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| Title | Unk, Ron |
| Description | Ron Unk talks about his experiences during the years 1966-1971. He remembers the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, living in a juvenile detention center during the Wooster Avenue Riots, robbing Shulan's Jewelry store in 1966, and filling for a Conscience Objectors Status in 1971. |
| Date | 9 August 2008 |
| Creator | Unk, Ron; |
| Interviewer | Goldner, Cheri L. |
| Subject | Assassinations
Vietnam War
Juvenile Detention Centers
Race Relations
Wooster Avenue
Riots
Riot of 1968
African-Americans
Youth
Shulan Jewelry
Robbery
Anti-War Movement
Politics
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| Names | Kennedy, Robert F.; |
| Transcript | Ron Unk:
"I was fifteen in 1968. I remember Bobby Kennedy. I remember coming in from out late at night partying, and I remember watching that interview on TV, you know the news, the eleven o'clock news, the eleven thirty news, or whatever it was, it was late and he was talking about 'on to California,' and I remember flipping it off and thinking 'yeah.' You know I kind of had a little bit of hope and anticipation. At fifteen you're not worried too much, but you realize the Vietnam War is going on, you realize that, dang man, you know you are watching the news at night, you are watching all these body counts, and think about that, that is the first time we watched that kind of stuff I think on TV and it was normal for us at the time, but later on you realize that was really the first that we were watching all those battles and stuff like that, so I know it effected me. I do remember my mom waking me up the next morning and said Bobby Kennedy had been killed or shot, and I remember, I remember in my mind thinking, you know, just you know f-it, you know, and… tough times."
"I was in a lot of trouble as a kid and the particular story I'm going to talk about is when I was in juvenile detention center on up on 650 Dan Street in the summer of '68. I don't even remember why I was in trouble. I was in and out of that place all the time as a juvenile. But I do remember being woke up at two thirty in the morning and they shuffled us to another hall, and you know, 'what's going on,' you're in the middle of the night, you're disheveled, you're sleeping and everything. And I went right to bed into the other hall, but got up the next morning and the hall we had been removed from there was, it seemed like, hundreds and hundreds of black teenagers, all afro out, no sleep, you can imagine a mess and disheveled, and they just seemed like they were all there, all about themselves too, they had been picked up the night before. But point is I didn't know what the heck was happening. And I'm thinking 'what the heck, you know, is going on' learned later on about the riots that happened over at Copley Road, Wooster Avenue and everything and so we learned quickly, you know, through the rumor mill, that there had been riots and that they arrested a lot. And the blacks were going, in our mind, the blacks were going crazy and everything else like that. When we went out to run around the yard, they made us go out and do morning exercises and we ran around the yard, and that was the thing we knew it was really serious because there were lots of Summit County sheriff's department and the police department with shot guns parading around the parameter of the fences. We thought 'wow man that's strange' only to find out later on through history and stuff that in Detroit, I guess, where these things had happened that parents had came and actually tried to break-out their kids during the riots and stuff like that. And so that was kind of interesting from a fifteen-year-old's stand point of what was going on."
"I remember we got busted for robbing a jewelry store one time in Shulan's Jewelry, and the jewelry use to be out in the windows for people to pass by and 'oh, you like that diamond ring.' We busted out the windows and we stole all that and we were busted one night for that. That was in I think it was 66' and they started removing jewelry from the windows after that because people were smashing and grabbing. A lot of people think that was after the riot in 68' but it was because of us [laughs]."
"I remember filling for a Conscience Objectors Status and that was a whole thing when you had to do it. And really it was about the war, I felt the war was wrong, but you know I carried a gun [laughs], so it wasn't any kind of thing about anti-violence or anything like that or a peace freak or anything. It was about the war and making a statement and probably thinking I could go over at the time. But I filled for that Conscience Objector and low and behold I had different people on both sides. I had an ex-marine who testified for me, he was back from Vietnam, so I believe he's sincere in what he was doing. I had a freak activist that was probably yelling at the Draft Board, you know, 'you're killing and,' you know [laughs] all this kind of stuff. But anyway, I got it, and I got a Conscience Objectors Status on the draft card and never had to go to Vietnam. And I think, I don't know how I feel about that today I'm more of a Conservative today, a Republican, interesting how you change your view-points. It was an interesting time. Interesting reflecting even today knowing that I was going to come in here and reflect and think, it brought back a lot of emotions"
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| Contributors | Akron-Summit County Public Library
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| Type | Audio
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| Length | 4:33 |
| Source | Unk clip.mp3 |
| Language | English |
| Relation | Akron Remembers 1968 Collection
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| About this collection | This project is a collaboration of the Akron-Summit County Public Library and Dr. Gregory Wilson of the University of Akron's Department of History, with the cooperation of the City of Akron and Lock 3 Live!
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| Commission Report | http://www.akronlibrary.org/internetresources/sc/OnlineBooks/Commitee-Report-Civildisorders.pdf |
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