Dukes, Nathan Dukes, Nathan
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Fordham University Masthead Logo DigitalResearch@Fordham Oral Histories Bronx African American History Project 10-1-2015 Dukes, Nathan Dukes, Nathan. Bronx African American History Project Fordham University Follow this and additional works at: https://fordham.bepress.com/baahp_oralhist Part of the African American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Dukes, Nathan. Interview with the Bronx African American History Project. BAAHP Digital Archive at Fordham University. This Interview is brought to you for free and open access by the Bronx African American History Project at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oral Histories by an authorized administrator of DigitalResearch@Fordham. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Interviewee: Nathan “Bubba” Dukes Date: n.d. Page 1 Transcriber: Jacqueline Soboti Mark Naison (MN): The second interview for the Bronx African American History Project. And the person I’m interviewing is Nathan Dukes; who grew up in the Patterson Houses, is now a community activist in the Bronx, and has also been an educator and youth worker. And in his youth was a legendary basketball player. So, without further ado, let’s get to the questions. Nathan, when did your family move to the Patterson Houses? Nathan “Bubba” Dukes (ND): Well, I think it was around, in the 50’s-- We first came from South Carolina-- Columbia, Columbia, South Carolina. Then we moved over into the Tinton Avenue area in the South Bronx. Then from there we moved in the Patterson Houses. So I believe that could’ve been around ’55, ’56, or so. MN: Ok, did you know other families in the Patterson Houses when you moved there? ND: My dad did, my dad did. But being a youngster, being a youngster, we had to basically try to assimilate-- into the neighborhood and make friends. But, my dad, he knew, he knew of some other families because they came off of Prospect/Tinton Avenue area. And when the projects open up, I guess it’s a big thing for people to move into the projects and move away from the tenement, the tenement housing. MN: What is your memory of the tenement housing, that you had lived in when you were very young? ND: Oh, I loved it! My, my father was a superintendent of the building on Tinton Avenue and I loved it. Because every Friday, every Friday, especially during the summer times, what would happen was, we would go around the corner on Tinton Avenue, 161st Street, Tinton Avenue, and there was Mr. Johnson’s rib, chicken, and potato salad place. And the lines would be backed up Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Interviewee: Nathan “Bubba” Dukes Date: n.d. Page 2 especially on a Friday. Also, during the summer times, we used to play in the Johnny, the Johnny pumps, in the fire hydrants. And, and also, we’d play stickball, we’d play stickball in the street. And this was all done at a very early age, I think what I was about in the early 50’s, were the meat stores. MN: Now, when you moved to the Patterson Houses, was the composition of the population there different then Tinton Avenue? ND: No, not really. It was basically like a migration; where people moved from Tinton Avenue, Prospect Avenue over into Patterson Houses or so, because this was a new thing. The Projects were relatively new and they were accommodating, if you will. It was much different, heat and hot water and everything included within the rent. MN: Now, what are your earliest memories of the Patterson Houses when, when you came there? ND: My earliest memories of the Patterson Houses, when I came there-- It was, it looked huge! Just humongous! When I go back now and I look at the projects now, its not that big but as a youngster it was a very, very, large, very, large development. MN: Was it intimidating to live in something that big or was it more exciting? ND: It was very exciting because you made friends real quick. Lenny Gesle was one of my friends, he saw me in the hallway he said, “Hi, what’s your name?” And Tommy Murphy and then, Archibald family-- And then Junie, Junie Clinton, they moved away to Queens many moons ago before we actually, before we actually got into our teenage years, Junie Clinton so. There was Julio Perez, Julio Perez, he was Latino. And he also became the district leader in the South Bronx, he worked very closely with Frank Lugavinia and now who is the Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Interviewee: Nathan “Bubba” Dukes Date: n.d. Page 3 congressman, Congressman Jose Serrano, but at that particular time, Serrano was an assemblyman. MN: Now, in my interview with Victoria Archibald-Good, she said everybody looked out for one another in the Patterson Houses in the 1950’s. Was she right about that? ND: She was absolutely, right. You couldn’t get away with anything. Especially the moms and the pops, you know, the dads, they’d be out on the benches or so, and they’d see you going in the wrong direction. If you went in the wrong direction by the time you came back, everybody in the neighborhood would know that you went outside of The Projects or you went to a location that you didn’t, you weren’t supposed to be. And that was it. You know you get a, well at that time, what everybody called it, you’d get a whooping, you’d get a whooping. MN: Where most of the par-- families in the Patterson Houses, when you moved in, two parent families? ND: Yes. Most of them were two parent families, right. I think at the time that the projects was- - had just opened-- I think that, that was one of the prerequisites to move in, that you had-- there had to be two parents in the household. MN: Right. Now what kind of jobs did the fathers work in, when you moved in, in the families that you knew about? ND: Well, this was the post-war era so a lot of the, a lot of the men maintaining employment, they had factory jobs. Like my dad, my dad was working in furniture and he was an assembler. And had other guys who were working in the dairy, in the milk daisy on the assembly lines, if you will, bottling milk at that particular time. You had also, you had a lot of guys who were basically-- they were picking up-- what was then known as the junkmen-- they were picking up a lot of scrap metal, scrap metal and cooper. A lot of them made a living on that Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Interviewee: Nathan “Bubba” Dukes Date: n.d. Page 4 level. You also had a lot of them, the male figures of the household, case in point with Mr., Mr. Russell. He became a Burns Security Guard. And he moved up into the ranks of lieutenant, and his son was a very, very good friend of mine; Minor Russell died about maybe two years ago. And, he played on our softball team, the Patterson Knights. But basically a lot of the jobs that were held by the males in that particular era were in the factories. MN: Now, were the factories in the area? Were a lot of them in the South Bronx or were some of them in Manhattan and Queens as well? ND: A lot of them were in the South Bronx and a lot of them were in the Boston Road area. MN: A lot of the fathers walked to work. And if they were fortunate enough to save their monies, they would buy a used car and they would drive to work. Or they would take public transportation, because you know at that particular time, there was the El; there was the El on Third Avenue, the Third Avenue El. That would run from Third Avenue, I think it was all the way up to Prospect Avenue. I think Prospect was the last stop. MN: Now, of the families, would you say more were from the South or, of the African-American families, would you say more were from the South or from the Caribbean? ND: Well, at that time, at that time, we weren’t really conscious about that you know, about that fact. But most of the families, from my understanding now, it was a mixture. You had folks coming in from Charleston, South Carolina, Columbia, Virginia, Tennessee. And also, there was that mixture of folks who came from the Caribbean-- folks who came from Barbados, who came from Jamaica. One of our friends, Ray Hodge, his family was basically strictly, strictly Jamaican, and they kind of kept to their selves. And Ray was, he was high achiever in school. He played softball well, he did, he did everything well, anything Ray Hodge did, he did well. He ran well, he ran fast, he played softball well, he played baseball well, could hit real Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Interviewee: Nathan “Bubba” Dukes Date: n.d. Page 5 well, he played basketball well-- As a matter of fact, we went to Wagner College and made All- American and was drafted by the Knicks, unfortunately, he didn’t stave off the last cut and he was during the Walt Frasier era, but he could’ve played, he could’ve played. MN: Right, but now, this another question that follows from this-- What sort of food did people eat when you were growing up? ND: Aw man, we had, we had the cheeseburgers, we had the hamburgers, we had the strudel cakes.