Brenda Fyson, Kaitlyn Greenidge

Description

Long-time Brooklyn resident; a founder of the Brooklyn Brownstoners, Member of Bridge Street Baptist Church and Development Association Brenda Fyson was born in 1941 in Brooklyn. She grew up in Fort Greene on Cumberland Street, which she recalls as having heavy gang activity when she was younger. She recalls fighting with other children in her neighborhood to stay out of the gangs when she was younger. She recalls a very serious drug epidemic in the neighborhood when she was growing up, but that it was not surrounded by the violence that she saw in the 1980s in Brooklyn. She recalls that her neighborhood was among the first to undergo ‘Urban Renewal’ in Brooklyn, which she recalls as devastating her neighborhood, leaving it desolate and removing much of the affordable housing that her family and neighbors lived in. Brenda attended PS 9 as a child. She recalls the school as being integrated, with students from many different backgrounds, but she also recalled having teachers who were “really and truly racist”. She describes being ignored by teachers in certain classes in Junior High school. She recalls being one of a handful of African American students in these classrooms. As a high school student, she attended Prospect Heights High School, which was an all-girls school in the 1950s. She recalls her class again as being integrated, but with more support from her teachers. When she graduated high school, Brenda decided to attend a historically black college in Lawrenceville, Virginia called St. Paul’s College....

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Weeksville Heritage Center