An Interview with Rev. Michael E. Haynes 2007 Northeastern University, Boston, MA Photo circa 1941 by Winifred Irish Hall An Interview with Rev. Michael E. Haynes 2007 Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts Rev Michael E. Haynes 2 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project INT: Rev. Haynes, Thank you so much for allowing us this opportunity to interview you. We have upon your request taken on the responsibility of initiating a history of African Americans, particularly those in Lower Roxbury and the South End. We’re so proud that you were one of the few people in Roxbury or in the city and maybe in the Commonwealth that has the kind of influence and impact that you have had over the years. So thank you, sir, for agreeing to do this interview. There are several questions I would like to start with a little bit about your background and let’s start with asking you about your family and how they first came to Boston and the impact that it had on them and them on Boston? When did they first come here? RH: My parents were immigrants from the Island of Barbados. From what I understand, my father had left the Island maybe as a teenager, to go to Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia to work and later came back and married my mother. She wasn’t interested in going to Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. I gather from listening to my older brother that they compromised by coming to Cambridge for a short while. Then they moved into Lower Roxbury. I gather it was somewhere around 1919 or 1920, somewhere around 1919 or 1920. I was born in 1927. My oldest brother, Douglas, was born in Barbados and came to the United States with my mother as an infant child. My brother, Vincent, the next in line was born in the United States in Roxbury. Then came Roy born in Roxbury and then came Michael born in Roxbury. INT: laughing RH: Michael’s me, yes. INT: Can we talk a little bit about the major influences that shaped your Rev Michael E. Haynes 3 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project family in your opinion? RH: Listening to stories from my father particularly and my mother. They settled in just on the threshold of the Great Depression. Looking back now, I’m sure both my mother and father had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. They expected great things out of being in America. They lived on several streets. At first they lived on a little street called Woodbury Street, which was a little, narrow cobblestoned street. It ran from Shawmut Avenue into Washington Street, down where the Lenox Street Project is now. Then they came up to Hubert Street, where Vincent was born. They went from Woodbury Street to Hubert Street where Vincent was born. Then Hubert Street was facing Madison Park and from Hubert Street they went to Thorndike Street, which still exists today where Roy and I were born - on Thorndike Street. My parents struggled and bought a little cottage on Haskins Street which ran off of Ruggles Street. They were the second African-American family to live on the east side of Haskins Street. There were several African-American families living on the west side of Haskins Street. One, the Mirak family and the Scott family had bought homes on the west side of Haskins Street. They became rather significant in the history of the black community. My family was the first and I guess my family was the first Caribbean family to buy a house on Haskins Street which, at that time, was predominantly Jewish and Irish Catholic. This was the strong influence around 1927 or ‘28. So I was raised in this very, very heterogeneous community. Down at the foot of the street, there was a Lebanese store, a Jewish store at the bottom of the street, a Jewish store at the top of the street. St. Francis DeSales, a Roman Catholic Church was on the top of the hill. Another Jewish Synagogue across from our house on the west side of Haskins Street and a Jewish Synagogue down at the foot of the street on Ruggles Street. It Rev Michael E. Haynes 4 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project was this heterogeneous community in which we were born. At that time, Ruggles Street was kind of the line between the predominantly black communities. It was just beginning to shift. Blacks were now shifting south of Ruggles Street. But at the time we were born, once you stepped onto Ruggles Street going north, you were in the predominantly Lower Roxbury black community. Madison Park was just a block away from our house. INT: Describe what it was like to for you as a young boy growing up in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, dynamically changing community? [inaudible words – speaking too softly] RH: I remember going to primary school, William Bacon School, on Vernon Street and being very, very conscious of the fact that a number of my friends and my own parents, not so much my father because he had already mongolized his accent in Canada; but my mother’s accent was very, very foreign. A lot of the kids, I remember kids in school, kids in William Bacon School calling the people with the accents [monkey chasers]. I know what it was all about, you know. They were called monkey chasers; I never saw a monkey (laughing). Not until I started going to the Caribbean and realized that monkeys ran all over the place. But they had this foreign accent so often kids made fun of them. Then some of the kids I grew up with had parents who migrated from Ireland and also from Italy. So I had Cappuzo, Callahan – their parents had accents too. Accents were a common thing as we were kind of in an immigrant community. At that time that section of Roxbury was strongly Irish, strongly Jewish. Most of the Jewish people were immigrants also. So we were in an immigrant community at that time around the late 20’s. INT: When it moved into the 30’s was there significant changes? When Rev Michael E. Haynes 5 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project was the major change that made the community predominantly black? RH: I’d say the 40’s. Black institutions started coming like the Jewish Synagogue at the bottom of Haskins Street moved out; and it became an African Orthodox Church. I remember Pentecostal Mission coming in on Ruggles Street. The Blessed Sacrament Mission, Roman Catholic, was up at the top of Vernon Street which was a Catholic mission to the black community. INT: How did you view yourself? I mean, did you early on say you wanted to be a minister? What [inaudible] that part of you that attracted you to [inaudible]. RH: I don’t think I had horizons; I didn’t have a vision as a kid. I think I struggled to find my way. The Great Depression came. My father had a very, very difficult time with jobs. He got a job at the WPA and many times he told me later on that they relegated him the task for the WPA - they were cleaning streets and stuff. His assignment was to pick up dead cats and dead dogs. He was kind of the single black working on this truck. But I think my father was early disillusioned by America and the Great Depression and struck by racism very, very emphatically. My father always worked two jobs. He always found a job, always worked. He took to drinking a little bit. I think that was Rev Michael E. Haynes 6 Northeastern University Lower Roxbury Black History Project the result of the Depression and the frustrations that he found. He thought he was going to hit gold in America. In the Depression, he struggled to pay a mortgage on our house. Our neighbors on both sides, the Kelley’s lived on one side – Irish Catholic. Next to us were the Cheveau’s – they were Protestant of French decent. Next to the Cheveau’s were the Callahan’s and next to them was the Campbell’s also from Ireland. So we had this distant Irish community pretty close around us. Across the street was practically all Jewish on the other side of the street. But the Depression hit pretty hard. There was a period of time when my family, like many families in that area who were on welfare. Also many of the Irish families were on welfare. One of my close friends, I remember going to Timilty School one day and the welfare gave you clothes. You go to a school over to Upham’s Corner and get these big, big bundles. My mother would be so happy to have these clothes. I remember, I can see these pants like it was yesterday, these kind of a denim looking pants with kind of a pink stripe going through. I’d walk to school and one of my classmates, Johnny McGarrity pointed a finger at my pants and he had on the same pants and said you’re on welfare. My mother was ashamed to be on welfare and she used to go out and do day work and ride the bus to Wellesley and Newton, doing day work to get us off of welfare as soon as she could. But those were hard days. We knew hunger a lot. My mother would bring home stale bagels and [inaudible] from the Jewish homes she worked in.