Digital Commons Network^™

Crier, Arthur, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Arthur Crier

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Summarized by Concetta Gleason

Crier is an organizer of the Morissania Review and a leading figure in Doo-Wop and Rhythm and Blues in the Morrisania community. Crier was born in 1935 in Harlem, but raised on Prospect Ave in the Bronx. His mother was from the South, specifically North Carolina, which is where he currently resides. He attended a mixed elementary school and also played street games with the other children on the block. The schools were very good and teachers genuinely cared for their students. The neighborhood was safe and the families looked …

Simmons, Victoria, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Victoria Simmons-Good grew up in the Patterson Houses. Her parents moved to the Bronx from Harlem for the affordable housing options offered in the Bronx. He earliest memory is from attending PS 18, which was located near her building. On her way to school, she and her friends would always stop at a Candy Store and eat sweets for breakfast. She also remembers attending a day camp during the summer with fellow children living in the Patterson Houses. She also remembers the music her parents listened to, which was mostly Motown and doo-wop.

She grew up in the Patterson houses …

Hill, Elighu Eldrid, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Eldrid Hill

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Niason, Ricardo Soto-Lopez, Dana Driskell

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Eldrid Hill is a former lieutenant of the New York City Fire Department who has been a long time resident of both Harlem and the Bronx. He has also been deeply involved in local politics and urban planning and a member of Community Board 3 in the Bronx for several decades. Hill was born on July 12, 1928 in Harlem. His mother was from the Dutch side of the island of St. Martin while his father was from St. Kitts. His father was an alcoholic …

Cruse, Harrison Jr., Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Harrison Cruse, Jr.

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Harrison Cruse, Jr. was born on August 10, 1935 in Morningside Heights, Harlem. His mother’s family was originally from Virginia and North Carolina but decided to move north during the 1920’s after experiencing an increasingly racist and violent climate due to activity by the Ku Klux Klan. His father was African American and Native American and had grown up on an Indian reservation with his mother in Roanoke Virginia. His father served in the First World War and later joined the Northwestern Railroad where he worked for many years. …

Nesbitt, Robert, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Robert Nesbitt (b. January 8, 1924) was a soldier in the Tuskegee Airmen unit during World War II. He was born in Harlem, on 125^th St. and Broadway, the son of an ex-military father from South Carolina and a mother from North Carolina. During this time, Harlem was fairly integrated: his neighbors included blacks as well as Irish, Jews, and Italians. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Corona in Queens, to an almost universally black neighborhood. Unlike many young African-American men, Nesbitt attended high school at Haarem high, where he developed a passion for mechanics …

Hartfield, Regina, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Regina Hartfield won the Carl M. and Netty M. Memorial Award for the best reminiscence article in the Bronx County Historical Society Journal with an article about her mother, Dell Amedee, who was an alumnus of the Lincoln School of Nurses. Her step-father was from Haiti and worked as a cab driver, plumber and framer. Her mother was from Orangeburg, South Carolina and as a child Regina lived with her mother and grandmother, Marie Harper on Boston Road, before her mother married Richard Amedee and they moved to Washington Avenue. Her grandfather had diabetes and had come to New York …

Mcgee, Mildred Interview 1, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Mrs. Mildred McGee was born June 29, 1927 and married to Judge Hansel McGee. Also interviewed here are her daughter Dr. Elizabeth McGee and Mr. Leroi Archible. In the first session, Mrs. McGee provides details of her education, her parents’ backgrounds, living in Harlem, the Bronx, Washington DC and moving back to the Bronx. She also describes her husband’s childhood and his education. She attended an elementary school where there were no African-American teachers and she had only one African-American teacher in Junior High who taught Social Studies. The students also learned how to sew, cook and housekeeping at school. …

Brown, Rosemary, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Rosemary Brown, a civil rights activist and long-time Bronx resident, was interviewed for the Bronx African American History Project on April 21, 2005. Rosemary Brown and her large family of eight (eventually nine) first moved from Harlem to 1319 Prospect Ave. at the corner of 168^th Street in 1940, when the Bronx was an especially good place for African American families, because it offered schools, better apartments, safer conditions, and a community where everyone looked out for each other. Prospect Ave. was a tree-lined block where children could play outside, and had residents of various races. The integrated community …

Keller, Bernard, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Bernard Keller was born on November 14 1952 and he lived in Washington Houses on 99^th street until he was 8. His parents were Mable and Howard senior. He has two brothers and two sisters. His ancestry on both sides is African-American, not carribean. His father worked in the Housing Authority and his mother, once he and his siblings had grown up, worked as a school aid. However, both his mother and his father had only a rudimentary education, though this did not prevent them from encouraging their children to do well in school and go to college. When …

Tyson, Cyril Degrasse, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Cyril Degrasse Tyson was born in Harlem in the early 1930’s and frequently moved around Harlem and eventually made his way into the Bronx at an early age. He discusses his family history and when his parents first moved to New York. His parents were both born in the West Indies on the island of Nevis and moved to New York after the first World War. They moved to an area of Manhattan which was referred to as the San Juan Hills at the time. He describes it as a pocket of blacks from the south and West Indies, Puerto …

Brathwaite, Kwame, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

112^th interview of the Bronx African American History Project

Interviewers: Dr. Mark Naison, Maxine Gordon

Interviewee: Kwame Brathwaite

The interview took place May 17, 2002

Summarized by Concetta Gleason 11-29-06

Kwame Brathwaite, a longtime activist, photographer and expert on the history of jazz in NYC was originally born in Harlem, and his family moved to the Bronx in 1943 when he was five years old. Brathwaite's parents are both from Barbados, but they met in Brooklyn. His father was a tailor who owned several Dry Cleaning businesses, which kept him constantly busy, and his mother was a homemaker who …