Betty Young Robinson

Description

Betty Young Robinson was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. She moved to Brooklyn in the late 1950s at age 18, a response to racism and segregation in the south. She speaks about experiencing racism and inferior services in public and private spaces, such as restaurants. She talks about attending college for one year before moving to New York, getting married, and having her three children. She speaks about working in a toy factory and later the public school system. She emphasizes that she didn’t experience the same feelings of prejudice in New York that she had in the South. She mentions childhood games and holiday celebrations, including Jack Rocks and Pick Up the Sticks. She remembers getting fruit baskets at Christmastime and that being the only time they got fruit. She talks about going back to her mother’s hometown during summers and staying aunts and uncles. Betty speaks about always wanting to live in the north for a better life. She mentions experience great courtesy when visiting the south recently. She discusses her brother’s involvement with the Greensboro Sit-Ins in the sixties and the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. She mentions her teenage years and attending college football games with friends and boyfriends. She emphasizes enjoying her life because she lived in the city as opposed to the country, where she would have participated in sharecropping. She talks about going with her friends to social dances and the YMCA or other centers to spend times...

From Collection

Community Curators

Record Contributed By

Weeksville Heritage Center