The afternoon of March 22, 1982, was filled with anger from the members of the Yeakel and Shale Avenue Street clubs in a confrontation that had been bubbling for nearly five months.
In the fall of 1981, members of the street clubs invited Cleveland’s traffic engineering department to a meeting regarding the lack of a streetlight at the intersection of Yeakel Avenue, Shale Avenue and Woodhill Road. According to the club members, the lack of a stoplight had led to numerous traffic and pedestrian accidents.
Instead of attending the meeting, the department sent a letter suggesting residents request a stoplight be moved to the intersection in question from the intersection of Hulda Avenue and Woodhill Road 50 yards away. The tipping point came on March 18, 1982, when another child was hit in the intersection, marking the fourth child hit there in less than six months.
Residents gathered in the street for the pictured protest at 4:30 p.m. on March 22, blocking the road and placing a dummy beneath a car’s wheels and brandishing signs encouraging the placement of a stoplight. One was never placed at the intersection.
