I didn’t realize that where I lived was a slum until I read it in the newspaper you know because to me it had been nothing but pure home there was plenty of love full of life full of people and full of music I don’t call it a slum because I live here I had beautiful times in Newark as a child growing up in Newark if we were poor I didn’t know it if we were living in dilapidated buildings I didn’t know it I perceived Newark to be a beautiful place to live and to grow up during my era of growing up no Newark was not a slum everybody had their neighborhood but every neighborhood was clean never it was not a slum and back there in those days blacks looked good dressed nice with their hats and their gloves and their Sunday go meetings going to church and at that time you had balls black society in Newark was very very active my parents were always going to social affairs and they were always dressing in gowns and tuxedos you had your own black society so to speak integrated yes in terms of many of the workplaces but the black society in Newark they were very active they were active in their own clubs while we didn’t have buildings as institutions we had people who were institutions in our lives we were brought up on jazz Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine Sarah Vaughan lived in the community Red Foxx visited next door I was friends so I was meeting quite a few entertainers at that time they didn’t know they were entertainers either Sarah Vaughan born and reared in Newark she sang in my mother’s choir everybody thought she just sang but Sarah could play just as well, we all made all state orchestra and chorus together I remember listening to the Fat Man and the Green Lantern on the radio they used to open up the theaters downtown the Loews or the Branford that black musicians Fats Domino would go there and they would perform on the stage set and they played the blues and whatever else that was out at that time I liked the concerts they would have in Symphony Hall and I would go to the Jazz Corner on Halsey when Rhoda Scott, another fellow, Little Jimmy Scott so that’s a good positive about Newark I remember good music sure I went downtown to the Symphony Hall I’ve seen many black entertainers there was jazz B.B. King Brook Benton Paul Robeson sung because as you know Paul Robeson was a graduate of Rutgers and the fact that Rutgers Newark has a center named after Paul Robeson is wonderful I used to go to my church and hear the Roberta Martin Singers from Chicago Newark had some great nightclubs with black entertainment which was well looked upon Teddy Powell on Broad Street he used to bring in the famous black artists Dinah Washington Al Miller nothing but the big time Teddy Powell had one of the swankiest nightclubs in Newark on Broad Street right across from City Hall mostly we listened to our black artists you know Sarah Vaughan Louis Armstrong all those people those were wonderful places where you could hear Rhoda Scott Jack McDuff Sarah Vaughan Dinah Washington all of the wonderful wonderful Count Basie Mr. Clarence White who was an outstanding black composer used to come to Central Avenue School and teach us spirituals when I was a child the Coleman Brothers they were a singing group that were well known we used to listen to them every Sunday on the radio before going to church everybody had the Coleman Brothers on and they did have a hotel down from Saint James Church Sarah Vaughan Wayne Shorter Eartha Kitt George Benson Kirk Franklin Timothy Wright Rose Scott Dr. King came here at one time I used to go out and we used to go out and listen to a lot of jazz we used to go out to the Key Club once in a while the Bridge Club Newark really was a jazz town some years ago I remember a lot of jazz a lot of jazz blues and the jazz I remember the clubs they used to have like the Key Club and the Teddy Bear Lounge they used to have Lloyds Manor a place in downtown Newark where my girlfriend used to take me down there it was really a nice place to go in there and hear the jazz and then we have artists who come in and kind of like have a second home we had a good time down there I remember going on Saturday or Sunday afternoon sometimes we would go down, to hear a jazz concert there was the Coleman Hotel on Court Street, this is where the religious group the Coleman Brothers used to sing I know about the Griffith building downtown and the courses and they had a theater and we would go to concerts there recitals usually I seem to recall summer concerts at the stadium I used to go to the Loews and the Branford and the Paramount Theater yeah I used to go to all of them there used to be an opera house on Washington Street and the Orpheum Theater she and I won a third prize tap dancing honor at the Orpheum Theater and I think Butter Beans and Susan were on the marquee there at that time we had a very popular social club called The Sweethearts that gave the social dances in the city of Newark at the Continental and the Terrace Ballroom the Terrace Ballroom was one of the main spotlights in the city there was the Jazz Corner the Key Club Newark had some good music some of it was transported from New York I knew some of these folks had an engagement in New York at the Blue Note maybe and then they would come and do their sets in Newark but Newark had some good music gospel you could go to any church at that time wasn’t as much gospel as you called it spirituals at that time but most of the churches that we went to when we heard a lot of gospel coming up was at Bethany and especially Abyssinia on West Kinney street at that time you hear gospel all around Abyssinia Ebenezer Baptist Church Bethany Baptist Church First Baptist up in Nutley you hear black music and then down at it was called the Mosque at that time they used to give gospel shows down there and there was another place a ballroom called the Continental Ballroom that used to have jazz shows and dances but this center of gospel at that time was Abyssinia Baptist Church the Kinney Club which was in the old days of let’s say the days of the 20s and all that would be one of those nightclubs that would have entertainment upstairs and people would come in from New York whites would come in to see the dancers and stuff like that you know that was one of the last remnants of that, there was the burlesque theater Newark Symphony Hall over the years has brought in outstanding black artists from various fields not only jazz but also the Classics the second positive event I remember was going to Symphony Hall taking the children to see the Nutcracker Suite it was a beautiful production and it showed the many talents that were here in Newark and are still here in Newark maybe even if we couldn’t get in I know I lived on Boston Street and the Boston Plaza was over by West Market Street and we could stand outside the Boston Plaza and listen to the artists that came couldn’t get in but we just stand outside and have a good time there were clubs around where we would make it a habit of going if we could to stand around and see who was coming and listen even if you didn’t see it we knew that all the top artists were coming to Newark you know and we just felt the part of it there used to be a lot of sanctified churches around and that was entertainment as you peeked in there were people shouting and stomping and whatever Griffith that was a big name and just go past there and sometimes they’d have somebody in the window playing the piano and you could stand there and hear it and really enjoy it and we were allowed to hear a story or to listen to some music on a hand wound victrola before going to bed we had games and things to play we had radio to listen to we heard stories on the radio I listened to a lot of the black radio stations dad I never saw I heard him some nights taking change out of his pocket putting it on the dresser but I never saw dad till Saturday and Sunday cause daddy worked all the time mother was reared by an aunt in the music world where she always gave her time to helping the young people right on through till she died she gave piano lessons down south she gave piano lessons free up here the lady next door I think she was really devastated but anyhow she got herself together and she made up a plate of Italian confectionery those honey balls or something and she came over and she said I have to tell you something so I said yes she said you have fine children oh I said thank you so much she said because even if they don’t know you’re listening to them they don’t talk dirty there were high hedges between the houses and she would be out behind the hedges and they would be playing out back when my son got big enough to you know be outside to play everything happening in the neighborhood somebody was ringing my doorbell saying my kid did this and my kid did that and my kid would be in the house so I knew that my it wasn’t my kid that you know did whatever they were saying was done finally I stand up to ask when am I gonna get waited on and she just sort of looked at me and didn’t answer I asked for management and then she decided she was going to serve me and she asked me the size for the child and when she came back with the shoes I told her I had changed my mind and I picked up my child and walked out of Hahne’s the Jewish proprietor was very personable they would always ask if anybody was sick in your family how were they or something like that and recommend a remedy the gentleman who had the corner store was also Jewish however he came from Canada all the children would talk to him to get him to talk because they wanted to hear how he spoke we were in close proximity to Prince Street where my grandmother used to take us shopping every Saturday we picked up a few foreign words and phrases I had to watch my speech because you know I’m a southerner and then I worked with a lot of Jewish ladies and they would always come and tell me things that I wasn’t saying correctly but I learned a lot from them I used to make speeches to that effect especially to women you know women shy off politics for some reason they think it’s unfeminine to be boisterous of course that’s changing I tried to encourage more women to be instrumental in politics and even to run I ran a voter registration drive in the city of Newark and I came in contact with many people and I liked it I found out that I was a people person and I was very relaxed talking to people and that became my career I got a little candy store business here in my house I don’t make anything you know earth-shaking but to me I consider this my mission field because I use the time to talk to children when they come in here to encourage them to stay in school we didn’t even have a phone in the house and my grandmother would go to the candy store there on the corner of Right Street and Sherman Avenue and call up school well soon as I heard my mother’s voice I would start crying and she would keep right on talking and I’d be crying and she’d be talking one day she brought my sister down to the phone with her and you know after she got me on the phone and she got out the booth and pushed my sister in and by the time my sister got in I was crying Rosie what’s the matter I’m sad because I wanna come home and Mama won’t let me she said well you cry down there and I’ll cry up here maybe she’ll let you I went over in the projects which is Hayes Homes which was just teeming with people children out playing and we heard gunshots and we started running because somebody said that riots had started there was a mass of people all in the streets children screaming women screaming and we ran and got our children and ran upstairs with them and locking our doors and the only thing you could hear was bullets you could hear the shots oh it was so frightening telling the children get on the floor stay on the floor stay on the floor and this went on and it was just it was so awful it was just really really you could hear cars you could hear glass breaking where people are breaking in stores and right on Springfield Avenue there was this furniture store they just broke it in and they just stole stuff and in my neighborhood you could hear the men walking up the streets with refrigerators with washing machines with tvs they had just taken from the stores and during the night you could hear the national guards walking in the streets and you were afraid to even move it was a very traumatic time for black people in the city of Newark that’s when everyone was talking about they were black and proud including my own children especially my oldest son I said ever since I was born my daddy made it very clear to me I was black and I was proud he was a proud man and he taught me to be proud so I’ve always all my life been black and proud another event was the king coming to Southside High School that was about a week before he died about April 4th, Dr. Martin Luther King came to our school I did hear the speech that was the momentum of the time, to be there and see Dr. King come into our building and to speak to our children I was on Broad Street the night Ken Gibson was elected and talk about dancing in the street I was part of it we participated in a lot of demonstrations during that time of course you know that was the year of demonstration and there was a lot going on so we was participant we demonstrated against the Vietnam War demonstrated in various strikes where workers was not treated fairly in the workplace we demonstrated to make change in integrating lunch counters I do recall the NAACP picketing Hahne’s at some point in terms of integration of the sales people in fact in one of the books that Baraka wrote he said where he learned all the spirituals and all about the black history was through my mother because she used to teach us all that stuff in school I attended school with Nathan Heard he sat right in back of me pulled my hair every day we did have one black music instructor I’ve forgotten his name but he was excellent I played the flute Sarah Vaughan who used to play for my mother at the Central Avenue Community Center and we all sang together and played together in the New Jersey all-state chorus and I was in the orchestra and Sarah was in the chorus as a teenager when I went to Barringer I was in charge of the spiritual choir I was a member of the mixed choir I played the string bass for the whole four years that I was at Barringer my brother was active with music he helped start Barringer’s jazz band as a child and as an adult being from a musical family I heard all types of music my mother being a music teacher you know all of us loving music I heard spirituals of all types and I heard that in church and at Central Avenue School where my mother was a music teacher she had a chorus up at Central Avenue School which was mixed they used to sing for the city the Newark Community School of the Arts I took lessons there voice lessons for many years both my girls took piano and voice lessons there as well girls took instruments and African dancing and modern dancing my mother always was campaigning for some politician downtown through her music I remember when we were teenagers we used to sing for various political dinners for Villani for Mayor Murphy Mayor Ellenstein in the chorus the Queen of Angels Players which was a group of actors and performers and for ten years we gave shows you know and we put them on at first at Essex Catholic High School and then Saint Benedicts where they have a regular stage we did shows like we did Guys and Dolls Our Town Music Man and we brought people in from all around Newark at that time at Saint Benedicts we would have people lined up all the way up Springfield Avenue trying to get in to see one of my shows I guess we went to football games there were some band competitions I believe and of course the fireworks I used to march for the Elks when they were housed at Washington and William Street I was a drum majorette the Sweethearts sold 300 memberships for the NAACP at our dance there used to be a lot of of choir festivals all over the city especially at Morton Street School, Central Avenue and then during the summers from one o’clock until seven or eight at night all over the city I was also a recreation and dance teacher where we used to teach square dances folk dances we used to have festivals all over the city in all the wards we used to have parades in Newark you could go down to Lincoln Park and you could go down to see most of them starting and boy I tell you I didn’t miss a parade cause I loved them and I put my kids in the carriage and would go down and really enjoy I’ve always been into poetry and writing and music I like music my son was a musician and my daughters are now both involved in theater a lot of people used to say I sound like Billie Holiday you know like that and so I did a show over here I remember when I was in college I used to come home on the weekends and in Montclair they had what they called a breakfast dance and we used to stay up all night long and on New Year’s Eve to go up to Montclair for this breakfast dance and stay up all night I was a music major at that time I thought I could sing my sisters and I used to sing the Three Playmates my mother and father sang a little bit my sister actually sang with a gospel group it was strictly a swing era where you did a lot of lindy hopping you did a lot of spiritual singing my mother was up here doing extra work in music she was a church worker had various churches that she played at he was also active in the men’s choir gospel chorus I would have to refer to mainly the church in terms of the types of music that I heard in most of the churches Baptist churches and I’m pleased to say that in most of our churches we had a range of music in terms of you heard anthems spirituals and gospel well when we were around it was jazz you know or you know big bands all these quartets and all that that was the kind of music because everybody I knew was involved in church so on Sundays we all prayed and heard the same kind of music and everything and then when it came to entertainment we had all those performers from that era you know from the 40s and whatnot we played the records of course I bought their records and all danced to the music and we would walk from Broad and Market down to Union Street below Penn Station every Sunday stay there all day long because she would be playing all day and daddy he would be a typical father come home every day did most of the cooking while mother was out all day long playing and singing all she wanted to do is play the piano and organ, that was her life Anytime you have music around you have all different types of people around you so she always taught all of us to love everyone