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Beckford, Hugh, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Natasha Lightfoot

INTERVIEWEE: Hugh Beckford

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Hugh Beckford is the director of Caribbean American Family Services, an organization that he established in 1991. He is a 1985 graduate of Fordham College, Rose Hill, where he studied theology and sociology. Beckford was born in Trelawney, Jamaica, and was raised by his grandparents because his parents divorced when he was young. He was locally educated in Jamaican public schools and attended St. George’s College in Kingston, a boarding school. As a young man he was considered one of the best dancers in Jamaica and occasionally appeared on national …

Cruz, Marilyn, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Marilyn Cruz

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison, Princess Okieme, Andrew Tiedt

Date of Interview Novermber 3, 2005

Summarized by Alice Stryker

Marilyn was born in Harlem. Her mother’s family immigrated to Harlem from Barbados and her father’s family was from the south. She grew up attending St. Ambrosse church, which was attended by many people from the Caribbean. While in Harlem, she attended PS 113 for grade school and remembers playing in Central Park.

The Basian side of her family was very mixed. She believes her great-grandfather may have been white, but she is unsure. The family really never discussed …

Creole Carnival: Unwrapping The Pleasures And Paradoxes Of The Gift Of Creolization, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

In this essay Kevin Frank goes against the current in questioning the social and intellectual embrace of the poetics of creolization, in terms of its the efficacy in subverting biases that underpinned colonial subordination and exploitation.

Singleton, David G., Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

David Singleton was born May 5th 1935 in mid Sacramento Valley. He was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. He applied and was accepted into Princeton Theological Seminary. While at Princeton, he served as a student in multi-racial situations in East Trenton and in West Philadelphia. He was eventually placed at Sound view Presbyterian Church in the Bronx in 1963 per the recommendation of a minister he had met while serving at Richard Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Singleton met Medgar Evers and participated in the civil rights movement in Birmingham Alabama. He had a few church connections there. He …

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 …

The Murderous Insanity Of Love: Sex, Madness, And The Law In The 19th Century, Russell M. Franks

Russell M. Franks

The late 19th century was a time of dynamic change for the United States. High ideals, progressive reform movements, accelerated industrial expansion, explosive immigration rates, and an increase in urban growth all characterized the Gilded Age of America.

This paper will examine the factors and social conditions that revolutionized how abnormal sexual and gender behavior was interpreted as insanity in and out of the courtroom during this Gilded Age.