Richard Green

Description

Richard Green was born in Honduras and moved to Texas at a young age. He moved to Brooklyn in the late 1950s when he was about ten years old. He speaks about segregation, remembering the inability to access certain transportation and services. However, he also speaks about the pride of being enrolled in segregated African American schools, all named after significant African American historical figures. In Brooklyn, the schools he attended were integrated and largely white. He attended P.S. 167, P.S. 92, Walt Whitman Middle School, and Erasmus Hall High School. His mother was known for sponsoring relatives and family friends from Honduras to come to the United States. As a youth, he helped his mother type the affidavits of sponsorship. He speaks a bit about the Honduran community in Brooklyn. Some of his best friends in school were whites, often working class and with single parents like him also. He remembered interacting with Jewish students growing up and believes it helped him understand and communicate with Jews later on in life. He remembers growing up near the Hassidic (Lubavitch-Chabad) headquarters, packing groceries in Jewish stores, and turning on lights for Jewish neighbor on Sabbath. Richard Green went into the military, attended college in Upstate New York, and came back to Brooklyn in 1976. By this time, the neighborhood had changed since his youth. Before it was a mixed community of non-observant Jews, Hassidic Jews, Italians, Irish, African Americans, and some Caribbeans. When he came back, it predominantly African Americans...

From Collection

2016 Weeksville Heritage Center Oral History Series