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Transcription: [00:00:02]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It's April 10th. Now, you can tell me full name.
[00:00:09]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
What?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] Who you are.
[00:00:11]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
My Name is Victoria Sue West.
[00:00:13]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I live, uh-- not sure where I live.
[00:00:15]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Lived 378 Herkimer Street, in Brooklyn, New York.
[00:00:19]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I was born in Emporium, Pennsylvania; October the 15th, 1902.
[00:00:26]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I had a very lovely family. It was-- I was number twelve; there were 13 children.
[00:00:33]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And we had a home. Was-- my father made us go to church every Sunday.
[00:00:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was a white church. He got-- We got up in the morning, and he took us, some-- well, not all of us; most of us to church.
[00:00:50]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And he'd sit up in the church and sing all the hymns, and make us sing, and then go back in the afternoon to Sunday School.
[00:00:57]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
If the children today had that; it would be a better living conditions.
[00:01:03]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right, was that--
[00:01:04]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Now, in 1917, when I came into New York; there was a theater on Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue.
[00:01:13]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They had a separate entrance for colored on the side.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[cross talk]] Mm.
[00:01:19]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
You walked up the steps and you went in the attic; and that's where you sit.
[00:01:22]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[cross talk]] Mm.
[00:01:23]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
It wasn't the-- I guess you paid about 25 cents, and on Nostrand Avenue, there were no colored.
[00:01:32]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
All the houses were white.
[00:01:34]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[cross talk]] Mm-hmm. So--
[00:01:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
All the businesses were white.
[00:01:39]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was no colored at all.
[00:01:41]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] Mm.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Now today, there is no white. Everything is black.
[00:01:46]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right.
[00:01:47]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And when the-- Adam Clayton Powell opened the way for the colored to get in to the stores; the girls as clerks,
[00:01:58]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and elevator girls, and sales girls.
[00:02:04]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And before that, there was no colored in none of the stores in Brooklyn.
[00:02:11]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And the-- the--
[00:02:13]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And the trolley cars-- There was no buses.
[00:02:20]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Trolley cars were 5 cents; operated by two white conductors, one in the front and one in the back. No colored.
[00:02:28]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] Mm

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No colored at all.
[00:02:30]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No colored on the elevators. No colored on the subway. No colored policemen.
[00:02:35]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm-hmm. Did--
[00:02:37]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
It was a different-- altogether.
[00:02:39]

But Powell, Adam Clayton Powell, was the one that opened the way for the colored salesgirls in New York. He did that.
[00:02:48]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm. Tell me-- Tell me about the theater.
[00:02:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] The--

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
On Nostrand Avenue. Did you go to that movie house?
[00:02:55]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I went to that movies, yes. I was single, and I went to that movies; and went upstairs,
[00:03:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and you sat upstairs in the gallery. All--
[00:03:02]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
How often did you go?
[00:03:04]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Well--
[00:03:05]

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-25 22:28:35 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-26 10:02:30 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 18:42:05 Did not follow INSTRUCTIONS about how to put in timestamps.