African American Studies Commons^™

Marietta J. Tanner, Mark Naison

Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP)

Interviewee: Marietta J. Tanner

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Donna Joseph, Saudah Muhammad

Date: July 2020

Summarized by Sophia Maier

Marietta J. Tanner was born in 1928 in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Influenced by the activism of her father and the wartime experiences of her uncle, Marietta is a life-long political activist. Her parents explained to her from a young age their experiences in Jim Crow era Pennsylvania and by the age of six she was passing out political pamphlets and registering people to vote with the rest of her family. After attending a segregated school in her youth and a brief period …

Everette Brown, Jacqueline, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interviewees: Jacqueline Everette Brown

Interviewers: Mark Naison

Date: August 2020

Summarized by Trystan Edwards

Jacqueline Everette Brown was born in the Bedstuy community of Brooklyn, New York. She fondly recollects her childhood as one of three girls in her family. Her mother and father migrated to New York from Georgia during the great migration in the late thirties. Brown and her family moved back to Georgia in the early 1950’s. It is during this time that she faced more overt racism, evidenced by her having to ride in the back of the bus. Nevertheless, Brown and her family quickly adjusted. …

Greene, David, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

David Greene is a teacher and football coach at Scarsdale High School in Westchester County. He was born on November 3^rd, 1949 in Los Angeles Ca. His mother was a Russian immigrant who had come to the Bronx when she was 14 years old, and his father, who lived in Harlem, was of Austrian, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian descent. His mother worked in the fashion industry as a model, and his father worked as a trucker. David’s mother was a down-to-earth Russian Jewish woman who spent all her time working and managing her household. She was suspicious of …

Foster, Gertrude, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Gertrude Foster, nee Seaton, was born on October 31, 1927 in Rome, NY. Her grandparents had immigrated to the US from the West Indies and married on US soil, so their descendents were American-born. Because her birth parents were frequently absent, she was raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx by black foster families throughout the Depression years. From 1940 on she lived in the South Bronx. Throughout her upbringing Gertrude had both positive and negative experiences with other races. Occasionally she was in the minority, and she had to deal with prejudice from Italian, Irish, and Polish Americans. However, she …

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 …

Bergland, Beatrice And Bergland, Harriet, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Beatrice Bergland and Harriet Waites of the community church of Morrisania were interviewed for the Bronx African American History Project on October 25^th 2004. They began their interview by recounting their past and present experiences with the community church of Morrisania, which was founded by Pastor William E. Thompson in 1956. He, along with community members, purchased a house on Teller Ave. for $10,000 to serve as the non-denominational church’s building which facilitated the needs of the African American community that was developing in the neighborhood and also began the formation of new, warm, active community in Morrisania.

One …

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 …

Melrose, Arnold And Melrose, Evelyn And Teasdale, Ethel, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Evelyn Melrose was born in 1926 and at the age of 3 her family moved from New Haven, CT, to Washington Avenue and Claremont Parkway in the Bronx. Her father accepted a job for the US Government Post Office on Tremont Avenue and was able to live in the apartment on Washington Avenue because he agreed to be the Super and care for the building. This was how black families were able to get apartments in all white buildings at the time, only if they were the Supers of the building. His position with the government allowed him to still …