When spring came to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1909, it did not change Gates Avenue one bit. The streets near the Gates Avenue were very clean and beautiful. The people who lived there were tidying their homes up, making gar-dens, painting their houses and getting their lawn mowers ready for the summer. But Gates Avenue continued to look dirty and ugly.

    Gates Avenue was a long and wide street. Peo-ple who lived there had very little money. Sometimes the men had jobs and sometimes they didn’t. The women would never sweep. The houses did not even have running water. They had to carry their water from the hydrants on the street corners. Each family there had a backyard, but there was nothing but weeds. The Gates Avenue people had never thought that living in such conditions was not a good thing. ......