Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Blakeney, James, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

James Blakeney is a long time Bronx resident who grew up in the Patterson Housing Projects. His parents were sharecroppers from North and South Carolina. Neither of his parents received an education beyond the 6^th or 8^th grade. His father fought in World War II and then returned to the states to live in Queens, where James lived for three years, before moving to the Patterson Houses. His father worked at the mess hall of St. Albans Neighborhood Hospital and left the family, as many fathers were beginning to do, when James was ten years old. Mrs. Blakeney …

Mercado, Albert, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

When he was young in the Bronx he says it was a lovely area. There was a good mix of groups, but “everyone got along.” After junior high, he attended Art and Design in Manhattan, but he experienced prejudice there Latinos or African-Americans were in the minority there, so he transferred to Manhattan Vocational Tech. He stayed there a year but left because there was a lot of gang activity. He then attended DeWitt Clinton. He lived in the Bronx and the area had become very dilapidated - “it looked like if someone ran through there and just bombed it …

Gregg, Earnest, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Ernest Greg’s family moved from the South, to Atlantic City, to the Bronx in the 1930’s. The family came to the Morrisania section of the Bronx because Greg’s father was a Pullman porter. The family lived in a five-story walk-up until Ernest was about 12 on 169th street. He remembers his block as being predominately black, but Park Avenue, which was close by, as being ethnically diverse. He also remembers feeling very safe in that neighborhood. All of the adults looked out for the children.

When he was 12, the family moved to the newly opened Castle Hill projects, which …