THE SUBURBAN WALL Interlude
By Brian Copeland

"You should talk to Mimi."

I can't tell you how many times I heard that refrain during the time I spent researching NOT A GENUINE BLACK MAN. Mimi, being Mimi Wilson, a four decade San Leandran, past school board member, and, as social justice issues were concerned, all around hell raiser.

"You should talk to Mimi. She was here in those days and she has lots of stories to tell," people would say.

I'd known Mimi for a few years. We'd worked together on several fundraisers for Davis Street. Despite my relationship with her, I somehow never got around to talking to her about my research into San Leandro's national reputation as a segregated suburb in the 60's and 70's or about my fruitless search for "The Suburban Wall", the documentary that exposed this city's racist housing policies to the nation.

As I wrote earlier, I made the acquaintance of Mel and Doris Desoto, who had founded San Leandro Fair Housing, about seven months into the San Francisco run of GENUINE. Their home had been used as the base of operations during filming. For a while, they had a copy of the film that they showed to schools and community groups. CBS and Westinghouse (who funded the film) asked for the copy back. They returned it, but not before making an audio cassette of the soundtrack. It is this tape that has been the basis for my current series in the Times.

While I found the audiotape enlightening, I still had a lot of unanswered questions. Why had residents told me conflicting stories about what the content was? Why were there so many variations in their recollections about when it aired? Why did some tell me it was called "The Suburban Wall" while others swore that it was called "The Invisible Wall"?

I had resumed my research as I began writing the book version of GENUINE when I finally talked to Mimi. I knew that she was into social causes as evidenced by her Davis Street work. What I didn't know was that she had been one of "the fifty". These were the fifty brave souls who had openly defied the masses by saying that the racist housing policies in San Leandro were wrong. She gave me a few boxes of Fair Housing documents for my book, but she didn't have the documentary. She seemed to remember having had a copy, but didn't know what had happened to it.

Sadly, this grand and wonderful lady passed away a few weeks back. When I did my benefit performances at CCT, the Davis Street show was dedicated to her memory. Afterward, at the reception at Paradiso, Mimi's daughter and granddaughters approached me with big grins on their faces.

"We have something for you," Mimi's daughter Susan said, handing me a gift bag.

When I looked inside, I couldn't believe my eyes. KPIX's broadcast quality copy of "The Suburban Wall". It seems that Mimi had loaned it out to a friend fifteen years ago and both forgot about it. After her death, the friend remembered and returned it to the family. How Mimi got it, nobody knows.

There was a bonus; a second tape entitled "The Invisible Wall". The reason for all of the contradictory stories about what aired on television was that there were two documentaries on the discriminatory practices in this town! I've recently watched them both and will write about them in the coming weeks. As Jolson said, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

I know that somewhere, Mimi is smiling.