Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons^™

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 …

Soumahoro, Maboula And Karima Zerrou, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Karima Zerrou and Maboula Soumahoro are two influential figures within the world of French-language hip-hop. Zerrou is an internationally renowned hip-hop artist and producer while Soumahoro is a professor at Barnard College who has written extensively on the subject of French hip-hop culture. In their interview with the BAAHP, Zerrou and Soumahoro discussed many of the influences on the rise of the hip-hop genre within French society.

Zerrou got her start in the French hip-hop industry at age of 17 while working for an artist known as Monsieur R. From this job, Zerrou eventually worked for a radio show on …

Ray, Pastor, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

The Bronx African-American History Project conducted this interview with an entourage representing the Ashanti King. Topics discussed included a fund for schools in Ghana, the relationship between different Ghanaian ethnic groups, and the royal protocol surrounding the Ashanti King.

The interviewees talked to the BAAHP about their efforts to establish a fund to support Ghanaian education. According to the interviewees, $500 can support two or three students in Ghana, a fact which led to their decision to assist in Ghanaian education. The interviewees have also sought to increase the technological presence in Ghanaian classrooms by sending computers and printers to …

Greene, Aurelia, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Greene grew up in the Morrisania section of The Bronx; Third Avenue and 171^st street in the 1940s and ‘50s and it was a racially mixed neighborhood. There were a few African-Americans, mostly Irish, some Italians, and some Jewish people too. Her parents separated and her maternal grandparents, Maud and Harold Russell raised her. Maud was from Trinidad and her grandfather was from St. Vincent. Maud “was Mulatto and she could pass for white”, as it was difficult during the Depression for African-Americans to get jobs, so she worked as a domestic in hotels downtown. She was very conscious …

Mohammed Mardah, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Mohammed Mardah is the head of the Ghanaian Association of New York, and is heavily involved in the Bronx Ghanaian community, as well as the public school system. Mardah was born on February 28, 1966 in Accra, Ghana. His father was head of the Ghana Publishing Corporation, and he died when Mohammed was ten years old. Mardah’s mother was uneducated, but was a businesswoman who traveled the world in search of goods that she could sell for a profit in Ghana. Mohammed grew up a practicing Muslim, and Hausa was his first language. His upbringing took place during a time …

Martinez, Danny Interview 2, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Claude Magnum

INTERVIEWEE: Danny Martinez (Interview Two)

SUMMARY BY: Andrew O’Connell

In his second interview with the Bronx African American History Project, Danny Martinez speaks with Dr. Claude Magnum and delves deeper into his intricate role as one of the forefathers of rap and hip-hop in the Bronx.

Martinez tells that he first became interested in deejaying when his cousin began the trade around 1970. About five or six years later around the age of 11, Danny Martinez stepped behind the turntables for what would be the first time in an illustrious career, spinning his records on the same …

Byas, John And Danny Martinez, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWERS: Mark Naison

INTERVIEWEES: John “DJ Jazzy Jay” Byas and Danny Martinez

SUMMARY BY: Andrew O’Connell

In this interview with John “DJ Jazzy Jay” Byas (b. November 18, 1961), the Bronx African American History Project obtains amazing insight into the birth of hip-hop in the Bronx in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Born in South Carolina and having moved to Harlem at the age of either five or six, Byas soon became enthralled with music through his church, The Greater Zion Hill Baptist Church on 116^th Street and Manhattan Avenue, singing in the church choir and finding a …

Benjamin, Michael, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin was inspired to work in public service after hearing that President Kennedy had been shot and killed; he found it interesting that a person would be involved in public service and they could lose their life. His youngest brother, Vernon, suffered from lung ailments and his mother wrote Mayor Wagner. She got an application back from the Mayor’s office for public housing and in 1965 they moved into the John Adams’ houses. The area was made up of working-class, two parent families. There was a communal feeling there and the building and amenities were new and safe. …

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 …

Winsor, George, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Born on February 19, 1914 in Nassau, Bahamas. George Winsor immigrated to the United States at a very young age to live with his godmother in Harlem. Winsor, who has a very dark skin complexion, cites the racially stratified nature of the Bahamas at the time as being one of the main motivations for his parents sending him to the States. Fearing that he would not be able to succeed economically and socially in a society that put such a heavy premium on complexion, Winsor’s parents sent him to a country in which they thought his skin color would not …

Ceesay, Yandeh, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Yandeh Ceesay

Interviewer: Dr. Jane K. Edward

Date of Interview: February 10, 2009

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Yandeh Ceesay is an undergraduate student at Fordham University. She was born in 1989 in the West African nation of Gambia. When she was a year old her father left the family and moved to the Bronx. A year later, in 1991, her father was able to send for Yandeh and her mother, and they both moved from Gambia to the Bronx as well. When Yandeh first arrived she lived with her parents in an eight-floor apartment building on Fordham Road. She …

Brifu, Karen, Bronx African American History Project, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Karen Brifu

Interviewer: Mark Naison, Jane Kani Edward, Brendan Hayford

Summarized by Eddie Mikus

Karen Brifu is a Fordham University graduate of Ghanaian descent who currently works for the Federal Reserve Bank. Her life story sheds light on the experiences and values faced by the Ghanaian immigrant community.

Brifu was born to two Ghanaian parents in the Bronx. As a child, her family often spoke Twi at home to ensure that their children maintained ties to the Ghanaian culture. Additionally, the family also made Ghanaian foods like a cream-of-wheat known as farina and played Ghanaian music while at home. …

Porco, Ettore, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Ettore Porco was born on January 15 1915 in southern Italy in the province of Cosenza. He was youngest of ten children. He came to America in 1933 during the depression. He immigrated to New York because the farm he tended to while in Italy bore no food. He went to stay in the Bronx with his oldest brother on Hollywood Avenue. His first job was as a shoe shiner and while he went to elementary school in Italy, he had to learn English from scratch once he came to the states.

He met his wife in the Bronx, she …

Shared Fates, Pan Africanism: Ghana And America, Michael Marra

African & African American Studies Senior Theses

This paper will proceed in multiple sections that examine aspects of Pan-Africanism and the inspired political resistance it created. Following the introduction, the first section will look at some of the early actions of resistance by Africans in America and their attempt to connect their fate with the fate of continental Africans. The beginnings of Pan-African meetings. The third section will look at the early formations of anti-colonial resistance in the Gold Coast and the establishment of "proto-nationalism". This section will then examine the emerging nationalism in the Gold Coast under Kwame Nkrumah, which culminated in the full independence from …

Mckay, Stephanie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Stephanie McKay is a successful, well-known soul singer and songwriter based in the Bronx. She was born on June 2, 1967 in East Harlem. When she was two years old her parents moved to Co-op City in the Bronx because it promised a better, more secure way of life. Both of Stephanie’s parents were from Norfolk, VA, and they moved to Harlem when they were about 20 years old. Her mother worked as a legal secretary and her father worked as a taxi driver before becoming a labor organizer. Stephanie attended elementary school in Co-Op City. At the age of …

Bronx Soundscape: Reflections On The Multicultural Roots Of Hip Hop In Bronx Neighborhoods, Mark Naison

Occasional Essays

No abstract provided.

Dioup, Mouhamadou, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Dioup is a Senegalese citizen who came to the United States when he was twenty years old. Dioup speaks briefly about what motivated his decision to come to the United States as opposed to France. According to Dioup, the benefit of going to France is of course the shared language. Since Senegal is a francophone country, it wouldn’t have been much of a culture shock for him to relocate o France. However, to things discouraged a move to France. The first is the large degree of discrimination and racial harassment within the country. The second is their music scene. Dioup …

Khoule, Manadou, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Karima Zerrou, Mark Naison

INTERVIEWEE: Manadou Khoule (aka DJ Khoule)

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

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

Born in Dakar, Senegal, Manadou Khoule (aka DJ Khoule) came to the United States in 2000, when he was 20 years old. At the time that he emigrated, he was the best DJ in Senegal. Most of his influences were Western hip-hop, especially the work of Tupac Shakur. He got his first set of turntables when he was 15 years old—they were given to him by a local community center. He does not …

Ligon, Glenn, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Glenn Ligon

Interviewer: Oneka LaBennett

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Glenn Ligon is a successful artist whose work has been represented in various public collections, which include the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Tate Modern in London. Glenn was born in 1960 in the Bronx. At the time of his birth his parents lived in the Forest Projects on Trinity Avenue in the South Bronx with his older brother Tyrone. His parents were both originally from the South. His father was from Farmville, Virginia and his mother from Bishopsville, South Carolina. …

Palina, Sarah, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

“Sarah Palina” was born in 1983 in Lyon, France. Her father was Algerian, and her mother is half-French and half-Arabic (Berber.)When she was seven years old, her parents divorced, and she moved with her mother and three siblings from a fairly upper-middle class neighborhood to a lower-income section on the outskirts of Lyon. While her father spoke Arabic, Sarah never learned to speak it, as her father’s parents had decided to raise him in a more Westernized fashion. Similarly, both of Sarah’s parents were Muslim, but neither of them practiced the religion. Now Sarah considers herself a practicing Muslim, but …

Brown, Roscoe, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison

INTERVIEWEE: Roscoe Brown

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Roscoe Brown is the head of a Center for Urban Education at CUNY. He grew up in Washington, DC during the Great Depression. Educated at Dunbar high school in DC and Springfield College in Massachusetts, Brown joined the Tuskegee Airmen in 1943. At Springfield, Brown was one of only 15 black students. He studied Pre-Med and played football, basketball and lacrosse—in fact, he was one of the first black lacrosse players in America.

Brown flew 68 missions with the airmen, and participated in the longest mission of all time: a …

Senghor, Olivia, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Olivia Senghor, born in 1978 in Senegal, Dakar, is a musician and makeup artist living in the Bronx. She is of the Serer ethic group, and her primary languages are French and Wolof. She was raised as a Catholic, and is the granddaughter of the first president of Senegal, Leopold Sedhar Senghor. At the age of 8, her family moved to Paris, where she lived in a neighborhood primarily inhabited by Jews and Asians. Both of her parents were very well educated—her father had a law degree, and her mother held an MBA. Consequently, they expected Olivia and her siblings …

Otibu, Johnson, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Johnson Otibu (b. 1955) is the proprietor of the Sahara African Caribbean market in the Bronx. He came to New York from Ghana in 1978, at the age of 23. Otibu left a good job in the social security business in Ghana in order to try out the opportunities in America. When he immigrated, the exchange rate was 2 American dollars to every Ghanaian dollar, so Otibu arrived with more money than most immigrants. Initially he settled in Harlem on 150^th St. and lived off of what he had brought. However, he soon realized that it was much harder …

Boadu, Mary, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison, Jane Edward

INTERVIEWEE: Mary Boadu

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Mary Boadu was born in Koumase, the Ashanti region of Ghana in 1988. At the time of the interview, was a student at Columbia University. When she was three years old, Mary’s mother got the chance to work in a nursing home in the United States, and she left her family in Ghana. Mary was raised by her father and cousins until 1995, when her father got the opportunity to join her mother in the States. Mary’s mother was pregnant when she left Ghana, and she gave birth …

Brewington, Dean, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Dean (Thomas Norwood) Brewington

Interviewer: Maxine

Date of Interview: October 8^th, 2008

Summarized by Michael Kavanagh

Born Thomas Norwood Brewington in 1937 in Goldsboro, North Carolina, he ventured to the Bronx by train at four years old. While growing up in the Bronx, he had the opportunity to meet and play with the best jazz musicians of all time. Also known by names Norwood and Dean, he currently lives in Minnesota and regularly does musical gigs at local clubs in Minnesota and around the country.

At four years old, his relatives put him on a train from …

Jawo, Omar, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Mark Naison and Dr. Jane Edwards

INTERVIEWEE: Omar Jawo

SUMMARY BY: Andrew O’Connell

Born in 1952 in the Republic of Gambia, Omar Jawo, comes from the Fulani, an ethnic group in Gambia known primarily for agriculture and the raising of livestock. Seeing as how the Fulani placed little to no emphasis on formal education, Jawo followed his uncle to a Catholic Mission, where he attended elementary and high school, to pursue scholarship. Although a Muslim by religion, Jawo claims that he felt no pressure to convert at this mission school.

Following his education on the mission, Jawo become …

Bonsu, Sonia, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison, Jane Edward

INTERVIEWEE: Sonia Bonsu

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Sonia Bonsu was born in the Bronx on March 16, 1977. She attended public school in the Bronx, then the Calhoun School in Manhattan, and Harvard University as an undergraduate. She then attended law school at Fordham University, and she is currently the Director of Annual Giving at the Calhoun School. She was raised by both her parents, who were Ghanaian immigrants (Ashanti people). Her father had come to the Bronx in 1969 on a student visa for a job and brought his wife with him shortly thereafter. …

Armstrong, Gregory, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWERS: Mark Naison, Oneka LaBennett, Christina Grath

INTERVIEWEE: Gregory Armstrong

SUMMARY BY: Andrew O’Connell

Gregory Armstrong, born on September 18, 1970 in the Bronx, spent his most formative years growing up in the Bronx River Housing Project at 1455 Harrod Ave. The son of a legal secretary and a father who worked in the Sanitation Department for 27 years, Armstrong recalls a time when growing up in the projects proved tough, but lacked some of the more malicious qualities that they might possess today. While Armstrong admits that violence occurred regularly in his neighborhood (though never directly in front of …

Amosso, Agossou And Comlanvi Bamezon, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Jane Edwards

INTERVIEWEE: Agossou Amossou, Bamezon Comlanvi

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Agossou Amossou and Bamezon Comlanvi both immigrated to the US from Togo. Amossou, who works as a security guard in the Bronx Museum and is earning a bachelor’s degree in French from Lehman college, came to the Bronx in 2004. Comlanvi also works in security and came to the Bronx in 2002. He is also studying French at Lehman College. During the interview, both men discuss the difficulties and differences they have experienced in relocating from Togo to the US. Foods, music, religion, languages, and family life …

Seymone, Robert, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Robert Seymone (b. January 22, 1951) is originally from the Bronx, the son of an African-American mother from Little Rock, Arkansas and a German-Native American father from Pennsylvania. He is a theater, film, and television actor by trade, although he also has an informal background in music and dance. His mother was a dancer and performer who was heavily involved in show business. She was in the 1945 black film Big Timers, which starred Stephen Fechit, as the exotic dancer Tarzana. Robert’s mother frequently performed as character throughout New York, and she was backed by an all-female African-American band. She …