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Transcription: [00:05:43]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and they had a nursery, and the white people would bring their babies there for 50 cents a day.
[00:05:48]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And when the coloreds started comin' in, movin' in, they sold their buildins. The 2 buildins they had, and moved out.
[00:05:57]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Hmm. The Y, you're talkin'
[00:06:00]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The Salvation Army.
[00:06:01]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The Salvation Army.
[00:06:02]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They moved out. And then finally, later on, all the white moved.
[00:06:08]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
One by one, they were getting out cause they didn't want to be with colored.
[00:06:14]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right. Was there a movie house up in Emporium, Pennsylvania?
[00:06:17]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yes. We had a movie house. One movie house. Ahhhh. What did they call it? We had one Opera house.
[00:06:26]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Once a year, they'd bring a show in for us, but no colored.
[00:06:30]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Uh. Huh
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No colored.
[00:06:32]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
At either the movie house or the Opera House?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
No.
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Neither one had any colored.
[00:06:35]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was not many people when I was born in Emporium. There was only, ahhh, about 4 colored families. That's all.
[00:06:44]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Um Humm.
[00:06:45]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And we were treated just like white. We went to the white church. And I was the only colored girl in the school,
[00:06:53]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
in my class straight through. And they always treated me very nice. They had a party. I'd go to the parties.
[00:07:01]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And I'd go their house and eat; sleep overnight. And they had ahh-- if anybody had a baby,
[00:07:11]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
my mother would make us go to the house, and we'd have to cook, and clean and help with the baby.
[00:07:19]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And, we weren't supposed to get any pay at all. Nothin.
[00:07:23]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
A cookie or a penny. That's all you got. If you went to the store that's all you got was a cookie or a penny.
[00:07:30]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
in those days and times, because things were tight. Now, the trolley cars were 5 cents. The elevator line on Fulton Street was 5 cents.
[00:07:40]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm. There was no public transportation in Emporium?
[00:07:43]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
All-- all public transportation was 5 cents. Ahhh, you wanna hear about the groceries?
[00:07:49]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The groceries?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yeah.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
For-- Whaddya, what do you mean?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I mean how much they were?
[00:07:54]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Chuckles a little]] That might-- If you you wanna talk about that a little bit. Yeah.
[00:07:59]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No, what do you want? What else? What else do you want to hear?
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] I want to talk about, umm, you know, entertainment. Black entertainment.
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] Yeah, see,
[00:08:08]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
we didn't have much entertainment. We had the, ahh, the colored was not in entertainment.
[00:08:15]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They had the white blacken up, come on the stage.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Umm. Hmm.
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Make believe they was Bill Robinson and all that stuff.
[00:08:21]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Colored did not get no part in entertainment.
[00:08:24]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Now did you, did you ever go to ever go into New York City?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
[[Cross talk]] The Lafayette.
[00:08:29]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The Lafayette. Yeah.
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yeah, the Lafayette had colored. All colored.
[00:08:32]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Ah-hah.
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They had colored ticket agents, ushers, and colored performance. All colored. Everything was colored, the Lafayette.
[00:08:41]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did they show movies at the Lafayette?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Humh?
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Were there movies at the Lafayette?
[00:08:44]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No. No. That was ahh, Vaudeville. No movies. All Vaudeville show. No movies at all.
[00:08:51]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
[[Cross talk]] And uh, what, what year? Do you remember?
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Uuhh.
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Around?
[00:08:54]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Well that was up until the time it closed. They always had a Vaudeville show at the Lafayette.
[00:08:58]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I went there before I was married, and I was married in 1920, 20--uh 2. 22, yeah.
[00:09:07]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I was married 1922, and I went to the Lafayette before that. And it was always colored. That was an all colored show.
[00:09:15]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Ushers, ticket agents and everything was colored.
[00:09:19]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And, but, white would go there. But colored didn't get much employment. They uh, the colored men would dig ditches,
[00:09:29]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and, there was no gas heat or heat in the house. They had stoves,
[00:09:38]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
so they'd bring the coal and shovel the coal, and shovel snow.
[00:09:43]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
But there was no, not much employment for colored. Very, very Little employment.
[00:09:45]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They did-- and the women would go out to do days work.
[00:09:53]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they would get 3 dollars and 10 cents a day, for a days work.
[00:09:58]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they'd go out and clean houses. But later on, when they took them into the stores for employment, they stopped that.
[00:10:06]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They went into the stores, and were elevator girls and salesgirls, and and as I said, Powell did that.
[00:10:16]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
He opened they way for all that. He was a wonderful man; Adam Clayton Powell.
[00:10:21]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
When you went to the Lafayette theater, did you just go-- When did you go to the Lafayette theater?
[00:10:31]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Not what year but, did you go often?
[00:10:37]
{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Oooh, we used to go maybe--
[00:10:39]
Transcription Notes:
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Reopened for Editing 2023-05-26 13:54:53
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Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 19:34:36
Some of the dialogue is too long. Needs to be broken into smaller segments. I will do that.