Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

Lewis, Doreen, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Doreen Lewis

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Summarized by Alice Stryker

Both of Doreen’s parents came from the south, her mother from Virginia and her father from North Carolina. Her father is Cherokee Indian and met her mother in Virginia. When he returned from WWII, her parents moved to the Bronx. She discusses the way her father identified himself, whether it was as a Native American or as a light-skinned black. She claims his identity shifted from one to the other as he got older. Her father worked for Swift and Company, who were involved with the meat business.

Although her …

Karmon, Elias, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Elias Karmon is a businessperson, philanthropist and community leader in theBronxfor the last seventy years. Karmon Graduated NYU’sSchoolofCommerceand Accounts Finance in 1932 and entered into the industry of wholesale clothing. Not long after he began working his boss died and his boss’s family sold him the business, but Karmon merged with a bad businessperson and the business soon collapsed. After his first business failure, Karmon thought it would be easier in the retail business; he bought and opened a shop in Morrisania in between 1939-40. Karmon would own the shop on Morrisania for the next ten years. His original clientele …

Miller, Henry & Stephanie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Stephanie’s family moved to the Bronx in the 1940’s. Her parents met in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. When they first got married they lived on Hewett Place. Her father was a waiter and her mother was a clerk for the state insurance fund. Henry’s family moved to the Bronx in 1944 from Harlem to Lenox Avenue. Both of his parents migrated to New York City from the South. His grandfather was a super, which is how his parents got their first house. His father was a member of the National Maritime Union.

Stephanie attended P.S 62 for grade …

Mills, Gloria Smalls, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Mrs. Gloria Smalls Mills is a lifelong resident of the Bronx, first living in Morrisiania. Her grandparents were immigrants from Antigua and moved to Dawson Street in the Bronx. Her mother graduated High School in the 1930’s from James Monroe High School and never worked before she got married and had children. Her father is from Charleston, South Carolina.

A few years later, her family moved to Kelly Street. There were many Italians and Jewish people living in her building. However, once more African-Americans began moving into the neighborhood, they whites began leaving. Also, there was an unspoken segregation among …

Jones, Geraldine, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Interviewee: Geraldine Jones

Summarized By: Eddie Mikus

Geraldine Jones is a Bronx community activist who resided in the borough since the Morrisania burnouts. Her involvement in community affairs began as a direct result of the burnouts. Therefore, her story depicts a struggle that was all too common amongst African-American Bronx residents during the 1960s.

Jones’ first adverse experience living in the Bronx came during the Tremont blackout of 1977. She recalls that she had been partying with some friends of hers, and that her building was looted as a direct result of the blackout.. Furthermore, she recalls …

Johnson, Olga, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Ms. Olga Johnson

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison

Summarized by Alice Stryker

Olga Johnson is a long time resident of the Bronx and mother to the Bronx Attorney Robert Johnson. She moved to the Bronx with her family when she was younger fromManhattan. Her parents were originally from theWest Indies. They moved to many different apartment buildings when she was growing up. Close to the time she graduated high school, her family moved into a private home onJackson Avenue. She remembers this being a safe neighborhood. Her father was an elevator operator and her mother was a seamstress and a …

Who Can Afford To Improvise? James Baldwin And Black Music, The Lyric And The Listeners [Table Of Contents], Ed Pavlic

Literature

More than a quarter-century after his death, James Baldwin remains an unparalleled figure in American literature and African American cultural politics. In Who Can Afford to Improvise? Ed Pavlić offers an unconventional, lyrical, and accessible meditation on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin and their relationship to the lyric tradition in black music, from gospel and blues to jazz and R&B. Based on unprecedented access to private correspondence, unpublished manuscripts and attuned to a musically inclined poet’s skill in close listening, Who Can Afford to Improvise? frames a new narrative of James Baldwin’s work and life.

The route …

Hanson, Avis Interview 2, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Avis Hanson 2^nd Interview

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison, Natasha Lightfoot, Patricia Wright

Summarized by Alice Stryker

She begins by talking about her West Indian heritage. Her mother came from Antigua and her father came from Jamaica. Her mother and father met in New York City and got married shortly there after. The family moved to the Bronx, which she discussed in the first interview. When Avis was young, her mother sent for her aunt to live with them. However, they did not have good relations with the rest of her extended family. Her father’s Jamaican family did not …

Fox, Hetty, Bronx African American History Project, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Hetty Fox

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Richard Richardson, Mark C. Smith

Date Of Interview: N/A

Summarized By: Eddie Mikus

Hetty Fox is a former professor who spent much of her youth in the Bronx. As a resident of the borough, she has witnessed many of the social changes that have taken place over the past few decades.

Fox was born in Harlem, but moved to the Bronx at the age of 3. Her family was the first African-American family to reside on the block where she lived. As a child, Fox started school at P.S. 54, but eventually transferred to …

Gumbs, Robert Interview 1, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Interviewee: Robert Gumbs

Summarized By: Eddie Mikus

Robert Gumbs is a resident of the Bronx who grew up in the Morrisania neighborhood. During his life, he has experienced many significant social changes that have occurred in the borough.

Gumbs was born in 1941 on Union Avenue, with his parents relocating to Lyman Place after a doctor suggested that there was cleaner air there. For his schooling, Gumbs attended PS 54, PS 40 for junior high, and the School of Industrial Art for high school. In his early childhood, Gumbs said that the vast majority of his neighborhood …

Dukes, Nathan, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

In the interview granted by Nathan Dukes to AAHP, the interviewee discusses the community life style in the Patterson Houses during 50s, social issues such as drugs, numbers runners, religion, racism within the African American community in Patterson Houses.

In the first part of the interview, Nathan Dukes talked about the closely relationship of all families living in Paterson Houses and the kind of economy that the community was involved at the specific time he covered all the occupations that young people, fathers, and mothers that were tenants of the Paterson Houses were involved. According to him, while the kids …

Evans, Howie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Howie Evans is a sportswriter and basketball coach who grew up in the Bronx. As a resident of the borough, he has witnessed the effects of racially-based communities. However, his story also depicts the role that basketball has played in the Bronx African-American community.

During his childhood, Evans lived in the Hunts Point neighborhood in buildings where his father served as a superintended. In the early years of his life, Evans said that he played on a regular basis with white children; however, these interracial friendships often broke down by the time he reached adolescence. Additionally, he also said that …

Orange, Joseph, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Joseph Orange’s family moved to the Bronx in 1941 from Harlem, he is the youngest of 8. Orange grew up in the Morrissina section. Orange explained that the Bronx represented upward mobility to many African Americans at the time.

There were a number of musicians in his family. Orange’s uncle, J.C Higgenbotham was a popular trombone player in the 30’s and 40’s. He went on to play with Louis Armstrong and other famous jazz musicians. Orange was surrounded by music growing up. Neighbors would play music that could be heard on the street. Music stores would play music out the …

Norman, Gene, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Gene Norman’s family first moved to Clairemount Parkway and Third Avenue in the Bronx. He was an only child and his father was not living with him. His mother worked as a housemaid and later as a nurse. The neighborhood was predominately African-American and he attended PS 23 and PS 9. These grade schools had tracked ability levels, which were determined by standardized testing. He was always in the “1” classes and noticed that there were significantly less African-Americans in those classes. He attended Junior High School 52 and noticed a change in the makeup of the student body. Students …

Pita, Dorothy, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Dr. Dorothy Pita was born and raised in the Bronx. She worked as a teacher in the South Bronx starting in 1950 at PS39 and later at PS18. She mostly taught Latino and African American kindergarten students of low-income. She remembers parents not being involved in their children’s education, but the students were also well-dressed and not malnourished

While she was a teacher, the Patterson Houses and other housing projects opened, and at the time it was seen in a positive light. The school had after school programs as well, and throughout the 50s she doesn’t recall any racial tensions, …

Payne, Patricia And Russell, Marilyn, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Patricia Payne and Marilyn Russell are both college professors who grew up in the Patterson Houses – a housing project. As a child in the 1950s, Marilyn moved there from Harlem with her family: her mother, a stay-at-home mom, her father, a shipping clerk, and her siblings. Her parents were from the South, and she recalls the housing projects as very safe and clean, as well as very diverse.

Both Marilyn remember attending after school programs at their public schools, being supervised by tutors of the same sex, as well as having librarians read to children at the library. Meanwhile, …

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 …

Burbridge, Richard And Doris Interview 2, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison, Natasha Lightfoot, Brian Purnell

INTERVIEWEE: Richard Burbridge, Doris Burbridge

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Richard and Doris Burbridge conduct genealogical research in order to find out more about their respective families’ history. Richard’s mother was from New Orleans and his father was from Biloxi, Mississippi. The couple met in Biloxi, and moved to New York, where Richard and his two siblings were born. Upon taking a genealogy class at the Queens Public Library in 1992, Richard decided to conduct some research on his own roots. He soon found out that his family also had roots in Kentucky: his …

Renwick, Evril, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Evril Renwick was born and raised in Grenada by her maternal grandparents. Her father abandoned Evril’s mother after her elders refused to allow her to travel alone with her young children to Brazil and meet him there. Evril’s mother wrote her brother in New York and went to live and work with him in 1924 when Evril was still a baby. Evril was living a content, independent life in Grenada until her twenties when her older sister died (her grandparents had already passed away) and for the first time Evril had a strong desire to see her mother. In1946, after …

Pruitt, James - Interview 10, Bronx African American History Project, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Jim Pruitt

Interviewer: Mark Naison

No Date of Interview

Summarized by Alice Stryker

Pruitt’s family moved from Harlem to the Bronx in 1932. Both of his parents were southern and met through his mother’s brother. About 5 years after the couple was married, they moved to Prospect Ave between Home and 168^th street. When they moved to the Bronx, his father was working for the post office and for a tailor as a presser. Many of the Black men living in this neighborhood worked for the post office. Although the family and their neighbors lived in the Bronx, …

Salem, Fatima Naik, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Fatima is originally from Algeria, but spent her childhood in France. She was born into a “rabea” family of Algerian “traditionalists” and “nationalists.” Her dad moved to France when he was 10 years old, and her mother moved there in 1970 when she married her father. Her mother was employed as a babysitter through the DAS program of the French government. She eventually adopted some of the children she babysat who had been abandoned by their parents. This complicated her childhood because the adopted siblings were of different ethnic groups, which caused confusion when they were introduced as family members. …

Wade, Chrystal, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Chrystal Wade moved to the Bronx from Harlem when she was five years old after moving from the Harlem River Drive projects to Detroit and back to New York. Chrystal’s mother gave birth to her at age 18, but she was adopted by her grandparents at age five, as they wanted to make sure she would have a good structured family life. Upon moving into a five-story walkup at 532 East 157^th Street and St. Ann’s avenue, her father and brother-in-law almost immediately had an altercation with the neighbors because her family was the second black family in the …

Smith, Carolyn & Jack, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Carolyn Smith was born in Metropolitan Hospital and lived in Harlem until around the age of 6 when she moved to the Melrose Housing Development in the early 1940’s. Her mother and a community of friends she grew up with in Hell’s Kitchen would all move around together. They moved around in Harlem a few times before settling in at Melrose. Carolyn discusses a common theme among those who grew up in this time of a sense of community where people in the neighborhood would watch others children. When they moved to Melrose it was a new housing project and …

Smith, Candace, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Candace Smith was born and raised in the Bronx. From what she recalls her family lived on the top story of a two family home in the Tremont neighborhood until moving to the Patterson Houses in 1957 when she was around age 8. The home in Tremont was in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and she does not recall there being any other black families in the neighborhood. On the other hand, when they moved to the Patterson Houses, she does not recall any white families in the neighborhood there. Both of her parents had also grown up in the Bronx, …

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 …

Carr, Sylvia, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Racial dynamics of the Bronx was the central theme of this interview. There was a consensus shared amongst each interviewee that the Bronx during their childhoods was a racially heterogeneous area. The area known as Fish Avenue were Sylvia Carr grew up was primarily composed of very well off blacks. However, the blacks who lived in this area were lighter skinned as each interviewee pointed out. Each participant acknowledged a certain light skinned v. dark skinned power dynamic. Indeed, some of those interviewed were able to “pass” and were often mistaken for white. In addition to the presence of blacks …

What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought, Lewis R. Gordon, Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Drucilla Cornell

Philosophy & Theory

Challenging the notion of theory as white and experience as black, Lewis Gordon here offers a philosophical portrait of the thought and life of the Martinican-turned-Algerian revolutionary psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon as an example of “living thought” against the legacies of colonialism and racism, and thereby shows the continued relevance and importance of his ideas.

Baye, Mamadou, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Karima Zerrou

INTERVIEWEE: Mamadou Baye

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Note: This interview was originally conducted in French and translated into English.

SUMMARY:

Mamadou Baye is a private car/limo service driver who lives on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. She was born in Guinea and raised on the Ivory Coast by a Guinean father and a mother from the Ivory Coast. After leaving school, she broke into the transportation business when she was 18 years old, driving cars in Abdijan and San Pedro. Inspired by the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and the perception that it would be easy to …

Martin, Nicholas, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Nicholas Martin is the principle of P.S. 6 and grew up in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx. He was born in Manhattan and when he was 5 his parents moved to Fox Street in the South Bronx. His father worked on the docks. His father spoke broken English and fluent Spanish and was born in Florida. He traveled back and forth from Cuba though. His mother spoke English and Spanish fluently and was born in Puerto Rico.

He remembers Fox Street when he was growing up as lively. Children would play lots of games outside on the street. …

A Canyon Apart: Immigration Politics And Ethnic Identity In Arizona, Peter Morrissey Fcrh '11

The Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal

This article examines the political and social forces surrounding the April 23, 2010 passage of Arizona’s stringent immigration enforcement measure, Senate Bill (S.B.) 1070, which empowered local law enforcement to demand proof of legal residency from any person suspected of being undocumented. A person’s failure to produce documentation would result in arrest, detention, investigation, and potentially deportation to his or her nation of origin. Through the law’s lens, the article explores the development of the social tension that followed Arizona’s explosive population growth, and examines how Arizona’s large Hispanic population has been unable to assert itself at the ballot box …