R.41. Special Projects: Tobe : Visions of Childhood, Race, and Rural Life in Children s Literature

Transcription

1 This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program collection at the University of North Carolina at Other interviews from this collection are available online through and in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library. R.41. Special Projects: Tobe : Visions of Childhood, Race, and Rural Life in Children s Literature Interview R-0725 Muhammad Hasib Abdul-Haqq, Saudah Abdul-Haqq, and Celeste Greene 16 July 2013 Transcript p.2

2 TRANSCRIPT: Celeste Greene and Saudah Abdul-Haqq Interviewee: Celeste Greene and Saudah Abdul-Haqq (formerly Cassandra Greene) Interviewer: Benjamin Filene Interview Date: July 16, 2013 Location: Home of Celeste Greene in Corona, Queens, New York Length: Six audio files (A 21:01, B 7:50, C 5:49. D 1:24:10, E 1:03:51, F 9:46) Interview is a total of 3 hours, 12 minutes and 27 seconds START OF INTERVIEW [Sound of recording hiss throughout interview] Benjamin Filene: Make sure it s working. [Taps mic] Yeah. Okay, so today is July sixteenth, I m Benjamin Filene and I m at Celeste Greene s house in Corona, Queens. Could I scan this photo of? Celeste Greene: Of my grandmother? Benjamin Filene: Yeah. I don t think I ll need to take it out of the frame even. Celeste Greene: [Go ahead], um-hmm. BF: Let s just see if the scanner won t be quite big enough, but it ll hopefully work. Huh. Did you look at the back of this? CG: What does it say? BF: Signatures of my classmates. CG: Oh, you know what that was? I took my sister s picture of her sixth grade BF: Oh, oh! [Laughs]

3 CG: [Laughs] Out of that frame. BF: Oh, okay. CG: That s how that goes. Uh-huh, that s not Grandmother. BF: Well, it s not going to quite work. CG: Alright, so take it out. BF: It s bigger than my scanner is part of the problem. CG: Um-hmm, take it out. I just put it in there. BF: Alright, I ll try I ll be real careful. So, was the rest of your trip to Greensboro good? CG: Oh, it was so rejuvenating. I mentioned having I had a back injury. BF: Oh, yeah, you were starting to say yeah. CG: And it escalated into something more serious, and last year I was did you need? BF: [I m just coming closer]. Yeah? CG: I was seriously ill, seriously, seriously ill. So, when my sister came, which was because my neighbors called I had called them, and my neighbors had called her. They were concerned that I could t do by myself, couldn t [be here] by myself. So, she came, and when she came it was what, April April, thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, uh, thirty days I was on the floor. So, she walked in that door. I was right there on that floor right there. I couldn t get up. BF: Oh, no. CG: And she looked. She said, What happened? [Laughs] To make a long story short, I stayed on the floor, and in order to get me to the doctor, we had to go and get an ambulance. BF: Wow.

4 CG: So, because she couldn t get me off the floor, she went upstairs to my neighbor upstairs. She went upstairs to my neighbor and asked her would she could help her get me up. And my neighbor has some nurses training, so they put a under my body and lifted me onto this couch. Okay, I was on the floor. I was able to get over here, and they lifted me up here. And then, the man from the ambulance put his arm around my waist and lifted me up and put me in a chair, okay. BF: Had you fallen, or just sort of threw your back out, or? CG: No. It was actually, it was a freak accident, but it was an underlying problem. It was an underlying problem. My back wasn t the problem. Okay, my back wasn t the problem. But the underlying problem made the back problem seem suspicious. I had fractures and compressions in my back. They couldn t understand how that happened. I had fallen, [05:00] but you have to fall from a building BF: My gosh. CG: To have the kind of injuries I had in my back. BF: When was this? CG: Last year, last year at this time. BF: Oh, wow. CG: A little before this time, May. Okay, so anyway, this time last year I was just starting I was learning how to walk again in my apartment. And my sister came and stayed two or three months. BF: Oh! CG: Kept you, you know, kept me going. BF: Wow.

5 CG: And she really hasn t been here for, possibly, maybe, at least nine months, because she has so many responsibilities I told her not to come. I ll manage. And I ve managed. BF: You seemed like you get around so great when I saw you in Greensboro. CG: Oh, yeah! Yeah, I went to the doctor yesterday, and so far I m in okay shape, surprisingly. They want to put a what do you call it something between the vertebrae. It s some kind of it s not cement, but for lack of a better I had to see a neuro interventionist. Like, who has ever heard of that, okay? BF: Yeah, you don t want to go there if you can help it. [Laughs] CG: Yeah. Who has ever heard of that? I ve never and they have to insert a needle through your vertebrae. BF: Oh, gosh. CG: And increase BF: That s what you re doing? CG: I will at some point. I m about at least two inches shorter, at least two inches, than I was. BF: Wow. CG: So, you wouldn t know it. BF: [ ] get around. CG: Oh, you wouldn t know it, but BF: Yeah. Oh, boy. CG: Oh, yeah. This so I have to sit in like I can t sit on every surface. BF: Yeah.

6 straight. CG: Okay. So, these have [foam in it], and in my car is the back piece, so that I can stay BF: Uh-huh. CG: Now, what can I get you? BF: Well, if you re okay with me taking this apart CG: Yeah! BF: I need some kind of hammer. CG: I ll [ ]. [This is nothing]. Just pull it back. BF: Well, [ ]. I don t want to mess anything up. CG: Well, how did I get it in here? BF: [ ] [Laughs] CG: [Laughs] Here we go, here we go! BF: There. CG: Now, her picture is a little fragile. BF: Yeah. Here, we can take it out [this way]. CG: Okay. So, yeah, I am just getting back on my feet. BF: Do you have that form I gave you in Greensboro? CG: I the attorney has it. He has it. BF: Attorney? Oh, gosh. Okay. CG: I sent it out. I haven t even spoken to him. BF: Well, I have another. I m going to have another form for you. CG: Okay. BF: For today.

7 CG: Okay. BF: So, do you know anything about this picture, when it was or how it came about? CG: Yeah, she just took a picture for us, you know, a portrait picture to send out. Now, how old was she? Good question! BF: About what? CG: Year? BF: What decade? CG: I would say the seventies. I m assuming, because I m looking at her teeth, I m assuming she was about seventy. But Windy would know better than I would, because he was down there with her when she began to show signs of Alzheimer s. BF: Oh. CG: I ve get pennies all over the floor. Is there something going on here? [Laughs] BF: Maybe it s a good sign! [Laughs] CG: Oh, my goodness! [10:00] I hope it is! I mean, I don t understand all these pennies, other than I dropped them. [Long pause in conversation; sounds of scanner and of CG s footsteps moving around] of garbage? CG: Okay, let s see. That s garbage. [Pause] Is it me, or does everybody accumulate a ton BF: Oh, it s so hard. I m a kind of I m a saver, you know, as an historian. [Laughs] CG: Um-hmm, um-hmm. BF: [Laughs] And so, you know, which is so, I like savers. CG: [Laughs] BF: If more people were savers, historians would have an easier job.

8 CG: Well, you know, there s saving and then there s saving. Some of this stuff is just trash, [laughs] and it needs to go. As I get older, I m discovering these new concepts. This is all trash to go out. [15:00] BF: Let s reassemble your picture here. CG: When my parents passed, I had to clean out seventy years worth of stuff BF: Oh, my gosh. CG:. Of course, if you save it, or whatever amount you save, becomes your trash. BF: Yeah. My parents only just moved CG: Okay. BF: And even that generated a lot of stuff. CG: Uh-huh. And as you move, you throw out. If you don t BF: Well, yeah, but they pass it on to me. [Laughs] CG: Alright. BF: Their stuff. CG: If it s stuff you can pass on, that s good. BF: But where do you put it, right? CG: I ve had storage bins. I ve had I can t tell you how much stuff I gave to Goodwill, to Salvation Army. Now, this apartment is the size of the apartment that my parents were in. BF: Oh, yeah? CG: Yes. BF: But not the same one? CG: They lived around the corner. Not the same one. That is under what do you call it somewhat under renovation.

9 BF: Okay. CG: But these are the apartments that they moved into in BF: Huh. So, it wasn t immediately after the war? CG: They lived in Harlem, I guess, after my father graduated from Hampton. They married in 46. My mother graduated in 46. My father graduated in 48. My sister was born in 48. They lived in the South for a little while. BF: Oh, really? CG: Yeah. BF: Huh. CG: And then moved to Harlem. When they came north, they moved to Harlem. And then, from Harlem, they came out here. Now, in this development were many artists, musicians, politicians. it a lottery? BF: Hmm. So, was it I wonder how they decided who got it? Was it competitive? Was CG: Well, I can t say for certain. Maybe let me see if I can get my neighbor [ ] down here. She might be able to tell you that. BF: Well, I was just curious. Do you know where when you say they lived in the South, were they back in North Carolina, or somewhere else? CG: They were in Orangeburg, South Carolina, I believe. My father taught at I think he taught at the University of South Carolina in Orangeburg. BF: Oh? He was an accountant, right? CG: Yeah. Don t worry about that. I ll get that straight. BF: Well, you had it before. [Laughs] I don t remember what I did to it.

10 CG: Don t worry. BF: I think what it is is that I think you got to put these nails back in. So, were you able to find any more photos of your mom? CG: [Laughs] Funny you should ask me that. BF: No? CG: I mean, [you shouldn t] ask me that. I m not even sure I mean, you know, it s out of sight, out of mind if you don t put it in a distinct spot. BF: Right. [Pause in conversation until recording ends] [Recording A ends at 21:10] INTERVIEW CONTINUES [Recording B starts] CG: I will talk with my sister. I will look around. I know. [Long pause in conversation] [Sound of footsteps, rustling papers] Okay, this is for uncontrollable perspiration here. BF: Hmm? CG:I just said this uncontrollable perspiration. BF: [Laughs] CG: [Sound of rustling paper] I threw things out, [pulled] them on the table. Don t ask me what they were and why. [Pause] Do you have any pictures of? Now, let s see, let me write down the things that I m missing that you asked me for. Okay, what is this? [Sound of footsteps] Now, this is not your first trip to New York, is it? BF: No, no. I haven t been here for a while, though, but I love New York. CG: There s a game. Did you see Shea did you see Citi Field, as you walked up?

11 BF: No, but I I have seen Citi Field. That s right, the All-Star game is tonight. CG: Yeah. BF: Yeah, how exciting! CG: If you look out this window, you see it. BF: Really? CG: Uh-huh. BF: Oh. Oops! CG: I m so sorry! Oh, my gosh. BF: [ ] CG: [You re like my nephew]. [Pause] Okay, people, you re taking too long. Let s go. I need my coffee but you need to come on. BF: Well, they must have had to get up early this morning. CG: Huh? [05:00] Well, they have early morning prayer, so they re up. And we re a twenty-four-hour family. We get up, we call. No time is too early. for a week. BF: [Laughs] CG: We re a twenty-four-hour family. I m thinking about coming back south. BF: Oh, yeah? CG: Um-hmm. BF: When? CG: Well, actually I can go anytime. I can leave this week if I wanted to. BF: Yeah.? What brings you back? CG: I can only come and stay for a couple of days. You know, I could go and lay down

12 BF: Are you going back to Greensboro? CG: Ah, I could stop in. I could stop into Greensboro, because I only got to see my cousin Betty Jean. I didn t get to see Phyllis and Kendall and that crew. BF: Um-hmm. Who is Kendall? CG: Phyllis s brother. BF: Oh, I ve never met him. CG: You ve never met Kendal? BF: No. CG: Okay. Hmm, this is an interesting group, I tell you, I tell you. I m surprised that you haven t because he s one of the ninety-nine ministers in the family. I m trying to be funny. [Footsteps and rustling paper] You can tell I was born in New York. [Laughs] Okay. Tell me you re outside, Missy. [Sighs] [Recording B ends at 7:49] INTERVIEW CONTINUES [Recording C starts] Celeste Greene: Got it? Muhammad Hasid: No, I don t. Celeste Greene: I was giving him the other chair. Saudah Abdul-Haqq: Which other chair? CG: This one. SA: Oh. CG: Is that comfortable? Is that

13 SA: You sit in the wheelchair? Muhammad Hasid: No, I ll sit right here. SA: Alright. CG: Wait a minute. That slides, Baby. Hold on. Your glasses somebody s glasses. SA: Oh, no, they must be mine, eyeglasses. MH: I m good. CG: You got it? MH: Yeah. So, how was your trip up? BF: It was very good. CG: What is wrong with this light? BF: And I got here yesterday with no problem. Staying with some friends. MH: Good. CG: This worked. SA: Was it not plugged in? CG: It is. BF: Nice of you to come. You must have had to get up early, huh? MH: We get up early on a regular you know, so that wasn t it. And actually the traffic wasn t a test for us until we got to just before we got into the city. BF: Oh, yeah? Well, we were just talking about how the All-Star game is tonight. MH: Oh, yeah. We spoke about that. We said, We ll come in early. We were going to come last night, but if we had left last night, we would have got here while the game was still while the Home Run Derby? BF: Yeah, right.

14 we left here. I did. MH: You know, so we said, No, well, let s not do that. Let s leave this morning. So, BF: I didn t think about how close we really are to that. MH: Oh, yeah, right across the road. Yeah, but I was aware. Of course, we grew up down BF: [Taps mic] Okay. MH: I grew up in the Queens area. BF: Really? MH: So, I m very familiar with it. So, we said, Well, we ll come down Tuesday because they won t be back until Tuesday evening afternoon, evening. bed. BF: Right. MH: They ll start coming in. BF: You had to plan around that. MH: Right, had to plan around it. So, we said, We might as well just sleep in our own BF: [Laughs] MH: So, that works. SA: Unless it s it might be the bulb. But it s a little better with the curtains open. It could be the bulb. Is this bulb working here? but anyway. CG: Try it, Sister. I just changed the bulb. I think it s something to do with the switch, MH: Did you pop the breakers? SA: Try that.

15 MH: The breaker box? CG: It shouldn t be that, because this light s on. MH: Are they all on the same? CG: Um-hmm. MH: Then it probably is the bulb. CG: I just changed that bulb! SA: Sometimes that happens. CG: Because it is plugged in. SA: Or just leave that light on. This is fine. Yeah, that brightens things up quite a bit! CG: I just changed this light! MH: You all have to do the talking. CG: So, you had a good trip? MH: Oh, yeah! SA: Oh, yeah, it was a nice trip. It was a very beautiful day. CG: Okay. SA: It was smooth. CG: Y all didn t sweat? SA: No, we had the air conditioning on. MH: We had the air conditioning on. CG: Okay. Is it hot in here? SA: Not bad! Not bad at all. MH: No. I can handle this. BF: Well, I appreciate you coming all this way to meet with us.

16 correct? SA: No problem, no problem. Let me get your water for you. You wanted some water, BF: Oh, that would be nice, yeah SA: Okay, Celeste, you put it in the kitchen? BF: It s on the counter. Should I get it? CG: Our new family member put it in the kitchen. BF: [Laughs] CG: Anybody who walks around in here is qualified family. BF: Celeste and I have bonded over the last two weeks. [Laughter] MH: Oh, that s great. SA: I actually brought in a [coffee]. MH: We have some water with us. We drink spring water. I mean, we have a spring on our land upstate. BF: Oh, really? You drink it? MH: [ ] buy it. [Laughs] BF: Oh, wow. MH: But we [bought/brought] some for you. BF: Oh, thank you. CG: From the spring or? MH: We have both. Turn that light back on, Celeste. CG: Turn this light back on? MH: Yeah. It lights up out here. CG: Okay.

17 MH: Until you get a bulb. CG: I changed the bulb. MH: Did it work? CG: No. MH: So, could it be the lamp? SA: It s probably the lamp itself. CG: I m like wait a minute now! It just worked the other night! What happened? MH: Everything works until it breaks, Celeste. CG: Well, that s true. [Recording C has no sound after 4:10 and ends at 5:49] INTERVIEW CONTINUES [Recording D starts] SA: Before when we had spoke, at the time, you weren t too sure how things were going. BF: Right. I can tell you where I ll give you an update on where I am. [Sound of rustling papers close to mic] Alright, so first off, let me make sure this is working. Today is July sixteenth, I m Benjamin Filene. Can you say your names? Can you say your name? SA: My name in Cassandra Greene. BF: Uh-huh. CG: My name? BF: Sure. Celeste Greene is in the room. And, I m sorry, I didn t catch your name, sir. MH: Muhammad Hasid. BF: Muhammad Hasid?

18 MH: Yes. BF: How do you spell that? MH: Muhammad, M-U-H-A-M-M-A-D. Hasid, capital H-A-S-I-D. BF: Okay. And you prefer to go by Cassandra or Saudah? SA: I prefer to go by Saudah. BF: Uh-huh. SA: But, of course, my given name is Cassandra, and it may appear, you know, within certain texts, so I give them both. But I prefer Saudah. BF: Saudah? SA: Um-hmm. BF: And your last name is? SA: Greene. I use the maiden name. [Sound of rustling papers throughout following conversation] BF: Oh, you use Greene? SA: Um-hmm. BF: Okay. I had another name that you gave me once. SA: What did I use Abdul-Haqq? BF: Abdul-Haqq, yeah. SA: Yes, I do use Abdul-Haqq. BF: But you prefer Saudah Greene? SA: No, Saudah Abdul-Haqq. BF: Which is A-B-D-U-L-hyphen-H-A-Q? SA: Yes, H-A-Q-Q.

19 BF: H-A-Q-Q. Oh, okay. Okay, well, you re asking what I ve been doing on the project, and what I ve been doing since we talked, which is by now a long time ago, I guess, on the phone. SA: Right, right. BF: Well, first off, I apologize it s taken me a long time to get up here to follow up. It s been hard to keep the project going in the midst of teaching and everything. But I am trying to continue to talk to people, both in the Greensboro area and other places. I m particularly trying to, well, gather stories in the way that we talked about before, family history and family stories, and then also photographs because, like [you] said, I my background is museum exhibit development, exhibit work, and I teach that now. I do museum studies at Greensboro. I feel like the historical story here would be a great exhibit, but we need some visual things to make that happen. SA: I see. BF: But where I am in terms of that process is just at the beginning of the summer, in June, I met with the director at the Greensboro Historical Museum. SA: The Greensboro Historical [ ]? BF: Uh-huh. And I talked to her about this project, and she was interested. So, one idea but she hasn t given me a definite word. I m going to follow up with her at the end of the month. So, my hope, or one idea, at least, would be if we could have an exhibit that would go between the Greensboro Historical Museum, which would be a way to connect directly to Goshen, and Chapel Hill, which is where I learned about the book and where the book was published at UNC Press and where the archives has some letters, so they have a small gallery in the Manuscript Library, and then Hillsborough, which is where Stella Sharpe, the author, lived and where she

20 got the inspiration for the story. And so, I think it would be great to have an exhibit if we could those are all different-sized places, which is complicated, but I think it would be great to have it go between those three. SA: Um-hmm. BF: So, are there other questions I can answer for you about the project? CG: No. SA: Not so far. That was what I was curious about. BF: Alright. SA: Thank you. BF: Uh-huh. CG: [Eating] Students are not allowed to eat in your class? BF: I make exceptions. [Laughs] CG: [Eating] Okay. [Laughs] [Sound of rustling paper continues] SA: What is the atmosphere that you find down [0:05:00] at UNC at Greensboro now that might make that type of exhibit interesting to the area? BF: That s a good question. I think Greensboro as a city well, as a city, is both trying to sort of it s trying to reinvent itself as a culture-driven city, like a lot of cities are, you know. A lot of the industry has left. And so, they are trying to use arts and culture to make it a place that people want to live, you know. So, there are some interesting art galleries. The Greensboro Museum is trying is, I think, on its way up. There s the Civil Rights Museum downtown in the old Woolworth s Building. So, I think it would be a receptive climate, but also kind of a timely, maybe a timely moment to tell the story, because the city doesn t I think it s easy to forget the rural roots of the city. I mean, when I saw those photographs in the book for the first time, I my

21 question was: Where was this? You know, when and where was this life? And then, to find out, well, it was a mile or two from downtown, and there was a whole community there that I had never heard of, I think that that s something that people will want to hear. UNC Greensboro is I don t know when you were last back, but it s changed a lot over the last ten or fifteen years. Really, it grew a lot. It s become a lot bigger as a university and has much more a lot more commuter students. That s how they managed to grow the University without really substantially, at least, changing the size of the campus. And they have among the largest I think the largest minority and first-generation college student population in the UNC system, aside from the Historically Black Colleges. So, you know, not like A&T, but something like twenty-eight percent or twenty-five percent of people of color. And so, I mean, that s a point of pride for the University, and so I think the University would be supportive of the project at a lot of levels. And the other and probably the way my work is supported at the University, or the way I feel supported, is that well, Celeste and I talked about this; I don t know if you were on the phone is that universities, I think, including UNCG especially, have changed to want to emphasize making their work available and useful, and so, sort of community-engaged scholarship that involves partners, that involves audiences beyond other scholars. When I got my Ph.D. twenty years ago, I never intended to work in a university. I wanted to work in a museum and I did go work in museums. But then, you know, six or eight years ago, or, yeah, seven years ago, when I decided to move back home to North Carolina, I realized that universities have changed quite a bit and that there would be more room to do the kind of work like this that I m interested in. So, that part has worked out. CG: Um,hmm, more open and available.

22 BF: More open to thinking about different forms. Not everything has to be an academic book. I mean, there s nothing wrong with academic books, certainly, but not every piece of work has to take that form. And so, that gives me more room to do projects like this where I don t quite yet know where they re going but I think it might be most likely not an academic book, is my guess, yeah. SA: Kind of developing as it goes along? BF: Yeah. SA: Just going back a little bit, when you were talking about what it looked like, you know, prior: When I returned, that was one of my great disappointments. My great disappointment when I walked down, walked onto Roberts Court, I wanted to see what I had seen when I lived there, when I was young. And to see all these houses [0:10:00] and, of course, modernization and people having nice homes is fine, but I really wanted to see those fields with the, you know, with the corn growing and the vegetables and the house at the end of the lane. And it was so different from when of course, when you re little, everything is so much bigger. And I was so shocked [laughs] to find out that that road where I can t think CG: Where Grandmother s house ends? Goes up another road or? SA: The one that the house was almost a mansion. It was gray. CG: You talking about way up? SA: Way up, all the way at the end. CG: That was Uncle Joe s house. SA: Whose house? CG: Joe s. SA: Okay. To find out that that road was so short.

23 BF: [Laughs] SA: When I was a little [laughs] when I was a little girl, that road seemed like it was the nicest, longest walk in the sun. And then, you d walk into the backyard, and there s all these big huge weeping willow trees, and this huge home, and it s cool, and there s a swing and a tire in the tree. And it was nothing like that. BF: Really? SA: You know, it was like I was like, Oh, no! [Laughs] But BF: When was that that you were going back? SA: When we went down to the reunion. CG: We went back in 07. You were there in 07. SA: 2007? CG: Yeah, you were there in 07. SA: Right. Right, so that was six years ago. CG: After my father passed. SA: Everything was just so different. BF: Um-hmm. How long had it been since you were back, do you think? SA: Oh, a long time, a long time. CG: 75. BF: Oh? So a really long time, yeah? SA: Yeah, it had been a long time. Yeah. BF: Yeah, okay! So, yeah, you could see the change. SA: Um-hmm. BF: So, is that the road are you talking about the same road where Phyllis lives?

24 CG: Yes. BF: And that s where Mr. Herbin, Grandfather Herbin s house was, right? CG: Now, prior to Jenny being in that house, if that s what they told you. BF: Oh, you don t but that s not the house you re talking about? CG: No. BF: No, it s a different house. CG: No, because my grandmother s house was on the our grandmother was on the corner of Roberts Court. When she passed away in 85, they moved that house. BF: Okay. CG: They took it. I don t think it s there, at least the last time I looked it wasn t. And one of her nieces children had purchased it from Uncle Windy. So, there s a whole big [structure on there] of some sort. BF: Oh? CG: Um-hmm, um-hmm. BF: Okay. Hmm. CG: But I think Uncle Phair s house is still there. SA: There s a house that s like [ ], like they re surrounded by CG: Um-hmm, [ ]? SA: Yeah, [ ]. CG: Yeah, that s Phair s house. SA: That s his house? I thought it was. But that s seems that was in the same spot. CG Same spot. They didn t move. Raised ten kids in that one little house. BF: Who was that?

25 CG: Phair. BF: Phair? CG: P-H-A-I-R, Phair Herbin. BF: So, how does he relate to the other? CG: He s a brother. BF: A brother of? CG: Lula Priscilla. BF: Oh, a brother of Lula so he would be Windy s uncle? CG: Yes, that s right. BF: Uh-huh, okay. And so, his children now have? CG: His ten children live in Greensboro. BF: Oh? Okay. Oh, I didn t know that. Huh. So, are any of them people I should connect to? Herbin. CG: You could! BF: Any times that you know? CG: Um-hmm, Mae, Ethel, Linda. Mae Herbin would probably be the best pick. Mae BF: Mae Herbin? CG: Um-hmm, she lives on North Elm. That s not her last name. Philip I can t think of what Philip s name is. Philip, um, Wren. W-R-E-N. BF: That s her husband? CG: Yeah. Philip Wren, and so it s Mae Wren. BF: And they live on North Elm?

26 CG: I think they live on North Elm. Is it North Elm or South Elm? I mean, it s gorgeous. BF: Where they live? CG: Yeah, um-hmm. BF: So, that would be Windy s well, I don t know. But her father CG: [That d] be a cousin. BF: Yeah, her father was his CG: Uncle. BF: Uncle. CG: Um-hmm, like Ernestine and Betty Jean s father was his uncle. BF: Um-hmm. CG: They were the older ones. [ ] SA: No, I m good. CG: Alright. SA: I m good. BF: Well, so [0:15:00] what is the what does Goshen mean to you now, in terms of your childhood and in your placing your memories? Is it something that you think back to much? Or you ve kind of moved on? SA: Well, Goshen was, you know, [without] being so melancholy, it was probably the best time of my life. BF: Really? SA: Yeah! BF: Why do you say that?

27 SA: Well, of course, I mean, I m a very visual person and a natural person I love nature. So, that and, as a matter of fact, I now live in a rural area, so that [fits] [ ], like I came back to where I came from. For a child, it was just a very natural, loving, simple, beautiful experience. I had a very loving family. My whole family lived in the area. I had my own animals. It was just a very natural environment. I keep thinking that s the word that keeps coming up. So, it was a very secure, gentle place. Now, going back, it just it s not commercial because it s still, you know, there s families there, but it s just the environment is just so changed. BF: Yeah, yeah. SA: Yeah. It doesn t have the same it just does not have the same feel at all. BF: Yeah, because when you were a kid, right, it seems like it had well, you were saying partly kids see the world bigger [laughs] than it was. SA: Right. BF: But also, I do don t you think also, though, that it was less interrupted, right, by other roads and other? SA: Oh, it was no interruption, basically, at all, other than the you know, you had the when they brought in the milk, you know, in the glass jars. BF: The delivery? SA: It was delivered and left on the door. Of course, the postman. Other than that, there was no real true traffic that I can really remember, you know. Just those particular and then, of course, the relatives in and out. BF: Right.

28 SA: That was about it, very I wouldn t say isolated, because it was easy to get off that road and go, you know, into the city area, etcetera. But it was just a very safe, secure place, and our neighbors were very had very kind neighbors, and they had a fabulous orchard. BF: Oh? SA: Everything was in there, you know. BF: Were they growing it for themselves, or to sell, or both? SA: I m not sure. I was too young to know that. But I know they grew a lot. BF: Who were they, the neighbors? SA: Oh, I can t think of their name! I m horrible with names. BF: That s alright. SA: But they had I mean, huge, I mean, they must have been there for many, many, many years, because the fruit trees were huge. And they had nuts and just any and everything. work? BF: Wow. SA: Yeah. It was just a beautiful area. CG: You want to sit there, Sis? BF: Do you want to sit there? SA: I m okay. CG: [ ] [Everyone seems to be speaking closer to the mic] SA: It s just totally different now. BF: Yeah. Is this your coffee, Celeste? CG: Um-hmm, I m getting ready to heat it up. Be careful. Do you want me to put you to

29 BF: So, when did you Celeste told me this, but remind me. When did you move? How old were you when you? so much? SA: I was five years old. BF: Uh-huh, but then you also had memories because you came back in summers, or not SA: We came back, you know. I was still pretty young, though, when we came back. BF: Um-hmm. SA: I remember coming back a few times. BF: Okay. So, your memories are from when you were very young? SA: From when I was very young, right. BF: That s amazing well, you said you were a visual person, but that s amazing that it has that strong a mental picture for you. That s powerful, yeah. SA: Yeah, it really was a I was just fascinated. BF: Yeah. CG: Um-hmm. Those fields? SA: Um-hmm, just anywhere you go. Of course, being little I was what, three years old. I mean, I was little. But smart. [0:20:00] BF: Yeah, yeah. SA: You know? And you could go wherever you pretty much wanted to go, except you couldn t go into the woods, because there were bears in the woods. BF: There were bears? CG: [It s something] they tell you? SA: I saw one.

30 CG: Uh-huh, alright. SA: Yeah. They told me not to go into, like, the cornfields by the forest. And, of course, because I guess I m something of an adventuresome person as a child, so, of course, I did that! And as I got a certain distance into the cornfield, what did I see at the perimeter of the forest was a bear! CG: Okay. BF: Wow! SA: At which point CG: They have bears in North Carolina? SA: Now, even when you re little, they tell you, Don t run! If you see a bear, don t run. You know, be calm and try to get away if you can, if it s not too close. Well, I ran. I wasn t even thinking about anything else. I flew! And when I looked back, it was still there, but I was safe. surprised. BF: Wow. It s like a SA: But [ ] CG: They ve got bears in Greensboro? SA: [Laughs] I won t forget. BF: It s like a fairy tale! [laughs]7 SA: Yeah, it was kind of fun. It was kind of fun, but when I saw that bear, I was a little BF: Wow, that s amazing. So, do you CG: When you re little, a bear or a coyote and all the rest look the same. SA: Um-hmm, snakes, a big snake. I ran into a big snake one time.

31 CG: [Laughs] [Starts a simultaneous conversation with MH in background] BF: Really? SA: Yeah, he reared up. He must have reared up this high. And I remember screaming. And my grandfather came running, and he used to have on those big farm boots, you know. [Simultaneous conversation going on between CG and MH] BF: Oh, wait, hang on! I m getting SA: Yeah, those big farm boots. And my grandfather is my hero, and he stomped the snake with his boots. snake? CG: Oh, yeah. They were something. SA: Yeah. BF: So, wait. I m sorry, because we had multiple voices. So, can you say again about the SA: The snake, of course, reared itself. It was in the cornfield, another place I wasn t supposed to go by myself. But, of course, I was curious. And then, the snake I remember the snake rearing up. I was small, so when he reared up, he was pretty tall. And I remember screaming at the top of my lungs. And my grandfather I remember my grandfather came running, with the coveralls, and the big heavy boots, because he s a farmer, and he stomped literally just picked up his leg and stomped the snake to death. BF: Wow! SA: Yeah! So, you know, as a little kid, you know, this is like my hero. You know. BF: Yeah. SA: But I had plenty of excitement! BF: [Laughs] So

32 SA: But those are the memories, those are the fond memories. BF: So, was that Arthur? SA: That was Arthur, yeah. BF: What are your memories of him? You say he was your hero. SA: Extremely hardworking, very kind, but you knew he he wasn t strict. But he came across as strict, but I knew he wasn t strict, in a sense. It s hard to explain, but he had that kind of voice. Religious man, but mostly the hardworking is what I saw all the time. You know, the farmers would go out almost before the sun is up, start their day, come back, have the farmer s breakfast, you know, the big plate of eggs and bacon and biscuits and whatever else was on the plate it might have been grits coffee, juice, a huge breakfast. But they had been working probably from five o clock or even earlier in the morning, doing their farm work. Then, I don t know, it maybe was like probably seven o clock in the morning when they came back and ate, and then went back out into the field. And then, of course, there s a point in the day when you rest because it s too hot. BF: Yeah. SA: Everything was just work, work, around the clock. And then, of course, Sunday Sunday they went to church. But the boys the boys helped in the work. BF: But not the girls? SA: Well, the girls did girl things. But I was too little. I didn t have to work. I just took care of, you know, my little things. I had my little chickens and stuff like that. CG: We worked. SA: Well, not like BF: You know, could I ask you to put the keys down?

33 SA: Oh! Sorry! BF: Yeah, sorry. SA: Yeah. but I sure did. BF: So, what would be the [speaking to CG] so, you say you did work? CG: We did work. We both did. BF: What did you do? [0:25:00] CG: String tobacco, go out there and pick that tobacco and string it. You might not have, BF: Well, you went back more, didn t you? SA: I don t remember stringing tobacco. CG: Yeah, because I remember the tobacco worms. And I saw those things and I screamed like no tomorrow. That s when I became city. I was country up until [laughs] just as good! SA: I don t recall that. CG: I screamed like nobody I saw those tobacco worms. Oh, my God! And then, that was the end of country. BF: [Laughs] CG: Oh, yeah. SA: I don t know why I don t recall that. CG: You probably well, you were a teen then, Sister. You might have been here. SA: Okay. BF: So, what do you mean that you became city? You just decided that you were happy to be a New Yorker at that point? [Laughs]

34 CG: You know, in the middle of the field, they you know, they would laugh because what s a tobacco worm? You know, just pluck that thing off, and I couldn t stand oh, I didn t like worms period. So, by the time I it looked like a big I don t know what it looked like, but it was disgusting. I would scream bloody murder. the other kids? BF: So, they just plucked them off themselves normally? They would just pluck them off, CG: Yeah, yeah! The other kids would! Not me! Um-um, I had to go somewhere. [Sound of ring tone] I have no idea who this is. BF: So, do you remember a transition you were only five, but coming here? Was that a hard talking about going from country to city, was that a? SA: Well, just different, just different. When I came here, my parents had tried to make everything, the transition smooth for me. They had a nice, very girly room for me. I felt I did feel out of place, mainly because I left children to come to really nobody, except for my parents until, of course, you know, a little later on I met children in the community whom I really didn t care for. BF: Yeah. CG: Who might that have been? SA: Hmm? CG: Who might that have been? SA: Like Cookie, Gertie CG: Oops! SA: People like that. CG: [Laughs] You re on tape. [You re naming names].

35 SA: Oh, I m sorry. You can erase that. BF: [Laughs] We can delete that if you want. SA: You can delete that. BF: I don t know them, so SA: Who weren t very nice to me because I had a country accent, so they teased me. They teased me terrible. Yeah, so that wasn t happy for me. You know, I had come from an environment where everybody was my family, I had cousins galore, we did cousin fun things all the time, every day, to the city. BF: Yeah. SA: You know. But, of course, I was happy to be with my parents. But I was happy when I was with my grandparents, so I didn t have a problem either way. come to BF: So, you were living with your grandparents, and your parents were here already? SA: Right. They came here to seeking a stable environment to live in and for me to BF: Yeah. SA: And for work, just like it s the same, you know, the migration when African Americans came from the South to the North seeking, you know, work or better jobs or perhaps a better situation. My father had taught at he had taught, actually, was teaching at Hampton University after he graduated for a while, and he taught in South Carolina. I don t know which school. BF: Celeste was saying Orangeburg. SA: Was it Orangeburg? BF: Yeah.

36 SA: But he was an accountant, so he was seeking that kind of work up here in New York. BF: Is that what he was teaching? Do you know? SA: What? In Orangeburg? BF: Or at Hampton? SA: He actually taught in Hampton prior to and after graduation part time. BF: Oh, okay. So then they so you came to this very place, not this apartment, but this building, right, as a kid? SA: Well, it s really around the corner but it s just like this. BF: Yeah. SA: Right, um-hmm. BF: Okay. So then, how long before that you felt you had did you reach a point where you felt that you were a New Yorker, or that you were in at least [0:30:00] part of this neighborhood? Or did it always was it always a struggle? SA: Um, I mean, I lived here. You know, I did form friendships and very close friendships that endured for many, many years, as a matter of fact, until they passed on. I knew them literally from the time that I was probably about six up until, as I said, the time that they passed, so very endearing friendships. But my heart was always in the country. My heart never left the country. BF: That s interesting, yeah. SA: Yeah. BF: Yeah. Huh. And I don t know you have children, as well? SA: I have six children. BF: Six children? So, did you have you talked to them about Goshen?

37 SA: Not Goshen, per se, just when I was young, when I lived there. BF: Uh-huh, okay. SA: As a matter of fact, I have one of my children lives in South Carolina, which is about an hour and a half away from that area. BF: Oh? SA: So, hopefully, they ll be able to come to the area ever so often and, you know, be with the relatives. They won t know what it was like because everything is so changed, but BF: Right. What would you want them to know about it, about Goshen, do you think, or about your time there? SA: About my time there? Just they have kind of almost a similar situation somewhat, the child that I m talking about, with their child, because they are in a community. They re in an Islamic community, and there s a lot of love and care for children there, and it has a lot of freedom to it. You know, you don t have to worry about your child running in the street and not so much of them getting snatched off the street, you know. So, they have a pretty good situation themselves, in terms of that. BF: So, in an interesting way, they ve kind of they found a different way to get that for their family. SA: Yeah. It kind of well, I think we ve kind of I think, even country-wise, I think there s a return to roots. BF: Yeah. You mean nationwide? SA: Nationwide, yeah, nationwide. BF: Yeah. Why is that, do you think?

38 SA: I think that we ve come to a point now where we re just overdone everything, and people are it s not resonating with people. They re not not that there s anything wrong with material things. It s nice to have nice material things, but they re not getting any meaning out of it. I mean, dealing with nature is so meaningful. You know, everybody can t do it, and everybody may not enjoy it, per se, but I think most people enjoy a natural type of environment, as opposed to all the concrete and tall buildings. It s just like when people I live upstate. BF: Right. SA: And when you come upstate on the highway and you come out of the city, even when you get into certain places in Jersey, I mean, when you start seeing all the trees, it s so relaxing, you know. And, of course, different times of the year when the trees turn, it s very well known, you know, upstate New York. It s talked about in vacation, you know, in the magazines and whatnot, about how beautiful it s one of the most beautiful areas to visit at that time of the year. The scenery is really gorgeous. So, I know I was told that, you know, a lot of people are like moving out to places like Montana, places like that. BF: Right. SA: You know, wide open spaces, you know, where there s available land and less people, etcetera. BF: Was that unusual, though, for you to discover that yourself, coming from here? I mean, how did you come to that as a personal if you don t obviously, only tell me what you re comfortable telling me. SA: No, I don t have any problems with that!

39 BF: In terms of your own personal journey, you had a country beginning, but as a young child, and then you grew up here. What did you do [0:35:00] after high school? SA: Went to work. Well, no, actually I went to college, but I was working and going to school at the same time. But I went through school very quickly. I was about sixteen. I had just turned sixteen when I graduated from high school. BF: Oh! SA: And then, I went straight into college, which in retrospect is probably something I should not have done because I was sick of school. BF: Oh. SA: I was tired of school. BF: How did accelerate through high school, or through secondary school? SA: I skipped grades twice. BF: Oh, wow. SA: And by the time I got to college, I didn t really know what I wanted to do, so I followed in the footsteps of my father, who was an accountant. So, I took all the business subjects and, I mean, I flew through the business subjects. And one day, it was like, I don t want to do this anymore, and I literally walked out the door, which was a mistake. BF: Wow. Where were you, what school? SA: City College, CCNY. BF: So, you literally walked out the door and never went back? SA: Literally walked out the door and never went back. BF: Wow. SA: Not back to that school anyway.

40 BF: Yeah. SA: Then a little further down, a few years later, I went to Hunter College for a while. I was interested in nutrition. I was coming into the, you know, what s good for health, because I had had a child and I wanted I was just interested in that kind of thing, still back to nature. I ve always been like that. So, and then, after that, I ran into this guy. [Laughs] BF: [Laughs] SA: And we got married and had a family, extended the family. BF: Uh-huh. So, do you mind me asking what your mother and father thought of the well, I guess first of the moment when you walked out and never went back? That must have been a tough SA: They didn t give me too much flak. My parents were the kind of parents who wanted you to learn things for yourself. They gave you advice, they guided you, they wanted you to learn what was going to be comfortable for you. So, I think they always thought that I would go back. And I think they also saw that I was tired of it. BF: Um-hmm. SA: So, they didn t really give me a hard way to go. They advised me. They told me of the pitfalls. But they let me make the choice, which I later on in life, I was personally sorry for, myself. They should have pushed me. BF: That s a tough thing as a parent, isn t it? SA: Yeah. BF: To know when to [laughs] SA: Right, right. BF: You think they should have done more, huh, to warn you?

41 SA: Yeah, yeah. BF: So, but you were still very young then if you since you had started college so early. SA: Yeah. BF: Was that around that time also that you began to explore Islam? SA: Shortly thereafter. BF: Yeah? SA: Well, shortly meaning maybe about five years. That s fairly short. BF: Okay. SA: But I had obtained, more or less, adulthood by the time I was twenty, twenty-one. I was fairly mature in my thinking. You know, I wasn t really a ditsy kind of person, you know. And I was always God-conscious, and Islam answered basically my feelings and my questions, and so I accepted Islam. I must have been about twenty-two. BF: How did you first learn about it? SA: About Islam? BF: Yeah. SA: Through friends who were Muslim. BF: Okay. SA: And then, I started reading on my own. And then, the feelings, of course, in my heart opened up, and it all made sense to me. Everything just clicked. And so, I accepted. BF: That was in around in the late sixties, early seventies, probably? SA: In 64 I would have been sixteen, so, yeah, about 70. Right. BF: So, that was a moment when a lot of African Americans were SA: Right.

42 BF: Discovering Islam. SA: Right. BF: Did you feel like that were you part of that, of a political movement in that, or was it well, I guess it could be both. It could be a personal discovery and SA: For me, personally, it was more religious. BF: Uh-huh. So, how did your parents take that? [0:40:00] SA: I probably had of course, many people think that I had some of the God blessed me with the world s best parents. They took they were God-fearing Christians, and their stance was, As long as you believe in the Almighty, it s fine with us. BF: Wow. SA: A lot of people I know weren t that fortunate. They didn t have that kind of experience. But that was my experience. BF: And so, was it when did you move to the community that you live in now? SA: Well, the community started in Brooklyn, or gathered in Brooklyn, and then we basically moved. We didn t want to be in the, quote-unquote, ghetto environment any longer and we moved to upstate New York in about in the eighties, about 84 82, 84. And BF: Go ahead. SA: The whole community most, many of the community some of the community went other places, but the majority of the community moved there. And we re still there and we re developing the area. And it s coming back to like now, my grandchildren, because my children are grown, my grandchildren kind of have the same environment that I had when I was a child. BF: Really?

43 SA: Um-hmm. They have the freedom to grow and learn, and the community is very loving and giving. So, it s a very extended we are one big family. It s an extended family. It s not my blood family, like when I was a child, that type of feeling. But the feeling is the same. The community, as I said, it s a family. BF: Yeah, it s supportive. Yeah. SA: Um-hmm. BF: So, some of your children, some of your grown children and their children live with you in the community? SA: Right.Well, they will, but they they re nearby. The community is growing. We re trying to build it. started that? BF: Uh-huh. Where is it in Upstate? SA: Hancock. BF: Hancock. I don t know where that is. SA: About three hours from here. BF: Okay. But when it started in Brooklyn, was that about when was that that you SA: The sixties. BF: So, you went pretty much straight as a young person, as a young adult, from the college into that community? community. SA: Right. BF: So, how would you describe the? SA: Well, not straight out of college. I was a Muslim before I actually joined the greater

44 BF: Okay. SA: So, between the time I left college and became a Muslim there s like five years each way, five years out of college accepting Islam, and then five years later joining the larger community. BF: Okay. So, you probably joined it in the seventies? SA: Right. BF: Yeah, yeah. So, what is how do you describe the community, in terms of its purpose and its structure? I mean, how is it set up? SA: To be able to practice Islam in an environment that is clean, where you don t have the distractions or the, what, impurities, so to speak, of the city. You know, in some neighborhoods, you hear all kinds of bad language and, you know, actions that aren t good, and we didn t want our children in that environment. BF: Hmm. So, is it so, there s the shared bond of faith. SA: Right. BF: Is there a shared economic basis for the community, or do people work all over? SA: People work all over. BF: In the region? SA: Yeah. BF: Um-hmm. Did you work, as well, outside the home? SA: I did. BF: With your six children, wow. What did you do? SA: Advertising. I worked at a newspaper, the area newspaper, the main newspaper in the area. I worked there for twenty years.