get kicked out of the army, because he wanted to go back to his life. So my father and this other Black officer, they started going to the officer’s club, which was segregated, just showing up and sitting down as a form of civil disobedience.
Trudi Sandmeier 14:55
So he finishes up his tour of duty and heads back to L.A. What happens next?
Gail Kennard 15:01
So he’s back in L.A. And he’s very politically engaged with very progressive groups who are architects. And at this time, this is the 1950s, the McCarthy era is in full swing. A lot of artists, filmmakers, screenwriters are under attack. And my father is aligned with those folks. And some of them were architects working at a new firm, called Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall. And they encouraged him to apply for a job there. They were doing a lot of work, public work all over the Southern California area, and eventually internationally. So my father went over there, and because of the suggestions and recommendations of his architect friends, he was hired, and he became the first African American hired at the firm DMJM.
Cindy Olnick 15:51
Which is now a huge international corporate firm.
Gail Kennard 15:54
Yeah, it’s now called AECOM. So but in those days, you know, they were, you know, struggling to make it and they were very successful. So from there, my father was, you know, he’s in the circle of architects, you know, there’s former classmates from USC, other people that he knew, and he was doing school design with one of the principals, Art Mann of Daniel, Mann, Johnson, and they were doing school design, and he decided he would leave and he was asked to join the Gruen firm, Victor Gruen because Victor Gruen needed somebody who knew about school design, public school design.
Trudi Sandmeier 16:34
It’s a total who’s who of Southern California modern, you know, stardom.
Gail Kennard 16:40
Exactly. I mean, it was, the timing was wonderful. And Victor Gruen was one of the progressive architects of the time that were giving other Black architects opportunities. So he hired my father. He also hired another Black architect named Clyde Grimes, who went on to have a wonderful career. Norma Sklarek became part of the Gruen organization a little later on. And so my father did that for a while, and then in 1957 decided that really there was a glass ceiling, that there wasn’t really an opportunity for him to advance. So my father made a calculation that well, I’m better off on my own. And one of his army buddies from the Korean War, another Southern Californian named Dick Summers, when they were serving their wartime service in the ’50s, Dick Summers said, “Well, you know, when I go back home to L.A., I’m going to build a house, I’m going to ask you to design it, you’re gonna design a house for me.” You know, people say things and he didn’t think it was really serious. But the timing couldn’t have been more perfect because as soon as he started to think about leaving Gruen, he gets a call from Dick Summers, he says, “Bob, I got some property. I want you to come design my house.” And so with kind of a wing and a prayer, you know, he set off and started his own practice in 1957.
Trudi Sandmeier 18:07
See, there you go. Serendipity.
Gail Kennard 18:09
And there you go. So my father did home design, and of course, all modernist post and beam, open floor plan, indoor-outdoor, all the things he had learned at USC and from Richard Neutra. If you didn’t want to do modernist, he had no time. He’d say, Find somebody else. So I would say when he started his practice in 1957 he was doing almost all residential. And he partnered with a brilliant designer named Arthur Silvers. He never fancied himself as a lead designer. He was engaged in the design, he had a lot of input, he always hired designers. And his contribution, I would say, to the architecture, was to find the projects, to do the marketing piece. But more than that was to do projects that had social meaning to him. And they did some amazing work through my father’s connection with politically progressive folks. There was a synagogue in Culver City, Temple Akiba, that was designed by my father and Art Silvers that’s still standing today, and that they parlayed into other work in the Jewish community.
Trudi Sandmeier 19:23
So Temple Akiba is actually how I learned about Robert Kennard. I was doing research for a tour of Sixties architecture in Los Angeles and I was driving down the street with my friend Adam Rubin and we both were totally taken by surprise by this great little temple building that we drove by on Sepulveda Boulevard. And we both looked at each other and said, “Who built that? That’s amazing.” And that was Temple Akiba. And, that’s how I started learning about who Robert Kennard was. So this was in the Sixties when he built the temple, there was a lot going on in Los Angeles in the Sixties. And not only in L.A., but across the United States. And so Robert Kennard, as an architect, had an important role to play in what was happening in the community at that point. So maybe can you tell us a little bit about that?
Gail Kennard 20:25
By the 19, late 1960s, politically there was a great move in many cities across the country for Black political leadership. There were riots and unrest in cities, not only in Los Angeles, in 1965 it was the Watts Riots, but this was happening in cities across the country. And there was a move to elect Black folks to the city councils and to the mayor’s offices. And there was a move to reinvent Black communities. And my father was at the right place at the right time for that. There was an effort to bring in the urban planning ideas that had been popular in suburban design, to urban communities, communities of color. One of the early jobs he got was the redevelopment plan for Watts. The Community Redevelopment Agency, City Planning, hired my father and a team of others to come up with ideas for how can we reinvent Watts. And he was very proud about that work because he was trying, again, to bring the ideas he had learned in modernism and urban planning to everyday folks, and especially the Black community. And then he was commissioned to do an arts building, which was called the Mafundi Building, for the Mafundi Institute, which was in Watts. Nineteen sixty-seven, right after the riots, there was an effort to create a cultural center for the Black artists, musicians, and others, and to resurrect the community from the ashes of [the] Watts [Uprising].
Cindy Olnick 22:05
Yeah, that building actually was the subject of a Materials Conservation course last year, and we did an episode on it for Save As. It’s the last episode of the first season.
Gail Kennard 22:18
So he did other projects in Watts, including 102nd Street Elementary School for the school district. He did a lot of multifamily housing projects that he was very proud of, because he wanted, he believed if buildings were well designed, just like the Elysian Heights idea, if buildings are well designed for people, they will maintain those buildings, they will have pride in those buildings. So his idea was to design the apartment buildings so that people felt that they were, they were cared for. Fortunately, most of the designs that my father did are successful to this day and are well maintained. So that was a great tribute to the design.
You know, design can’t solve all of our intense social, economic problems, but as an architect, my father was trying to at least do something with the tools that he had as an architect to make a difference. So all through the ’60s, ’70s, late ’60s, I’d say, through the ’90s, the end of his career, the bulk of his work was in the public arena. So he worked for the school districts, he worked for the City, did many city projects, county projects. And then he got involved with Metro in the 1970s. He believed in public transportation, you know, he did early planning studies down the Wilshire Corridor, he did design of maintenance facilities and stations, light rail and heavy rail stations throughout his career, so that was really an important part of of what he did.
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Gail Kennard 24:32
He was most proud, not of the architecture itself, but the story behind the architecture and how the buildings came to be. For example, in the city of Carson, which was a new city in the 1960s, you know, in the south part of the county, Robert Alexander, his former boss, who was older at that time, this is the 1970s, he says, Oh, there’s this new job. You know, there’s this new city. Carson was one of the areas that was, they didn’t have restrictive housing covenants for the most part. So there were a number of people of color, Black people, and importantly, Japanese American people, who remember had come out of internment during World War Two, who are able to establish themselves. They started businesses in the Carson area, they were able to build homes, and they wanted a new city hall.
Robert Alexander, who’s very politically astute, collected a group of three architects: himself, my father, and a younger architect named Frank Sata, Japanese American, had been interned during World War Two. And he says, I’ve got all three of the major constituents. So they design the city hall in the ’70s. And then, early ’80s, they did a beautiful community center that my father was really proud of. He was proud of the design. Frank Sata’s mainly responsible for the design of that building, almost 100% responsible. He was also happy that he had his business. He was an entrepreneur, that he had an African American-owned business, and that he was kind of following the footsteps of Paul Williams, who had his own business. He didn’t have to work for somebody else.
Trudi Sandmeier 26:11
So Jerome talked to Frank Sata when he was doing the research for his thesis, just to talk to him a little bit about what it was like to work with Robert Kennard.
Frank Sata 26:20
See, Bob Kennard was extremely diplomatic. You see, I always sensed this calmness about Bob, very politically appropriate, he radiated that confidence to, you know, getting housing work, when everybody’s going after work. You have to have a presence and a quality, he had those.
Gail Kennard 26:51
So during the Eighties, when the Olympics came, my father did the biggest job that his office had ever had, for the 1984 Olympics. Not a glamorous building. But it was at that time, a huge contract; it was $33 million construction. And it was parking structures at LAX. And anyone who comes through LAX now will drive through them — Parking Structure One, Three, and Four. And then there’s a heliport on the top of Four, which is across from the Tom Bradley Terminal. And he was really proud that contract came to an African American firm, and other African Americans were involved, you know, because of the political leadership of Tom Bradley, and, you know, bringing people in and giving them an opportunity to do what they could do. That’s kind of the trajectory he continued on in practice, until he couldn’t.
Sadly, he passed away in 1995 of cancer. Ironically, the same cancer that took our dear friend Jerome. But his legacy continues, the firm continues. I just felt that to honor my dad, the best thing to do would be to honor the work that he put into it. The main focus, as was with my father, is to give younger people opportunities. He remembered the impact that Paul Williams had on him as a young person. He had wonderful grades, he was a good, strong student, but as soon as he showed up, they’d say, Oh, we don’t hire colored people. You know, we don’t, there’s no way, you know, go away. So he vowed to himself that was he was ever in a position to hire young people, just even talk to young people, that he did. And he honored his pledge.
Cindy Olnick 28:38
Yeah, and he mentored people too, other architects, including Roland Wiley, who we heard from earlier. Here he is again.
Roland Wiley 28:44
He’d just share with me how he dealt with issues that I was dealing with, because I would always meet with him to share my frustration about not being able to get a significant commission. And he would just encourage me to just keep doing what I was doing, and to not give up and to not compromise my integrity. And I saw that he didn’t, and I saw his success. So I was willing to just stay on the track that I chose to stay on based upon his encouragement. He modeled success, and he modeled all of the things that I’m talking about — integrity, openness, sharing. He did all of that, and I could see the success that he had. So I’m like, okay, well, I’m willing to do that. That’s how I feel. So I’m gonna keep doing it.
Gail Kennard 29:35
It’s really fitting that there’s a scholarship in his name at USC. It is the largest endowed scholarship for African American students of any department in the whole university, not just for architects. It’s an endowed scholarship that’s been going on since 1995. Many, many graduates have benefited from that scholarship, and I know my father would be proud.
Robert Kennard 29:58
Aside from architectural students, which I think is my main thrust, and I do that, because when I started, very few architects really took the time to counsel me and talk to me about architecture. I mean, I was extremely discouraged by that. You see, the architects, they were just always too damn busy to just give you a little bit of time. And I vowed if I ever got a practice, I would never turn a student away.
Gail Kennard 30:33
So the scholarship was also named for my late mother, Helen Kennard, who was not involved with the firm, but had it not been for my mother’s support, not only just the psychological emotional support, but financial support. You know, there was a time in the Sixties when things were not looking good. She got her teaching credentials and she started working as an elementary school teacher, and that’s what got us through in those very lean years when my father wasn’t making any money. But she says, you know, you just got to hang in there. And she believed in my father, and she believed that, you know, he would be successful. And it paid off.
Trudi Sandmeier 31:16
Teamwork makes the dream work, yeah?
Cindy Olnick 31:19
Absolutely. And here’s Roland Wiley again.
Roland Wiley 31:23
You can tell a man by his fruit, and his children are simply amazing. His children are just good men and women. That’s not an accident. That was his ability to balance his business and balance his family. And that’s what I tried to do in my life. That’s the biggest impact he had on me, was how he lived his life. And the example of his life, the fruits of his labor, are just incredible.
Cindy Olnick 31:58
I mean, talk about triple-threat kids. I mean, you know, you yourself have been running this firm and are a major leader in heritage conservation, historic preservation in Los Angeles, having been on the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission for many years. Your sister Lydia used to run Los Angeles World Airports, probably so she could keep an eye on those parking lots. And your brother Bill chaired the Federal Communications Commission. So yeah, no pressure there.
Trudi Sandmeier 32:31
A bunch of underachievers.
Gail Kennard 32:32
Both of my siblings have done exactly what my father’s, following in my father’s footsteps, in terms of helping the next generation, we’re trying to carry on that tradition.
Cindy Olnick 32:44
Yeah. And you did that with Jerome, helping him with his thesis. What was it like working with him on that?
Gail Kennard 32:50
So he would come and I would show him photographs, I would tell them things, and then he just took the ball and ran with it. You know, whenever he would call, it would be like, the highlight of my day, you know, it’d be like, Oh, my God it’s Jerome, you know, what have you got to tell me, what’s coming up? And, you know, what have you found? And, you know, he was pulling out records of my grandfather as a Pullman car porter, and he had a picture of the home in Lambertville, New Jersey, you know, I never knew about.
Cindy Olnick 33:21
Like Henry Louis Gates, Please turn the page.
Gail Kennard 33:24
Right. It was totally that. Later on after he’d finished the thesis, he continued the work because his intention was to write a book, which we pray will continue on in some way or another. And he had went to UCLA, which had done an oral history of my dad, and he got it digitized, at his own expense. And he called me up and he says, “Gail, I heard the interview, I heard the interview.” Because, of course, my father had passed before Jerome ever met him. “And I was listening to your dad, and he was talking about one of his World War Two buddies, and his name was Jerome.” And he says, “I just loved hearing your dad say the name Jerome.” I said, Oh, wow.
Cindy Olnick 34:09
Probably made it his ringtone.
Trudi Sandmeier 34:10
Yeah, he probably did.
Gail Kennard 34:13
Yeah, but he was just such a bright star. And he had such an ability to bring out the best in people. You know, you couldn’t leave Jerome in a bad mood. You couldn’t leave Jerome feeling bad about yourself or, you know, you just felt validated and important if you were with him.
Trudi Sandmeier 34:34
He was so excited to, you know, learn about your dad and his work and all the many members of your family and all the sort of really interesting things he was able to discover in his research, and he just dug in, he loved it. He identified in many ways with some of the path that your father took, and some of the struggles that he had, and some of the amazing opportunities intersected with Jerome’s.
Gail Kennard 35:05
Even though I think it’s a wonderful story, that my dad’s life is an important story that needs to be told, the history is that usually it’s only family members who tell the stories of their family members that were, that accomplished a lot. Case in point, Karen Hudson, who’s written three books about her grandfather, Paul R. Williams. And although there’s been scholarly research about Paul Williams, of course, it’s usually left to the families. When Jerome burst into my office saying he was going to do a master’s thesis, you know, this wasn’t just a little college paper, it was just so encouraging to me because I thought, It’s the first time somebody is validating the importance of this story, not just because he was my father, but as an African American professional. And here’s Jerome, an African American student in a field where there aren’t a lot of African Americans, to take up that banner was so important to me. And hopefully his example will be one for generations to come after him to say, Look, this is what one of your fellow classmates at USC did. This was Jerome Robinson. And, you know, he felt the importance of doing this.
Trudi Sandmeier 36:23
One of my great joys in working with him on this project was that my phone would ring randomly. And he would call me up, and usually it was with some amazing discovery or unbelievable story he had to tell me immediately, like right then, he had to share whatever it was he found. I loved getting those phone calls because I never knew what was gonna happen. But they weren’t all happy stories on the other end of the phone.
Gail Kennard 36:48
So all the residences that my father did in the Sixties were for white families. And they are in all-white communities. And so Jerome was telling me he was on the trail of these homes, and he would drive in the neighborhood. And neighbors would call the police, because they saw a Black man driving in their neighborhood. And it kind of mirrored the, the same struggle that my father had, you know, in terms of being accepted. And so finally, Jerome told me, he had to bring his mother with him, so at least it’s a little less threatening if he had an older woman in the car with him. And the fact that he persevered despite that. And that’s what just is so heartening. So when you said that Jerome was, you know, it meant a lot to him to tell the story, it was on many levels, I believe.
Trudi Sandmeier 37:42
it really breaks your heart, because here he was trying to do this amazing scholarly work. And all people could see was that he was a large Black man.
Cindy Olnick 37:52
Well, we’re gonna make sure that people see more than that. And this is a huge part of it.
Gail Kennard 37:57
Yeah, we’re standing on the shoulders of a lot of folks that, you know, persevered. You know, my great grandparents, my grandparents, they put up with a lot and they just kept going. That’s what we do. We just keep going. And so that the next person that comes along, the next generation coming after us will have a little bit easier time. And if it’s not an easier time, at least they’ll have a model of how to handle it.
Cindy Olnick 38:20
So Gail, we cannot thank you enough for being with us here today on Save As and sharing the incredible personal perspective that you have on your father’s work, and your mother’s support, and your own incredible accomplishments, and the legacy that you all have, as well as Jerome’s. So thank you.
Gail Kennard 38:44
No , you’re welcome.
Trudi Sandmeier 38:49
So Cindy, this interview was a tough one for me.
[music]
Cindy Olnick 38:52
Jerome meant a lot to you. I mean, he meant a lot to many, many people, but you mentored him, in the spirit of this episode. You were a dear friend. You helped him through his health crisis. You went to Disneyland in France with him. You helped him shape this thesis, you made sure he got it done. And, you know, it’s a lot, and we’ve been spending a lot of time putting this together. And it’s been intense.
Trudi Sandmeier 39:22
Yes, it has been super intense. And, but, really important, because voices like Jerome’s and stories like Kennard’s are so important. I wish Jerome was here to tell the story himself, but since he can’t be, I think it’s really important that we tried to do it for him. So I hope we did it justice.
Cindy Olnick 39:47
Jerome, we tried to do you proud, and we will continue to work to make sure that what you’ve started continues.
