An Interview with Barbara Lomax Dawson July 22, 2008 Medford,

An Interview with Barbara Lomax Dawson July 22, 2008 Medford, Massachusetts

Barbara Lomax Dawson 2 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

INT: Today is Tuesday July 22, 2008. I am Lolita Parker, Jr. I am here with Northeastern University on behalf of Reverend Michael Haynes, with the Lower Roxbury Black History project, which goes from 1910-1968. I am here today with, can you tell me your name? BD: Barbara Dawson. INT: Do you want to tell me a bit about yourself? When you were born and where? BD: Well, I was born in and I grew up in Roxbury until we moved here in 1958. So my youngest child then was ready for kindergarten. We lived on Cedar Street, right opposite the park on the Washington Street end. INT: Do you have any of the, I mean do you know the address? BD: I am sorry, 16 Cedar. I went to school at Nathan Hale Elementary, which was up the hill more towards fort hill. Then for 5th grade I went down on Thornton Street for a wooden building, that had just one grade in it. Then I went to the Dillaway down in the Dudley street area for the 6th grade. From there I went to Girls Latin. So I graduated from Girls Latin in ’46, I guess it was. INT: So do you want to tell me what year you were born? BD: I am sorry, I forgot that. I didn’t mean to omit it, I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was just thinking about, where did I grow up and what have you. December 24th 1928. It was the day before Christmas and everybody says, oh you must get cheated? I said, no I don’t get cheated because my mother’s birthday was December 30th and she had 5 brothers who made sure she didn’t get sited. So I never got cheated. INT: So were your parents from Boston? BD: No, my mother is from San Francisco and my father was from South Carolina. He came here as a young man and, I guess he had an uncle who was with the railroad and that is how he came to Boston and he stayed with 2 other gentleman, Barbara Lomax Dawson 3 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

they opened the business. My mother had an aunt and cousin, I don’t remember which, cousin I guess it was, in Stoneham and she and her mother and a brother or 2 had come across country by train to visit this family and through a mutual family that my mother and my father met and she went back to California and then ended up coming back here. So, she had been here ever since then, and that was 1927 I think. I think she went back once in 1934 because my middle sister was born in San Francisco and the she never went back again. INT: There is a lot of Similarity between Boston and San Francisco, actually. BD: That is one thing she said, that the weather was very similar.

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INT: The recorder is back on. When you hear the term Lower Roxbury, what does that mean to you? BD: That to me means the, well it is not actually gerrymandering, but it was the way the political stuff was and the words were distinguished and separated and designated and all, because growing up it was just plain Roxbury. Even Cedar Street was Roxbury because upper Roxbury was humbled avenue. We weren’t up that far and Ebenezer was in the south end. It was the south end at that point. In my mind anyway, it was the other side of Mass Avenue. But, lower Roxbury, I don’t have any particular memories of it, but I know it got, when it got divided into upper Roxbury and lower Roxbury, the way it is considered now is, I really, I don’t think I was there. So I don’t remember. I always have to stop and think, okay lower Roxbury is at this point it almost includes Dudley Street. Then I guess what I think about when I think about that is when I got involved with Freedom House boundaries were something else, which you know, was another geographic designation that really didn’t mean anything to me. But I know it was separate from lower Roxbury. It was Roxbury/Dorchester. So the political designation is there, not terribly clear in my mind because it didn’t really have any meaning. INT: So I guess the next, if we have, if there is anything you want to add about your younger days, if you want to talk about I guess, say your first year of college, if there is anything you would like to add or remember or something I haven’t asked you about in terms of the life of, I have seen a few photographs recently of Douglas square, say in the 40’s from ’39-’46. There were a lot of photos that were taken back then. BW: So you had seen my fathers business in there then? INT: Well, pretty much what, they were more on the street. BW: OH, the side streets? INT: The side streets. Barbara Lomax Dawson 5 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

BW: Oh, okay. INT: Do you remember you know, any of those big changes happening or were you still a little young? BW: Yeah, I remember when Lennox Street was the first project and I remember knowing that it was built and that it was a project. But you know, project didn’t mean anything. It certainly didn’t have the connotations that it has now. What I think of when I think of Lennox street, is the other woman, I said there were 2 of us who graduated from Girls Latin and her father was the manager for the Lennox street project, David lane, her name is Nadine. I don’t remember whether he was the first manager, but he was the first one that I remember anyway. I remember when Twelfth Baptists and all that got condemned and torn down. That was a pretty upsetting thing for the community in general because the city certainly didn’t reimburse people for what they needed. This tunnel that I was talking about, and I don’t, it is funny when I think about it, that I have no recollection of what it was called, but I remember that people in the area, between, especially between Tremont Street and going up toward Charmin, excuse me, toward Charmin Avenue. We would talk about the damage of the buildings, the foundations and all this drilling that nobody wanted to admit to and nobody you know, got reimbursed for it or anything like that. Not at this point, maybe between now and another time, I might but for now I don’t. INT: Okay. The other thing that I am you know, very curious about, especially when I look at a lot of photos, is that the neighborhood was, it seemed like it was a lot of different kinds of people, ethnically, within population there was west Indians, there is people from the south, there is you know, this whole, that you saw in the store. BD: Yeah, and we just took it for granted. I mean, it wasn’t anything special about it. The thing along the same line is what I remember is as I got older and I Barbara Lomax Dawson 6 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

realized that the dentist that I went to and the other dentist that was there, they were pioneers. Well you know, okay so they were dentists, big deal. The chronicle and Mr. Horton and the guardian and Dr. Stuart and all, they were my parents peers and friends and I didn’t think anything particular about it. Then there was a, oh dear, Jesse Garnet I think her name was, she was a, I think she was a dentist too, but she wasn’t in Lower Roxbury, I think she was in upper Roxbury or what have you. But I knew her and alright, so she was a dentist. You know, later on these people were pioneers because they did these professional things and we just took them for granted. Doesn’t everybody? So the class structure was not something that you know, we were aware, I was aware of or made any big deal about. INT: It seems to me again, through whether it was by you know, choice, because I did hear of some stories where people from western part of the state got you know, pretty tired of being isolated out there and were moving in town, or because you really couldn’t live in a lot of other neighborhoods that you had a very dense, rich, I don’t even know what to call it, not range, spectrum. I don’t even know, I am at a loss for words, of people and you know, you can have someone who was a dentist but still live on the same block as someone who wasn’t. BD: Yeah, it was all mixed in together and nobody made any big deal about it. INT: So, I think what I am hearing is because you were working in the shop, you said that you know, maybe you know, some of the things, dances, did you go to camp in the summer at all? BD: I went to camp twice. I went to Whispering Willows, which was run by black women down in Stoughton. I was not a camp person. Then another time I went up to Atwater, because that was a socially acceptable place to go, and I hated it. But you know, I was just not, I am not that kind of a person. My sisters were both in girl scouts, so they had that and I guess they went to Girl Scout camp, I don’t Barbara Lomax Dawson 7 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

remember really. But I know they were active in that way. That was not an interest of mine. My interest was more in piano and reading. I didn’t really feel the need for group activities, except for the social stuff that I got in and the church and Sunday school. INT: You were telling me about this, the director of Negro History, but I don't think I have heard, director of, what did that mean? BD: There was a political appointment that the governor appointed her because this was at the time when it was becoming appropriate or maybe just people are becoming aware of the fact that there is a negro history and he was the one who pushed it and kept it you know, made sure that we knew about it, the young people knew about it and somehow or other the governor, I don’t even remember which governor it was, appointed her as the state director, which only meant Boston because there wasn’t anything anyplace else. Boston was the capital, so therefore, why not? But, it is those kinds of things that really, I took for granted at the time. It is only a hindsight that I realize that, gee there really was something special that went on at that time with these people, like my father who was the only one who had an electrical, appliance store and was a master electrician and contractor. But you know, these were just things that, oh I know the other store was that I was talking about, it was a florist, it was a black florist who was in the next block going up towards highland pharmacy. But, you know, we took them for granted. INT: I am wondering, did you ever hear about, or know anything about Dr. Fishers -- BD: The church? INT: The church. BD: Yeah, I never went. It was right across the street, or pretty much across the street from the Dolway School where I went to 5th and 6th grade. The thing I remember about his church was that he always had this Easter service with the Barbara Lomax Dawson 8 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

resurrection and so forth from the tomb and I never went to it, but it was, you know, it was something that people always talked about that you went to Reverend Fisher's church. What I remember about him and here again it was only like, didn’t exactly experience it or what have you, but he brought gospel music to Boston in many ways. His was the church that aside from the star front Pena costal church, he was the church that had that kind of a lively service. But in terms of personal contact with him, no. INT: I have a couple more here. If I were to say, lets see, do you remember, I know that, lets see, some of the newspapers, did you read the newspapers? BD: Oh yes. INT: Your father probably had ads in some of these papers? BD: Absolutely and I used to write the popular record column for the, I guess it was for both of them actually. That was the chronicle and the guardian. INT: Was that the popular record calling? BD: Records or what have you, because the companies would send out information you know, promotional stuff. So I could put that kind of stuff and all. I used to do that. INT: How old were you when you did that? BD: I was in high school, because this is while I was still at the store. This would have been in the early ‘40’s. INT: Do you, what do you remember about the neighborhood sort of you know, just before the war, during the war and after the war and how you know, what changes you may have seen or different things you would experience during that time? BD: Not really, no.

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INT: One of the things I have sometimes heard is that you know, the neighborhood changed during the war and after the war when people were coming for work. So I just wondered -- BD: Well I guess I didn’t think of it. Even now it would be hard to structure in terms of that time of change. I know people came and all, but it doesn’t stand out in my mind. INT: Okay. Did you ever you know, have any personal contact with some of the you know, sort of like, I don’t know, Mr. Slade or let me think of other people who I might -- BD: Well, Slade’s, I remember the people, as a person, no. But I used one of the things that I could do was go down there and get lunch. So I used to go down and then my father would give me just enough money for whatever it was that I was buying, so that there was no question of any tip or anything like that. But, I am sure I didn’t win any great friends, but they knew who I was and what I was from. So I used to go down there to get, Slades, I think it was chicken livers, fried chicken livers and go up to the Highland Drag to get a pint of ice cream. Those were my summer treats. INT: Who were some of the people who you remember? Friends or -- BD: From down that area? INT: Mm-hmm. BD: Well there was Wauneta Williams, who I told you was the pharmacists up at Highland pharmacy. I knew her as the pharmacist and then later on you know, when I joined Zeta, I discovered that she was a Zeta. Then the, lets see -- INT: For those who don’t know what Zeta is -- BD: Zeta Phi Beta. INT: Okay. For those few people who don’t know. (Laughing)

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BD: I must not assume. Lets see, and then there was Jackson, at the moment I cant remember what his first name was, who had the Douglas Pharmacy. His wife was there too, but she had also had a radio program, I wish I could remember what her name is. INT: Was his name Joel? BD: Yeah, right. So I knew him. His sons were younger than I was. So I never knew them, except that they existed. His wife was very friendly and outgoing and she would be there sometimes. I think of her mainly as when she went into radial. Then there was, oh the Stuarts, for the Boston guardian. Dr. Stuart, his name I can’t remember, but his wife’s name was Montrata Stuart. She, they were the Boston guardian. Then down at the chronicle was Alfred Horton. I don’t have any other names there. When we were talking about newspapers, those were the local newspapers and then we also always read the Amsterdam News and the Afro American, primarily for American, we came out of Baltimore and then as I got older I just got into the Amsterdam news too. So I have always been a newspaper person and it has been very difficult these past 5 or 6 years to not be able to do that, because I don’t have readers anymore. The readers you know, you can listen to the television, you can listen to the radio, what do you need newspaper for? That is still an empty space in my life that I feel very much, because at the time of my accident we had 5 newspapers coming into the house. It was , there was the Medford Mercury, I guess it was called and the and the Amsterdam News and a couple of others, there were a couple of other Boston papers that were daily’s. I just grew up with newspapers, so my kids have grown up with newspapers. So it is the kind of thing that you take it for granted. INT: How many children do you have? BD: I have 3. Marilyn is the oldest, and she lives in Manhattan and she works for the United Nations. She is in the secretary right now, the department she is in Barbara Lomax Dawson 11 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

right now is, oh I don’t know what it is called, but it is gender and working for gender quality within the United Nations structure it self. She started out with Unicef. That is where she is right now. Then Carl is the middle one and we works for Hewlett Packard. He is a, his title is 2 lines long on the business card, but I think what it amounts to is when the salesman get contacts, he develops the proposal and walks it through. Then Andrew is, right now he lives up in Springfield, but they come down here to go to twelfth on weekends. He is in radio. So he went to Syracuse and one of the things that came out of my being part of Freedom House at the time was when he needed summer work, because he wanted to go into radio advertising and what have you. The gentleman who was the head of WBZ at the time was on the board at Freedom House with me. So Andrew got summer interns with Westing House through him and he got out of school, he went to Westing House Station in Portland Indiana, because of that and then he as been on from there. He has been in 2 black groups. I can’t say that either because they weren’t, but he went into, Dallas, Grays head station down in Dallas at the time and he went there and then that folded up. So he spent 20 years in Texas in radio and he wanted to get back up here. So he has been up here about 5 years. But the station where he came up here to be with him, in North Hampton. So they live in Springfield. They still keep their connection down here. INT: I heard you say a couple of times, so you were involved with the Freedom House, so I am just you know, graduated from high school, you have gone to B.U., you graduate from B.U., and are you living here and -- BD: We moved into, we moved here in 1958 from Roxbury. That time, after we got married we lived on Abbots Street and then when it was time for Marilyn to go to big school, and we moved out here because at that time, Milford school system was comparable to Lexington, which made it a lot better than 99 percent of the other communities around. Plus the fact that Tim worked at the navy Barbara Lomax Dawson 12 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

yard. So this was on the right side of Boston for public transportation and so forth to get by car to get to the navy yard. Just the last, when Marilyn was born, she was born in August and Freedom house, it was the 2nd year of Freedom house, I guess, or maybe the 2nd year that they had the building anyway. They started a coffee hour. So Marilyn’s first outing was to go up the street to 14 Crawford Street for the coffee hour. Freedom house made invaluable, undeniable, deep, deep, deep impression and effect on my married life in general and my life in particular and the kids and so forth. Freedom house was just there. It is a given. I started out as secretary for the warden and I got to do programming and I would help Muriel with the programming for coffee hour and then when we started doing Sunday at 8, I was the program chair for that. Some of the Sunday programs, Sunday afternoon programs that we did. So I was very much involved in that. that was at the time, particularly of the best things, well here, but I am thinking particular of down south in one of the programs that stand out in my mind was one that we did with some of the women from here who had gone down to be part of the walks and challenges down there. Then another one that I remember particularly was, I can’t think of his name now, but Kenneth something or other, the one who did the study on black and white dolls with children. We brought him in for, and then the other local one that had more meaning to it since then than it did at the time, although I realized how significant was at the time, was Paul Gunzaquental was the leading person on the radio at that time. We had him through a program which he called Crime + violence = Roxbury. He did it very carefully because it sold newspapers. That was a time when I could talk about Lower Roxbury and that there was something that happened on Mass Avenue in the vicinity of Northeastern or Symphony Hall, it was Roxbury. If it was good stuff or not, that was never part of Roxbury. So those kinds of delineations, shall we say, were things that I remember. Our freedom house was very, very important part of my life and started me on all the civic and other activities that I got Barbara Lomax Dawson 13 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

involved in after we moved out here, when the kids were in school. So I couldn’t really go into Freedom House every other week for the coffee hours. Enough. INT: I will, the Northeastern has the Freedom House Archives. BD: I know. INT: I will take a look at those and find you in there. BD: Yeah, because I got involved there in ’54, probably ’54. I was very much involved in it all, up through, well I was on the board when Muriel retired and Cynthia whatever her name was, took over and then I sort of kind of got out of it since then. INT: Were you involved in any other sort of political or organizations or -- BD: Not that had a lot to do with Roxbury, no. But, I did, yes. With the significance of what I said when I said that we moved on this side of town because it was public transportation and so forth as far as, maybe I was concerned in that I have the car and they given rule was I could go wherever I wanted to as long as I didn’t walk the streets and I could do whatever I wanted to as long as I didn’t get paid for it. So I described myself as a professional administrative volunteer. My involvement, I had a, you know how a wheel has 6 or 8 spokes on it? Well I had a different organizational involvement for each spoke all going at the same time. It was wonderful. It was the hub, and as long as I took care of things here then you know, I could do whatever I wanted to. Aside from Freedom House I was involved in Well, community chain, which you know, we talked about before and then there was, I have to count them on my fingers, excuse me, freedom house, Community Change, the Middlesex cooperative extension service, I was a trustee on that, the Mass Eye and Ear, I was on their social service advisory counsel committee after my accident, I did for, well I was on the board and I chaired the West Haven Nursing Home, which is now the Benjamin center. What else did I do? Then of course there was Zeta Phi Beta and every time I do this there is always somebody I can’t remember. I don’t Barbara Lomax Dawson 14 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project

remember who the other 2 were. Last time I could only get the 5, so I did better this time. INT: Let me ask you, did you continue playing piano throughout your life? BD: No. When I got out of high school, I didn't take lessons anymore and then when we came out here and so forth, it didn’t fit in anymore. The year of my accident, which was ’64, everybody was back in school and nobody came home for lunch anymore. So I had informally made contact with Ms. Bobbitt that I was going to go back and she was going to teach me how to pick it up again, because she was doing adults at that time too. The accident came along, so I never got to do that either. So I really haven’t. INT: I asked you because when you were counting on your fingers, you still had that sort of (laughing) BD: Doesn’t everybody? (Laughing) INT: You know what I am talking about? BD: Yes I do. INT: That is why I thought maybe you still played. I can’t think of anything else right now. What I will do is, I am going to turn the tape recorder off. BD: Okay.

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