Interview with Khalid Walid, June 29, 2015, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Imonee White: Today is June 29. I am Imonee White, the interviewer, the oral historian: Khalid Walid. The project is called Oral Histories of the Plant Closings in Milwaukee. Hi.

Khalid Walid: Hello.

Imonee White: Khalid?

Khalid Walid: Yes.

Imonee White: Okay. I understand that you were around the time during the plant closing, and you experienced it.

Khalid Walid: At the time that I retired, to speak of, it was Smith. I worked there for 30 -- between 35- 36 years.

Imonee White: Wow.

Khalid Walid: And I was being close to retirement anyway, but it was Smith played the instrumental role, as far as the community in which I live. A. O. Smith provided life to the surrounding businesses. A. O. Smith provided the 00:01:00ability for many people in the city to be able to function as far as having decent income, insurance.

That's the key component.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: So it's been very well missed.

Imonee White: I just wanted to ask you, are you from Milwaukee?

Khalid Walid: I'm from -- I was born in Memphis, Tennessee.

Imonee White: Okay.

Khalid Walid: I was in Milwaukee most of my life, since I was six.

Imonee White: Okay. After the plant closing, where did you go otherwise to employ after the plant closing?

Khalid Walid: After the plant closing, because of the insurance issue with the contract we had, you know, being able to afford the insurance which was provided 00:02:00to us, I had to seek other employment in order to cover me and my wife, you know, and my family at the time.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: So eventually I ended up at Potawatomi Casino working outside in the Buildings and Grounds Department.

Imonee White: Okay. I want you to tell me every thought, feeling in your body that you had. Like, did the plant closing bother you just financially? Did it bother you emotionally, mentally? How did you feel about the plant closing?

Khalid Walid: Well I thought the plant closing, financially, I wasn't as, at that time, really ready to retire. I was closing, but it changed my whole 00:03:00financial situation, my family -- with my family. It caused me to -- I had to become more disciplined to a different type of lifestyle. Prior to that, you know, I was able to do certain things, but now I'm not able to do as I was.

I'm not as independent as I used to be.

Imonee White: Right:

Khalid Walid: But the plant closing, more or less, affected me in the manner that, you know, A.O. Smith had been there for, especially in the inner city, for a long time.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: And the neighborhoods in which we live in, A.O. Smith was really one of the life forces of the area in which I lived, and many of the people with 00:04:00whom I work with, we live, you know, right around the corner from me, a number of people.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: What happened was that A.O. Smith was, to me, the last of the Mohicans, because many other plants had faded out, and A.O. Smith survived through some trying times. And when A.O. Smith died, I mean, the quality of life in the community began to slowly, slowly, slowly depreciate.

Imonee White: So with the plant closing, did you notice any change in, like, local community, as far as stores? Like, did they --

Khalid Walid: Stores. Restaurants, in particular. You know, you had your bars.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: Particular bars always depended on certain type of workers coming 00:05:00up in there, you know. You had also -- many people that live on the outskirts were affected, maybe more so than -- in a lot of ways. I don't want to say more so, because their lifestyle has changed.

The surrounding community, as far as the gas stations and all that began to depreciate because the flow in the money began to depreciate.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: And even as you see -- you know, Milwaukee used to be one of the top cities, as far as keeping the roads and streets and the roads together, but after the A.O. Smith era, all that begins to be more, like, bigger potholes in 00:06:00the street.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: And it's not taken care of.

Imonee White: How did you find out about the plant closing? Were you told verbally? Did they send you a letter in the mail? How did you find out?

Khalid Walid: Well, you know, back then, we was always looking at -- there was always that threat that they was talking about closing, and I forgot exactly how it -- because I retired before the plant closing.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: And I was one of those fortunate to be able to retire at A.O. Smith before they even, you know talked about the plant closing. So the plant was not closed when I left.

Imonee White: Okay.

Khalid Walid: So but you could always see the handwriting on the wall -- this --

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: It was gradual. It wasn't a big shock.

Imonee White: Okay. Well, this is a question you may or may not want to answer. 00:07:00You don't have to if you don't want to. Did you or anyone you know use drugs or alcohol excessively after the plant closing?

Khalid Walid: Well, I'm Muslim. So I wouldn't take the drugs or alcohol at the time. I stopped drinking. So after the plant closing that wasn't an issue with me, drinking or alcohol.

Imonee White: Okay.

Khalid Walid: Yes.

Imonee White: Do you know, are you familiar with pensions?

Khalid Walid: Yes.

Imonee White: Did you receive pensions?

Khalid Walid: Yes, I received a pension.

Imonee White: Okay. With the job, what skill were you majoring in? Like, what did you do?

Khalid Walid: When I retired, I was in the department. You know, working with the machines. So I was always a press operator majority of my time there. A.O. Smith provided me with welding skills, ability to operate various different 00:08:00machinery, and it was piece work. And then -- at first it was piece work.

So I was always on the press departments, production departments, working with the machinery.

Imonee White: Well, since you had already retired, as you said before, the plant closing, you had friends or coworkers as well. Did you see a drastic change in any of them that was working for it and then just, you know?

Khalid Walid: Well, I knew one brother, he just cried, you know. He just cried and you know. Then he went looking for himself, more so, even though he did have a good job. He stayed all the way to the end. The way he looked at it was the 00:09:00future generation and, what are they going to do? You know, where are they going to get the job from?

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: This is one of the very last of the, in particular, middle-class people, whether it's white, black. Mostly it was white and Afro-Americans that worked there. You had Native Americans working there. Where are they going to get this kind of jobs and this kind of benefits? And, I mean, he rarely talks about it today.

It's just devastated him, and he's just looking at it from the perspective of, you know, all -- Well, if you notice, most of our young men are not going to college anyway.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: Not able to go, it's one reason or another, and don't qualify. 00:10:00Haven't made the next level. So this was one of the very last of the jobs for a person who did not have a college education. Was able to get him a decent paying job.

Imonee White: Are you still in contact with him?

Khalid Walid: Eddie Ballard? I can get ahold of him, yes.

Imonee White: Okay. Well, I want to know from your perspective what do you think the long-term effects of the plant closing had on, you know, families and Milwaukee's community as a whole.

Khalid Walid: Many of your -- The working-class people began to go back to the south or they began to leave Milwaukee, defected. That language of the -- the way the city was -- the quality of the workers, many of those, what's there to 00:11:00stick around for?

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: Go back where family is or whatever. But many of them moved on out of Milwaukee. You see a slow, you seeing a slow migration of the quality workers leaving Milwaukee, going elsewhere. Many of them stayed, but a large number of them left Milwaukee.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: And since then, without certain, you know, paying jobs that you had, they had to go elsewhere. They had to move on. Some of them was able to get as well good jobs elsewhere, but I think that was one of the biggest things that within your family structure, the ability of being able to take care of your 00:12:00family, family paying jobs and things like this begin to evaporate.

And I think that's one of the biggest downfalls, along with the depreciation and being able to maintain the houses, foot the bills here in Wisconsin, you know, and things like that.

Imonee White: I'm only 17. So I wasn't around at that time. I don't know if the violence rate was high around that time or not. Did you see -- if it was, did you see an increase or a decrease in the violence because of plant closing, out of anger from employees being laid off? Did you see any difference in the community as far as violence or murders, homicides, anything?

Khalid Walid: Well, I would say that it wasn't with the workers. It was maybe their children. The devaluation of the communities, different families came in 00:13:00from other states, other cities, began to infiltrate Milwaukee, because of the benefits that Milwaukee was offering. And so the violence, it's different.

You know, but we had, always had, a certain degree of violence here in Milwaukee. But now it's much different. It's much different.

Imonee White: Did you have any family working in A.O. Smith with you?

Khalid Walid: No.

Imonee White: None at all?

Khalid Walid: No.

Imonee White: Are you still in contact with any of your previous employees? Any of them, are you still in touch?

Khalid Walid: Yeah.

Imonee White: If it was your decision, would you bring A.O. Smith back around? 00:14:00If you could open it back up, would you bring it back around to give the younger males and females more so the opportunity to experience what you experienced?

Khalid Walid: Well, I think if you bring back A.O. Smith, you bring back -- you're actually bringing back the middle class. You're going to improve the circumstances and conditions of this community, because there's more of a money flow if you're able to do that. I know times have changed, and the cost today, in comparison to the past, seems to be more prohibitive. But if you bring back a working class, it stands to reason that things are going to improve and get much better.

One reason is that if you're working the majority of the time, like we used to work, I mean what kind of trouble do you get in the morning, once on the job, 00:15:00you know?

Imonee White: Right. So you're going have to bring back some kind of working class or otherwise what are the people going to do? How are they going to survive?

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: What else can they do?

Imonee White: When you worked for A.O. Smith, how often did you work? How many days a week? How many hours?

Khalid Walid: It depends. Sometimes, you know, you're working all hours, seven days a week. But the majority of my time it would probably be five, sometimes six.

Imonee White: Okay.

Khalid Walid: It all depends what department you're in.

Imonee White: So you were retired when the plant closing happened. So it didn't more so affect you financially, but would you say it bothered you mentally or emotionally because of the fact that you had been there for so long, and it's crazy to think, you know, something like that just dies out just so quickly?

Khalid Walid: Yeah. Well, mentally and emotionally, see, I was sort of prepared, 00:16:00in a sense. And it's not me that I think of more so than the community in which I live. And it affected me because that's the place where I used to work, and now it's gone.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: And knowing that what type of -- and it wasn't easy. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy working in A.O. Smith. A.O. Smith was a lot of hard work, but we had a community there in which -- you know, at A.O. Smith, you know, you're able to learn how to work with different diverse people, individuals, personalities, deal with all that.

So it provided -- it was a savior even for myself.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: You know, if it wasn't for A.O. Smith, what would I be doing, you know?

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: I'm not saying that I wouldn't be doing so much better, but A.O. Smith helped to provide a lot for the community as a whole, because the fact of the matter is as long as Smith was there, you know, you had a money flow in the community. When Smith dried up, it had the same effects as when American --

Was it American Motors left Kenosha? They shut down, and it turned into like a ghost land. So now we're seeing that kind of ill effects that's hovering over Milwaukee now. You know, Milwaukee is the number one this, number one that, number one that's in particular for the Afro-Americans. And what's the problem? 00:18:00The Afro-Americans cannot provide for themselves. So that's kind of how it affects me. It affects me because I see the quality of life as slowly dissolving.

And I look at young men that didn't have the opportunity like I had.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: You know, the best they can do, maybe if they get lucky, they might get a $10 an hour job. That was unheard of by the time I retired, yeah.

Imonee White: Did you graduate high school?

Khalid Walid: Yes.

Imonee White: Where from?

Khalid Walid: North Division.

Imonee White: Okay. When you graduated from high school, did you seek college or did you go straight to A.O. Smith?

Khalid Walid: No, I had another job I worked as a clerk. I was working in the federal building. I was working as a clerk for a while. And after that, I had 00:19:00went to Chicago, and I was working at a lamp company. Then I came back to Milwaukee, and then I eventually ended up at A.O. Smith.

Imonee White: Okay. You were at A.O. Smith for 30 years; right?

Khalid Walid: Thirty, around 36, 35-36.

Imonee White: You were there for quite some time. What were your opinions about A.O. Smith as far as your coworkers, your boss, how quickly they paid you, hours? What were your thoughts about A.O. Smith? How did you feel about it?

Khalid Walid: Well, really you can't beat it, because you're getting paid every week. You know, over $600, $700 a week. They paid you every week. The benefits, it's unheard of in comparison to the day. You know, free insurance. The work conditions was rough, but that's the thing about life. Life is not going to 00:20:00necessarily designed to be easy, you know.

Imonee White: Right.

Khalid Walid: Normally, it depends on the, you know, your workers, who you're working with. Because normally, they become part of a different kind of family. And you become family here and family there. You learn about other's people culture at A.O. Smith. They also provided you with the means of advancing if you choose, because you had the kind of money to be advanced if you choose to, you know.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: And so it was just a different family and a different kind of world. You know, it was a world in which, you know, you understand that a lot of 00:21:00young people nowadays, when you tell them about working in a place thirty some years, see if they can find that. You know, that's what kind of atmosphere you had, because you had the kind of pay to keep you there, and the benefits and theology system and all that. So how can I complain, you know.

Imonee White: Yeah. What is your opinions about opportunities for making a good living in Milwaukee?

Khalid Walid: As far as Afro-American, unless they have an education, unless they have a skill, their chances of, here in Milwaukee, is very, very, very little to none. You know, number two is that you got to work in a manner -- 00:22:00especially when you get to a certain age, you have to think about your future, and you've got to think about providing yourself with some type of security.

Milwaukee, unless you develop and become disciplined and make your right moves, because a lot of doors are not open for a person who is of a certain background skills, you know, you're very limited. So here in Milwaukee, man, it doesn't look too good as far as prosperity among a middle-class -- average working-class person, as far as his ability to be able to make a good living here.

Imonee White: Okay. Well, what do you think should be done to improve job 00:23:00opportunities and life for African-Americans, males and females?

Khalid Walid: Well, generally, for any group of people, you need to have jobs, decent paying jobs.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: Without that, there's always a problem. Milwaukee, as far as a poverty city, in comparison to other cities, Milwaukee has always seemed to be like a city that didn't have no poverty. Because, you know, if you go to other cities, man, you look at Milwaukee, they ask you, where's the ghetto, you know. And Milwaukee has always been -- but Milwaukee is gradually reversing.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: That kind of conditions that used to be elsewhere is developing 00:24:00here, and it seem like in other places they're moving on up. And that's because some way they got a thriving means of developing their working class people, where they're able to provide for themselves and get the basic fundamentals of having a decent lifestyle. And also,

with the issue of developing that family structure, the family situation is one of the key components as far as, I think, the success of what Milwaukee becomes just another poverty state -- or poverty city or -- What's it called? You've got, so -- I don't know. In my opinion, it's not looking too good.

Imonee White: You said you received pensions; right?

Khalid Walid: Right.

Imonee White: Did the pensions help you? Like, were you happy with the pensions 00:25:00or were you disappointed? Did you expect different?

Khalid Walid: Well, I wish I could have gotten more, but something's better than nothing.

Imonee White: Yes.

Khalid Walid: A lot of these people don't have pensions or even jobs. They're out there. They went from here to almost below the welfare line, because they ain't got nothing coming in.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: And so, you know, we were very fortunate to be able to at least have that. Now, many other corporations are incorporated as 401 and this and like that, but what happens is if what you have laid up and to the side, all of the sudden if there's a big collapse in the economy and this and that, you don't get nothing. Little or nothing. You know, so pension is a blessing for the working man.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: Seek a pension.

Imonee White: How do you feel about being labeled an oral historian? Does that feel -- Does that make you feel a little, you know, proud of yourself? How does it make you feel? Because we consider you an oral historian.

Khalid Walid: Well, my feeling is I'm moving on down the line. Many of my colleagues, or friends, my age is moving up out of here, you know. So what else can you be? You've got to look back and reflect and just hope that you're able to contribute to the positive side of the future rather than the negative. And mainly there's nothing I can do about that.

I can't change it around. So, you know, my feeling is that it's not about being proud. It's just, man, it's just a reality check, you know. You there, you know, 00:27:00whether you like it or not. You're lucky that you made it that far.

Imonee White: Well, this is an observation I made on my own. If you don't mind me asking, I notice you gave me two names. Why two?

Khalid Walid: Huh?

Imonee White: You gave me two names, Khalid Walid and Robert R Borem

Khalid Walid: I became Muslim. So I haven't had my name legally changed. I'm still legally Robert R Borem. But, you know, in my Muslim community, they know me as Khalid Walid. So I maintain both names., and I just clarify this is the Khalid Walid who used to be -- who's Robert R Borem. That's what's happening.

Imonee White: Well, I think that's all I have for today for you. Is there anything that maybe we didn't touch on that you would like to speak on? Is there anything else?

Khalid Walid: I am curious as to what brought this about. To interview people from --

Imonee White: Well, this is the Black Historical Museum, and we are very much interested about the plant closing because I'm not sure if anyone ever asked you how, you know, how did you feel about the plant closing or -- I'm not sure. But this is -- it's just something that we really wanted to know, and it's an experience and it's an honor to have you guys come in and take time out of your day to, you know, come in and talk to us and tell us about -- because it's really interesting to me, and I don't know how I would feel about it.

So us bringing you in is because we want to know how it made you feel and, you know, give you the opportunity to be honored for, you know, everything that you experienced due to the plant closing. That's basically what it's for.

Khalid Walid: Well, I'll say this, when I was coming up, I started working at A.O. Smith. We had a community. This whole street, it's full of life. Go down 00:29:003rd Street, full of life. Not only you had stores, you had the, you know, your food stores. You had your movie theaters and things like that. In that day, there was a number of movie theaters around here.

So, and all day -- we used to walk everywhere we used to go.

Imonee White: Yeah.

Khalid Walid: We didn't need a -- we didn't go on the Southside, Eastside, Westside so much so because we had everything right here in the inner city. As these plants close, as we see it today, like this building right here, it's becoming a historical building. It's the last of the Mohicans.

Imonee White: yeah.

Khalid Walid: Once it's gone -- what do you expect? It's over, you know. So this is what we had to say to -- once this go, it's over, you know. Nobody going to 00:30:00even know anything about you. So that's a drastic change, and that's the way I look at things. People that we grew up in, and actually we were fortunate to be able to make it to this age, this age.

I'll be 70 of this year, pretty soon. So most likely, you know, so from my viewpoint I think that reviewing the past, hopefully that we can restore the future.

Imonee White: Well, that's all I have for you today. I greatly appreciate you coming in to do this. I thank you so much.

Khalid Walid: Welcome. Thank you. Khalid Walid Interview, June 29, 2015

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