I was born in Atlanta in 1940. I’m now 80 years old. Roosevelt was president when I was born. And yes, we were migrants at that time. My dad was a fruit picker, picked oranges. My mom was a maid.

(00:16)
And when the oranges were gone, the growing season was over there was no work for my dad.

(00:23)
So, 1949, he loaded us up in his old jalopy that he bought and took us to Long Island, New York to work for the summers. So, we migrated for three years back and forth from Central Florida to New York to pick potatoes primarily.

(00:39)
On the trip up to New York in 1949, Black people couldn’t use restaurants or cafes or real bathrooms. So, on these trips, my mom would pack up the food and take it with us so that we wouldn’t be subject to the indignity of going to the back of a white restaurant to be served.

(00:55)
And I think back on those days, how dehumanizing those trips were because of segregation and the danger just being on the road as a Black family, it’s really very frightening to reflect back on that time.

(01:06)
That was a rough life, and that’s how we survived for those three years before we moved to Miami when I was 11. We moved here in 1951.