African American Studies Commons^™

Best, Gloria And Best, Adrian, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewees: Gloria and Adrian Best

Interviewers: Dr. Mark Naison

Date of Interview: July 1, 2003

Summarized by Alice Stryker

Gloria Best lived in the Bronx for most of her life and lived in Manhattan only for a short while when she was a child. When she moved back to the Bronx, she was 12 years old and moved to Union Avenue. She attended Morris High School and attended Zion Apostolic. Morris High School as well as the neighborhood she lived in at the time were predominately white.

Her husband was in the military and when they initially got married they …

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 …

Jackson, Bessie, Bronx African American History Project, Mark Naison

Oral Histories

Bessie Jackson is the President of the Bronx branch of the Society for the Association for the study of African American Life and History, founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915. Jackson came to the Bronx without any family relations in 1946 and finished High School. Jacksonthen returned to her home state ofAlabamato attend Alabama State College, but by 1949, she had returned to and settled in theBronx.

Jacksonwas born and raised on her family’s farm inDallas County,Alabama. She did not begin school until she was six years old, but illness also held her back in first grade. However,Jacksonalways …

Brathwaite, Kwame, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

112^th interview of the Bronx African American History Project

Interviewers: Dr. Mark Naison, Maxine Gordon

Interviewee: Kwame Brathwaite

The interview took place May 17, 2002

Summarized by Concetta Gleason 11-29-06

Kwame Brathwaite, a longtime activist, photographer and expert on the history of jazz in NYC was originally born in Harlem, and his family moved to the Bronx in 1943 when he was five years old. Brathwaite's parents are both from Barbados, but they met in Brooklyn. His father was a tailor who owned several Dry Cleaning businesses, which kept him constantly busy, and his mother was a homemaker who …