Digital Commons Network^™

Theresa, Loretta, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Her mother and father were from St. Croix, Virgin Islands and St. John’s, Antigua respectively and they met at St. Mark the Evangelist School. They both graduated from St. Mark’s Elementary School, and they married when they were about 18-19 years old. The family lived initially in Harlem but when her parents separated, she moved with her mother to the Bronx, which she felt was “less crowded … just so bright and so beautiful.” She joined the Franciscan Handmaids of Mary, after some sisters from the Oblate Sisters of Providence from Maryland visited the Blessed Sacrament Sisters, and a nun …

Scott, John L., Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Reverend John L. Scott

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison

Date of Interview: March 3, 2006

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Reverend John L. Scott was a civil rights movement leader in the South and New York City. He has been the pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church in Harlem since the early 1970’s and remains a leader and community activist in the North Bronx where he has lived for the past thirty years. Reverend Scott was born in 1937 in a rural area of North Carolina called Delmar. He is one of six boys, including his twin brother, who were born …

Cunningham, James And Cunningham, Margaret, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewees: James and Margaret Cunningham

Interviewers: Mark Naison and Natasha Lightfoot

Date: January 9, 2006

Summarized by Leigh Waterbury

James Cunningham was born in the Bronx in 1918 and describes what life was like in his household and his neighborhood. His father was a light-skinned black man who was considered colored while in WWI, and later when he moved to New York City to work as a customs inspector he was able to pass as white, which likely helped him to acquire that position. James attended PS 23 elementary school in his neighborhood around 167^th street, where he was …