African American Studies Commons^™

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 …

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. …

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 …

Calhoun, Annie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Maxime Gordon, Dawn Russell

Interviewees: Annie Calhoun, Will Calhoun

Date: May 18, 2012

Summarized By: Eddie Mikus

Annie Calhoun has resided in the Bronx for over 50 years and is a leading community activist through her presidency of the Fish Bay Organization. Her decision to take up activism demonstrates the challenges that many minority groups face in American society as well as their to actively participate in governmental affairs.

During her childhood, Calhoun was raised in North Carolina in a family that, despite being African-American, owned land and grew tobacco. Every Friday night, she and her family …

Black, Phil, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Phil Black aka Felix Sarpong

Interviewer: Renee White

Date: May 3, 2012

Summarized by Daniel Matthews

Felix Sarpong, known as Phil Black, is a Ghanaian American native of the Bronx who works as an educator and music producer in the Bronx community. Phil Black was born in the Bronx on October 14^th, 1974, and he spent most of his life in the borough. His mother worked as a housekeeping supervisor and was involved in Ghanaian politics, while his father was a teacher. His parents emigrated from Ghana in the late sixties. They moved the family there during …

Calderon, Julio, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Julio Calderon is a Bronx resident who moved to the borough after having lived in Chicago, Illinois. Although he is currently a professional musicians, he was witnessed street life in both Chicago and New York City.

Calderon was born in Chicago to a young mother and father. Growing up, Calderon says that he got into his first fight while he was in the first grade. Furthermore, Calderon says that several of his good friends passed away as a result of joining Chicago’s street gangs. Specifically, Calderon said that 10 of his friends dies as a result of gang violence and …

Black, Phil, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Felix Sarpong, known as Phil Black, is a Ghanaian American native of the Bronx who works as an educator and music producer in the Bronx community. Phil Black was born in the Bronx on October 14^th, 1974, and he spent most of his life in the borough. His mother worked as a housekeeping supervisor and was involved in Ghanaian politics, while his father was a teacher. His parents emigrated from Ghana in the late sixties. They moved the family there during his early childhood years so that Black and his older brother could learn the language and the …

Fernandez, David, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

David Fernandez is a part-time music teacher for the WHEDco music school. Additionally, he has also worked as a professional musician and as crisis para-professional in the New York City Public School system. Mr. Fernandez believes that the traditional manner of teaching students music theory is not always the best one; instead, he teaches them in a manner that permits them to actively learn the concept at hand.

Mr. Fernandez was born in Brooklyn, but moved to Youngstown, Ohio, during his childhood. He was musically exposed in his household, as his father was a backup performer to several major artists …

Milagros, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Milagros is a former teacher in the Bronx who immigrated to the United States from Cuba. In her interview, she discussed her experience escaping from Castro’s government as well as the manner in which society had shaped her identity.

Prior to living in the United States, Milagros resided in Cuba for 20 years. She stated that in Cuba, race was not as important as it was in America. Instead, status was determined by which family you had been born into. However, she did say that neighbors in Cuba were like relatives to her family, and recounted incidents where she had …

Ahmed, Ramatu, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Ramatu Ahmed

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison

Date of Interview: March 10, 2010

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Ramatu Ahmed is a leader in the Ghanaian community in New York City. She is currently a committee member of the National Council of Women of the United States and the Harlem Hospital’s Medina Clinic but is actively involved in many other projects and organizations that are working towards the improvement of the lives of women who live in both Africa and America. One of her greatest passions is bringing awareness to the issue of the lack of availability of higher education for …

Henry, Ray, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Ray Henry is a native Bronxite who has worked for the Housing and Preservation Department. During his life, he has served as an active leader within the Bronx African-American community and was also a witness to the Morrisania burnouts. His life, therefore, tells the story of a struggle that many Bronx residents faced throughout the 1960s.

Henry was born in 1952 and lived in several Bronx locations as a child. During his youth, he introduced the concept of the Battle of the Bands to the Bronx community. Additionally, at the age of 17, he served on the successful campaign to …

Hill, Elighu Eldrid, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Eldrid Hill

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Niason, Ricardo Soto-Lopez, Dana Driskell

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Eldrid Hill is a former lieutenant of the New York City Fire Department who has been a long time resident of both Harlem and the Bronx. He has also been deeply involved in local politics and urban planning and a member of Community Board 3 in the Bronx for several decades. Hill was born on July 12, 1928 in Harlem. His mother was from the Dutch side of the island of St. Martin while his father was from St. Kitts. His father was an alcoholic …

Cruse, Harrison Jr., Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Harrison Cruse, Jr.

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Harrison Cruse, Jr. was born on August 10, 1935 in Morningside Heights, Harlem. His mother’s family was originally from Virginia and North Carolina but decided to move north during the 1920’s after experiencing an increasingly racist and violent climate due to activity by the Ku Klux Klan. His father was African American and Native American and had grown up on an Indian reservation with his mother in Roanoke Virginia. His father served in the First World War and later joined the Northwestern Railroad where he worked for many years. …

Grayson, Clydia, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Clydia Grayson

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Patricia Wright, Daniel Wright, Mary Ward

Summarized By: Eddie Mikus

Clydia Grayson is a former employee from the beauty business who moved to the Bronx from Louisville, Kentucky. In her interview, she discussed some of her experiences running a business as well as her life as an African-American woman.

Grayson graduated from beauty school in 1932 after training under Madam CJ Walker. After moving to New York upon her marriage in 1944, she worked for a beautician on Madison Avenue and then operated two stores in New York City. She said that she worked …

Harrell, Zainabu, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Zainabu Sesay-Harrell

Interviewers: Dr. Mark Naison, Dr. Jane Edward, Dr. Bernard Hayford, and Kojo Happa

July 21st, 2010

Summarized by Andrea Benintendi

Zainabu Sesay-Harrell is an African American nurse who was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, in 1977. As a young child, Zainabu’s family came to America and settled on Long Island, in the town of Roosevelt. Her family strove to combine the new American culture with their Sierra Leonean culture through food, festivities, and language, and would often travel back to their home country to visit with family and friends. Zainabu’s mother would prove to be extremely …

Yartel Iii, Nan, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Nan Yartel III was born on the 15^th of an unmentioned month in 1965 in a village called Amatsou in the West African nation of Ghana. He attended primary school from 1971 until 1981. He is a member of the Fanti ethnic groups, one of the many different ethnic groups found in Ghana.

As a member of the Fanti people, he was able to obtain the position of chief, which enabled him the opportunity to finish his secondary education and thus came to the United States to do such that. He completed his education back in his homeland of …

Calderon, Nicholas Interview 2, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Nicholas Calderon

Interviewer: Mark Naison

Date: May 27, 2010

Nicholas found inspiration in the artistry of rapper Tupac Shakur back in the 90’s. Shakur’s experiences, and the ways in which he dealt with angst inspired him to enter the music field. Back in the day, battles were a norm and would take place throughout the Bronx. Nicholas describes going into certain neighborhoods where he knew of talented battle rappers; a challenge would ensue. He asserts that it was mostly for competition and “beefs” and animosity would not come about as a result of the battles.

Nicolas concludes that there …

Thiame, Birane, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Birane Thiame was born in 1976. Originally from Cote d’Ivoire, Birane he settled in New York in 1996. His family is originally from Senegal, but he also has family from Togo and Ghana. He speaks Baoule, a language of Cote d’Ivoire, and Mina, a language of Togo. His mother’s side was Christian, and his father’s side practiced Islam. Thiame’s mother worked as a banker and his father worked for Air Afrik. They worked in the capitol of Cote d’Ivoire, Abidjan.

Thiame attended public school in Cote d’Ivoire, which is free up through the college level. He attended college for three …

Calderon, Nicholas Interview 1, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison, Noel Wolfe, Dawn Russell

INTERVIEWEE: Nicholas Calderon

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Nicholas Calderon (b. 5/12/1986) is a rapper from the South Bronx. He is also the founder and owner of Take Money Records. He was born in the Taft Houses in East Harlem to a Puerto Rican father and an African-American mother. Because his mother was a crack addict and his father was a heroin addict, he began living with his grandmother at the age of two. He was raised in the Beekman Housing Project in the South Bronx, near St. Mary’s Park. Calderon was …

Ogbuisi, Chief Paul Okali, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Chief Paul Okali Ogbuisi was born in 1954 in the Ugweke section of Nigeria’s southern Abia State capital, Umuahia. The eldest child of his family, Chief Paul was educated at both the primary and secondary school level, finishing at age 18 eighteen to join the textile business. When Chief Paul was six years old and still in primary school, Nigeria gained its independence. In 1967 when Chief Paul was thirteen years old, a civil war known as the Biafran war began between the predominantly Islamic north and the predominantly Christian south. Due to violent attacks on hospitals, churches, and schools …

Cadogan, Marjorie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

INTERVIEWER: Mark Naison

INTERVIEWEE: Marjorie Cadogan

SUMMARY BY: Patrick O’Donnell

Marjorie Cadogan (b. 1960) is a graduate of Fordham University and Fordham University Law, and she is an Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Human Resources Administration in New York. She is the daughter of Bajan immigrants. Her father immigrated twice (in the ‘40’s and then the mid ‘50’s), and her mother came to the US in the late ‘50’s. While her mother and father knew each other in Barbados, they did not get married until 1959, when they both lived in the US. Her mother was a licensed nurse in …

Wallace, Kojo, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Born September 16, 1985, Wallace grew up with his family in Tarkwa, Ghana. In 1988, his father immigrated to the United States and has worked as a taxi driver. His father is also a leader within the Ghanaian community in the Bronx. In 2006, Wallace immigrated to the Bronx with his siblings and has been living with his father on Sedgwick Avenue. He will be attending medical school in the September 2010. He has an older brother who is talking college classes and is also in the United States Navy, a sister who is working to become a nurse, and …

Kontihene, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Kontihene

Interviewer: Dr. Jane Edward, Kojo Ampa, Kareem Salifu, Dr. Mark Niason

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Kontihene is a Ghanaian Hip Hop musician who has lived in the Bronx since 2004. Kontihene describes his own music as being Afro-Pop or Hip-Life because it combines lively beats with traditional Ashanti folk music from Ghana. Kontihene grew up in Ghanaian town called Kumasi with his parents and two sisters. His love for music developed at a very young age. By age ten he was already writing poems and songs that discussed his family life. Encouraged and mentored by a local musician …

Drammeh, Sheikh Moussa, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Sheikh Moussa Drammeh

Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison, Dr. Jane Edward, Dr. Benjamin Hayford, and Kojo Ampah

Date of Interview: November 3^rd, 2009

Summarized by Michael Kavanagh

Born February 4^th, 1962, Drammeh grew up in Tendrami Joka, Gambia, a city bordering Senegal. He began his schooling at six years old in the Madrasas which focuses on memorizing the Qur’an. He has completed the Madrasas four times. His mother is Gambian and father is Senegalese, both died before he reached the age of ten, at which point Drammeh had to focus on making a living for himself …

Boakye, Benjamin, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Interviewee: Reverend Benjamin Boakye

Interviewers: Mark Naison, Benjamin Heither, Amy Davies, Jane Edward

Date of Interview: October 29, 2009

Summarized by Sheina Ledesma

Reverend Benjamin Boakye is a senior pastor at the Ebenezer Assemblies of God church in the Bronx and the president of the Ghanaian Ministers Fellowship. Boakye was born in 1962 in the Ashanti region of Ghana. He was the eldest of six children and as the oldest was given great responsibility within the family. From an early age Boakye was exposed to University life. His father was a plumber at the University of Science and Technology in …

Ampah, Kojo, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

Kojo Ampah is the head of a student organization at Fordham University called the African Cultural Exchange and has a long history as a radio host, organizer of cultural festivals and educator in Ghana. He is a Phantee from the Southern tip of Ghana, Cape Coast and his father is Muslim, while his mother was Catholic but converted. His father always maintained four wives so he has many siblings. His father was the medicine man for the tribe in a type of Voodoo and worked with herbs etc ., in a blend of Islam and local traditions. His father taught …

Mckinney, Todd And Mckinney, Stephanie, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

This is was a two-person interview by Dr. Naison. The interviewees go back and forth speaking in the transcription.

Stephanie Woods was born on May 4^th 1966 in Fordham Hospital in the Bronx. Her family was living at the 439 Crotona Park North in a private house until 1991. Stephanie’s mother was born and raised in Harlem. Stephanie’s father was from Danville, VA. Stephanie mentions that he mother loved Hip-Hop and was the reason for life long love of Hip-Hop as her mother was the one who introduced her to it and would take her to street event, known …

Silverman, Carol, Bronx African American History Project

Oral Histories

BRONX AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY PROJECT

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Oneka LaBennett

INTERVIEWEE: Carol Silverman

SUMMARY BY: Andrew O’Connell

Carol Silverman, an anthropologist born and raised in the Northeast Bronx, sits with Dr. Oneka LaBennett in this interview to talk about her childhood, her witnessing of the community’s deterioration in the 1970s and her fieldwork as an anthropologist with Romani people in the Bronx.

Born on March 30, 1951 on Intervale Avenue in the Northeast Bronx, Silverman spent the first twenty some odd years of her life living in the borough. Silverman describes the area she grew up as secure as comprised of …