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Transcript of Interview with James Silcott, December 18, 2007

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Transcript of Interview with James Silcott, December 18, 2007 An Interview with James Silcott December 18, 2007 Los Angeles, California An Interview with James Silcott December 18, 2007 Los Angeles, California James Silcott 2 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project INT: Today is December 17th. JS: No, it’s the 18th. INT: December 18th? JS: Yes. Yesterday was the 17th. I have a friend whose birthday is the 17th, so. INT: I’m here with James Silcott. JS: You got it. INT: S-I-L-C-O-T-T. JS: Correct. INT: And first the basics -- when you were born -- who your parents were. JS: My parents were Joseph and Louise Silcott -- born, I guess, in Roxbury, Mass. on Northampton Street I guess it was. My parents were born in the West Indies. They came from the Island of Montserrat. They came in the 20s -- the 1920s. They didn’t know each other in Montserrat, and they met each other in Boston, which is kind of interesting because the island only has about four or five thousand people on it, I guess, right now. It’s been ravished by the volcanoes here of late. They didn’t have that many people there, but yet, they didn’t know each other. And one of the ironies is that just everybody on the island is related. They were natives of the West Indies that came over at separate times. You might want to talk with Tom Queeley. He knows a lot of the history of those West Indians that came over, you know. INT: Tom Queeley? JS: Tom Queeley. I have his address. I think he lives near Sharon in Boston. But he grew up on Billwood Street in Roxbury. And he knows a lot of -- his father and my mother came over on the same boat. But at any rate, I think I mentioned that I had worked for my father. He was a chef at the Charlesgate Hotel, which is in the Back Bay Area -- not far from Fenway Park. And when I graduated from high school -- Boston James Silcott 3 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project Technical High -- he put me to work, and it was my worst experience I’ve ever had in my life, you know. INT: Let’s go back a little bit -- so your parents came from Montserrat? They met in Boston. JS: Right. In Boston. INT: Do you know when they first were married where they lived? JS: They lived on Northampton Street, which is not far from Columbus Avenue. There’s a Chambers there like -- an Arena Chambers -- that’s where they lived when they first came here. INT: Do you know what year that would have been? JS: That would have been in the 1920s, I guess. I had my father’s passport over there. So, I think he arrived around 1922. INT: And do you know why Boston? JS: Well, because there was a lot of West Indians there. I know my mother’s sister had been here for a while. So, she sent for my mother as well as she sent for all her other sisters. She had two more -- one, two -- three more sisters that she sent for. So, they all grew up in the Roxbury section. I guess the last one died in the 1980s. My mother died in 1973 -- December. So, anyway. INT: So, they were on Northampton Street, and at some point in December of 1929 -- the 21st -- you were born. JS: Right. INT: And did you have any siblings? JS: Yes, I had a brother and had a sister. They’re both deceased. My sister was born - - the last one -- my brother was born about a year after me, and my sister was born a year after him. And my mother decided that these babies were coming too soon. So, she James Silcott 4 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project decided to go back to the West Indies with us. So, she took us back to the West Indies. So, we spent about -- oh, I guess about three years -- maybe four years -- back there in the West Indies. INT: So, that would have been during the Depression? JS: Yes, the beginning of the Depression as a matter of fact -- yes. And we lived there for a while, and then we came back to attend the Hyde School. I got back in time. INT: I thought the Hyde School was a girl’s school someone told me. JS: Maybe later. But at that time, it was mixed -- boys and girls. INT: And the Hyde School -- you were living on Northampton Street? JS: No, we were living -- when we got back -- we lived on Hammond Street -- Hammond Street in Boston. INT: (Inaudible). JS: Oh, no. I could find the building. I know the building. It’s still there. INT: This photograph here -- JS: Of Hammond? It was just before you got to Shawmut Avenue. If you were to walk from Tremont Street to Shawmut Avenue, it would be on the right-hand side where we lived a few houses in. They were very tenement -- big houses. I wonder if they’re still there. Are they still there -- those big apartment buildings. INT: You’re going to the Hyde School. Did you start there in kindergarten or first grade? JS: Kindergarten -- right. Kindergarten. I went there -- high school. I remember my teacher in kindergarten. Her name was Mrs. Seymour -- Mrs. Seymour. And she was born during the Abraham Lincoln Administration. How’s that? That really gets back there. And the other teacher I remember was Ms. Horn -- a very uncomely looking woman -- I remember that as a child. And then I remember while at the Hyde School, I James Silcott 5 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project think, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who came to Boston, and my father came and got me out of school so I could see the President and the cars going downtown on Columbus Avenue. So, I got out of school. He released me out of school. It was kind of unusual because I never saw my father at school. He was always working. And this day he came up and told the teacher he wanted to take me to Columbus Avenue because he wanted me to see the President. So, at any rate -- INT: Was it 1935 -- JS: It was about that. INT: Do you walk to school? JS: Yes, well, I know the first day I went to school -- the first day my mother took me to school, and I just sat there in school. I didn’t know what school was all about. I was there. And I knew my way back home because I was just down the block -- the Hyde School -- and I remember the snow. The snow banks were so high when I was a kid that I didn’t know how I could get to school because you couldn’t see anything. And my mother would tell me -- just keep walking straight. And then when you find an opening - - (a chuckle) -- so that’s what I would do, and I would get over the street and then get over to the school. It was just amazing when I think back how tall those snow banks were, and how you couldn’t see anything. I don’t remember. I remember the cobblestones on Tremont Street. I remember that. They had these big cobblestones, you know. And I remember the streetcars used to go up and down, and the bad boys used to ride on the back of the streetcars. They wouldn’t go inside and pay -- it was a nickel, I guess, to ride them -- and then get them back. There was a device that was a long rope or string that held the connecting to the wires that electrified the car. And every so often, they would come off, and they’d take that long rope, and they’d pull it and guide it back up again and get it up there. And then James Silcott 6 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project there was a big light on the back because the streetcar worked both directions, I guess, you know. So, the guys would get on the back. They would ride. My mother told me if I ever did that, she would beat the crap out of me. So, I never had the nerve to get up there, you know. But the big boys -- you see them running after it, and they get on the back, and they’d ride it up and down. They’d go all the way downtown, as a matter of fact, and then come back. It was great fun, I guess, for them. And then there was Slade’s Barbecue. I don’t know if you remember Slade’s. It was right on the corner of Tremont and Hammond. And I guess a year or two -- maybe three years, four years later, I started delivering papers. I guess I was about 7 or 8-years-old. We moved to Canard Street, and I used to deliver -- INT: Do you remember the address? JS: 32 Canard Street. As a matter of fact, we had a lecture series at Howard University, and I was taking the -- what do you call it -- the train -- the metro from Howard University to -- I have a condo there, so I was riding to my condo -- and one of the girls who was at the lecture -- she saw me. She recognized me. We got into an interesting conversation. So, I asked her was she studying architecture.
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