Strong Island

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1

Hello, it's Yance.

Hello, it's Demitri Jones

returning your phone call.

-Hi, Miss Jones. How are you?

-OK.

I am not sure if you remember my name,

or my brother's name.

He was a homicide victim,

back in 1992, when you were with the

Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

-OK.

-His name was William Ford.

You worked on the case

with Stephen O'Brien

and Detective James Hughes.

OK, what do you want to know?

I was calling to see if you were willing

to, within, you know,

your legal restrictions,

answer some of the questions

that have been,

sort of, plaguing me

for the last 22 years.

No. I'm not going to do that.

OK. Do you mind if I ask you why?

Because as a prosecutor,

everything that

happens in the Grand Jury

is confidential.

-So I'm not going to discuss it.

-Sure. Right. No.

I'm asking about the investigation.

Yeah, no, I'm not willing

to discuss any

of my prior cases on film

with anybody.

-May I interview you by phone?

-No.

-OK, and...

-I don't want to discuss the case.

And you don't want to make any comment?

I do not want to make any comment.

-OK, Miss Jones. Thank you.

-Bye.

My son...

lying dead in a coffin,

with the most peaceful look on his face.

You, your sister...

And I remember thinking...

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"How are we gonna make it without him?

How will our life go on, without him?"

Even then,

I was saying,

"Wait until we get to court!

I said, "This is a young man who has never

been in trouble in his entire life.

Wait until we get to court."

So you were saying this

to yourself on the day of the funeral?

"Wait until we get to court.

This death is not going to be in vain."

I'm not surprised

that the case didn't go to trial.

I just want to know all the reasons why.

I'm not angry.

I'm also not willing to accept

that someone else gets to say

who William was.

And if you're uncomfortable

with me asking these questions,

you should probably get up and go.

All of the years that we were growing up,

if we went through a section,

or passed a section

that was predominantly white,

you ran.

That's when I started to realize

the economic difference.

OK, so these people weren't wealthy,

but their wealth was that they were white.

My father's name

was George Alexander Dunmore.

I was two when my father died.

He had a severe asthma attack.

He was taken to the hospital.

There was a White waiting room,

and a Colored waiting room,

and even though he was critically...

in respiratory difficulty,

he was made to wait.

And during that period

of time, he died.

Tell me the story of how

you met Dad. When did you meet Dad?

Well, let's not say,

"When did I meet him?"

When did I become aware of him?

What's the difference?

Because I saw him

when I was in the sixth grade,

and he was in the seventh grade.

I did not speak with him

until October of 1958.

I was a sophomore,

and he was a junior.

And... where we lived,

in Charleston, South Carolina,

we always had a Coronation Ball

at County Hall.

Your father came over.

He asked me for a dance,

and he asked me that night

if I would be his girl.

I tried to be cool,

and let a few seconds pass

before I said, "Yes!"

I didn't say yes, I said,

"Yeah, I guess so."

You know?

But I was jumping for joy inside.

Because I had loved this

man from afar

since I was in sixth grade.

We got married

July 10th, 1965.

Now,

I think that my husband...

was a gorgeous man, OK?

He was handsome.

We moved to New York.

I absolutely loved it.

We found an apartment in Brooklyn.

I enjoyed it immensely.

It was the kind of apartment building

that had a lot of old Jewish ladies

who lived there.

And they would line up

in front of the window

in the afternoon, and they'd sit there.

They were wonderful.

I remember coming home one day,

and one of them said,

"It looks as if

you're going to have a baby!"

I said, "Oh, my goodness,

I thought I was hiding it."

I was elated, you know.

And when I sang he would get quiet,

and when I stopped,

he would move a little.

And if I didn't start right back up,

his little feet and hands would be moving.

William was born in 1967.

Your father would say,

"That boy's gonna be so spoiled."

He was. He was.

I made an "A"

on the national teachers exam.

I loved teaching.

I loved it.

Because I knew what being educated

had done for my sisters and me.

And I also knew the struggle.

My mom stripped tobacco for a living,

OK?

She left school in the fourth grade,

and went to work.

I helped her learn how to read.

I think she had no shame with me,

because I was the youngest.

And I was proud

that I could help her

read and write.

My mother started

out her career

in New York City as an

English teacher,

and worked her way up to

become Principal

of Thomas Jefferson

High School

in East New York.

After 13 years there,

she opened a school

for girls and women at Rikers,

the jail that sits in...

essentially at the end of the runway

at LaGuardia Airport.

She named it Rosewood,

and she developed programs

that helped women leave prison

with skills,

so that they would have options

when they got out of prison.

And my father just believed

in my mother's ability to do anything.

Your father worked

at Andrew Geller's.

Fabulous shoes.

Fantastic, beautiful shoes,

and I loved them.

He wanted to be a draftsman.

He took the test for the

Transit Authority

to become a motorman...

but he could still go to school.

Then you were born.

When Lauren was born,

he was overjoyed.

He was overjoyed.

But as you guys grew,

you were so rambunctious.

We were looking for an apartment.

We looked in Brooklyn.

Nothing that we found

did your father like.

He did not like anything that we found.

I must not have spoken to him

for a month, OK?

I would put pillows

in the middle of the bed,

because it meant that

we had to keep looking,

and at the time, I did not know

how dead set he was

on moving to Long Island.

My father drove the J Train,

which ran on a loop through

some of the

toughest neighborhoods

in the city.

From his motorman's

cabin, he saw a

very different New York

than my mother.

He saw poverty, and crime,

and violence,

and a rapidly declining city.

My father was not a fearful man.

He was a realist.

He had already gotten out

of the Jim Crow South in one piece,

and he didn't want to put

his family or our future at risk.

We came out one Saturday,

and met Sam McCollough.

Nice, you know. He lived in the community.

He was the agent for the company

that bought this land

and built the houses.

I was told later

that they wanted to attract...

people who were employed

by the city, you know,

whom they thought could afford the homes.

A lot of... African Americans

were moving out to Long Island.

Civil servants, like bus drivers,

police officers, correction officers...

and they would put them in pockets,

or neighborhoods in the different towns.

You could go to certain towns...

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