Viewing page 4 of 13

00:10:40
00:16:26
00:10:40
Playback Speed: 100%

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Transcription: [00:10:40]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Not often, once a week. And then, the money was not so free to go often.
[00:10:45]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
When-- If you were married, and before you's married, I went maybe more than after I got married.
[00:10:51]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
After I got married, the money was very small because a man making in the post office, uh, the rents weren't high. Nothing was high.
[00:11:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Groceries were-- You could take 5 dollars and go out and get groceries for the week, and everything was reasonable. But the shows--
[00:11:10]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
was-- I can't remember too much about the shows, but going to the Majestic, and when you got there all the colored was sitting in, like, two or three rows together,
[00:11:20]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and, but they didn't tell you that, but when you got there, you found it out! [[laughs]]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm, mm.
[00:11:25]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
How-- how-- Did you-- How did you know what was playing at the movie house?
[00:11:31]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
At the movies?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm-hmm.
[00:11:33]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They had the pictures outside. They had the billboard outside with the pictures, and showed you what they were showing.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm.
[00:11:42]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
What show was going on, and who was acting. And it was the Albee and the Fox.
[00:11:50]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And at the time of the Fox, there was no-- They-- You sit anyplace. Only the Lafayette's, the only theater I remember where you used to go up on the side,
[00:12:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
up the steps and go in. That's the only theater I can remember.
[00:12:04]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The Majestic?
[00:12:05]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Hmm?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The Lafayette was the black theater?
[00:12:08]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Ye-- uh, no, the Lafayette was a white theater on Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue.
[00:12:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The only--the theater in New York was the only that was colored. What's the name of that?
[00:12:19]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
There was another theater in--the theater you mentioned, in--that was all black and had all, all black help.
[00:12:29]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Well, that's in New York.
[00:12:31]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Yeah. That was the Lafayette?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Lafayette.
[00:12:33]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right. So there was a Lafayette in Brooklyn as well?
[00:12:35]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No no no no. No. Just the one Lafayette. No. I don't know what the--
[00:12:39]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I can't remember the name of the theater that was on Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue.
[00:12:46]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
You said it was the Majestic.
[00:12:47]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Hm? No no no. Majestic was downtown.
[00:12:50]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Downtown.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
On Fulton Street, that was down almost to Flatbush Avenue.
[00:12:54]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Okay, okay. But it was then like a neighborhood movie house that you can't remember the name of.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Hmm?
[00:13:00]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
It was like a neighborhood movie house.
[00:13:02]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yeah, yeah. Anybody could go. You'd go and sit any place in the Fox. And the Metropolitan never showed any prejudice. You'd go in and sit.
[00:13:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And of course the Metropolitan still goes, still open is it? As far as I know. I know I used to go down there.
[00:13:21]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Now when you went to the Lafayette in Harlem, did-- how did you know what was going to be there? Was it--
[00:13:32]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Well, the Amsterdam News would have what was showing at the theaters.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm.
[00:13:39]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was always an Amsterdam News as long as I can remember, and they would advertise what was being shown that week.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm-hm.
[00:13:48]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And because we had no televisions, we had no radios, and maybe it's better we didn't have no television with the trash they show today.

[[laughter]]
[00:14:00]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did you ever go south?
[00:14:02]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I've been south, yes. I've been to--

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Go to the movies?
[00:14:05]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Hm?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did you ever go to movies in the South?
[00:14:07]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No. No, no, no, no, no. I've been to Roy's home.
[00:14:11]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Which Roy's?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Roy- Roy Bowser's home. I was there. And they have-- Marion, Virginia. They have a separate cemetery.
[[pans clattering]].
[00:14:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Would you like to hear about that?
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Sure.
[00:14:27]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The colored are all buried up the hill. You have to go way up the hill when you get in the cemetery.
[00:14:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
The white are all buried down the hill. And when we went there your father's tombstone was overturned.
[00:14:46]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Somebody had knocked it over, or the wind had knocked it over. Something.
[00:14:51]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
So Margaret went and told the people and they said they would fix it. So she kept on writing 'em and writing 'em.
[00:15:01]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
So when somebody went down there in the summertime, it hadn't been fixed. I think when Aunt Ethel went down.
[00:15:08]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
So she got after them and made them set back up the stone.
[00:15:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
But the colored down there were treated kind of rough. Because they had a separate-- Now we didn't have that.
[00:15:19]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We didn't have a separate cemetery. We were buried with all the-- In Pennsylvania we were all buried together.
[00:15:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was only one cemetery and you were all buried together. But down South it was different.
[00:15:32]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And I don't remember much about the South, because when we went, we went by car.
[00:15:38]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
So I can't say nothin' about transportation, I mean if they made you set here and set there because I was never on the-- on the bus with anybody, or the trolley car.
[00:15:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We always went by car. Margaret drove. Or, even Carol drove south one year.
[00:15:55]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did you ever go to the movies in any other city?
[00:16:01]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
In New York City?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Other than New York City.
[00:16:05]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No place at all, outside of New York.
[00:16:08]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
With all our traveling we didn't go to the movies, 'cause when we traveled, when we went to California we was so tired at night we was glad to get in and get some dinner and go to bed.[[they laugh]]
[00:16:17]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
'Cause we drove eight hours a day.
[00:16:20]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mmm. Did you know any um... black performers?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No.
[00:16:27]


Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-28 20:24:56 NOT COMPLETELY DONE CORRECTLY. SHOULD HAVE SPACES BETWEEN DIALOGUES.