Barbara Abernathy interview (2000-05-15)

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CARVER LIVING NEWSPAPER PROJECT: ORAL HISTORY
Interview with Barbara Abernathy, CACIL President Interviewer Kathy Colwell, VCU research associate Date: 5/15/00
Interviewers questions/comments are indicated by bolded text.
Today is May 15th, I'm Kathy Colwell, and I'm interviewing Barbara Abernathy. We're going to start out with, oh, Miss Abernathy is the president of the Carver Area Civic Improvement League, CACIL. I should have done the initials first. We're going to start out with the boring questions, but it gives the future reader a point of reference.
Okay.
Your name, when you were born, where you were born, where you went to school.
Barbara Beatrice Abernathy. Born in Richmond, Virginia, St. Philip's Hospital, October 8, 1941. Lived in Richmond all of my life except for 15 years when I moved away and then came back again. Educated at Moore Street School. That is now currently George Washington Carver Elementary School. Graduated from there in the 7th Grade. Went to Benjamin A. Graves Junior High School which is now the adult education center down at Adams and Leigh. That was Benjamin A. Graves Junior High School. I went there for two years. Went there for 8th and 9th grade. Tenth grade I went to Maggie L. Walker high school. And graduated from there in 1960 in June with a business degree. Continued living in Carver after graduation. Worked at ST. Elizabeth Hospital which is now, used to be Metropolitan, I don't know the name of it now, its over on Grace Street.
Over by VCU?
Yes. Worked there for two years and I figured I was wasting my talents. That I went to school for a business degree and there I was tending patients at the hospital. It was a job and I needed a job when I got out of high school, and then there was some training that was instituted here in the city of Richmond in the old John Marshall High School which is down at 8th and, where the city hall sits now, that's where John Marshall used to be. Before they tore it down. And this manpower development training act that came and we went there for clerical skills. And so I had to brush up on my clerical skills. I think it was a six month training period that we had there. We went there, we had a graduation, and I met a young lady there while I was there, and her name was Jane Finney, and she was going to move to Washington DC. And she and I struck up an acquaintance and we became good friends here in the city. And so she and I both, in 1963, moved to Washington DC. I lived in Washington for 13 years, and then in 1975, someone came down from Northeastern University. This was at the time of affirmative action and everything. And they were looking for minority students to go to the school of engineering. And I was attending Washington Technical Institute at the time, which is now the University of the District of Columbia. And the person, Dave was his first name, I can't think of his last name, anyway he came and they had persons come to the counselors office just to see if they had any interest in going to Boston, and so I said yes I would go.
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Ever ready for an adventure.
Well, I always wanted to go to college, and during the times when I was in school there was not a lot of grants or financial aid or things of that nature. Plus there was no one in my community who had gone to college that you could even know what was required. Since I was in the business curriculum, no one in school told you that you had to send off an application and pay application fees for scholarships. I just thought because you made good grades they just saw how good you were and that you automatically would get a scholarship. But that was a rude awakening. So my trip to Northeastern was fulfilling a dream that I always had to go to college and live in the dorms and that kind of thing. I was 34 when I went to Northeastern University, lived in the dorm as I wanted to do. My roommate was 17. I was the oldest person living in the dorms at Northeastern University. I stayed in the dorm for one year and the second year I moved into the apartments that they have there. Because I got tired of persons on campus saying can we ask you a question? How old are you? Are you 34? I said NO, I'm 35. Because once I got there I had a birthday, and so I turned 35. And so I stayed there for 2 years. I was in the engineering curriculum, Industrial Engineering. Grave mistake. It was so far over my head because I had no background in math.
That would be difficult.
And I spent hours and hours and hours at night with tutors trying to teach me algebra and trig. And then you'd have classes with chemistry and physics.that you need that background for. And I thought that I was so grown because I was 34 years old, and I knew what I wanted to do with life. And one of the counselors there said why don't you change back over to business. Oh no, I wasn't going to let him tell me what to do because I was grown. I said no, I'm going to stay in the engineering field. I enjoyed it. And I thought that I could really capture the math and to that, because I was majoring in industrial Engineering which would have an engineering plus a business major to it, so that would be killing two birds with one stone. But then, I ran out of money after two years. So I went back to Washington, and lived there until my mom got ill. Came back here to Richmond temporarily in 1977.
Temporarily is the key word?
Temporarily. And I'm still here.
You smiled when you said that word.
Yeah. Because it was just temporarily. I was only going to be here for that period of time. I worked for a temporary agency, Kelly Services, down at the Vital Statistics Building, and I was going to leave Richmond and go back to DC later that year. And I had told my sisters and everybody that. I wasn't really actively looking for a job, but I said if I don't find a permanent job by the end of the year I'm going back to DC. And so my sister Sheila she was working at Reynolds Metals at the time, and they were looking for minority persons to come to work to fill their quotas and that kind of thing. And so I went there to be interviewed, and that was in December of 1977, and I was hired after my interview, and then January 3, 1978, I started my career at Reynolds Metals Company. And I'm still there, and I've been there, this is my 22nd calendar year working with them, and it will probably be my last calendar year working with them since ALCOA has bought them and I'm being RIFed. Reduction in Force, as they call it.
Maybe we'll end the tape on some of your dreams for the future since this is going to be a new chapter of your life coming up.
Yes, I sure hope so.
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What I'd like, you said a couple of things as you talked about your youth and those first years, and one thing that comes out is the dreams that you had. So as you think about Carver as you grew up, and which streets did you live on?
Lots of them. We were not homeowners, we were very poor coming up. My parents lived at 1019 West Catherine Street which is now torn down. And I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house, and she lived at 832 West Leigh Street. I don't know how I remember all these addresses that I lived at. It was at Grimmon Lee (?), it was actually Grandma Lee, but we called her Grimmon Lee. And so after we left 1019 Catherine, we moved to 1217 West Catherine Street, which was the next street up. Capatee Alley (?), as we called it, between Harrison and Norton. Lived there for a few years, and then we moved into the basement of this lady's house at 902 Harrison Street, and then she and her husband had problems and then she moved out and so we moved upstairs in the house and then once her husband died she decided she would take her house back over. And we moved to 814 Harrison Street, and that's where I was living went I left Richmond to go to Washington DC.
So when you said you were poor then, and since you weren't homeowners, it sounds like you didn't have a lot of choice in where you wanted to live within the neighborhood. No. The first house we lived in we lived on Catherine Street at 1019. There were apartments across the street from there, they had electricity, across the street. But in the houses, we didn't have any electricity. I didn't have electricity until I was 12 years old.
Okay, so that would have been the sixties. No, it would have been about '53.
Other houses didn't have electricity, and this lady who lived next door to where we lived at, she didn't even have a cook stove, and so my mom would send me over to help her out sometimes, and I would have to fry tomatoes over a grate in the fireplace. And you had to stand there in that heat with this frying pan over this fire trying to prepare this lady's meal. So we didn't have central heating either. The whole time I lived in Richmond we didn't have central heating. None of the houses we ever lived in.
Did you have coal in the fireplaces?
Little oil, two burner stoves most of the time. When we lived on Catherine Street in the 1000 block we had oil stoves, it was only a three room house, it was a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. And so all of us kids slept in one bed, there was five of us. We all slept in one bed. We heated the bedroom with the cookstove in the kitchen which was wood and coal. And my mother and father slept in the living room on a pull out couch. Yeah, we never had central heating.
Was there plumbing in the house?
Catherine Street, no, it had bathrooms outside. When we moved upstairs at 902, the lady had indoor plumbing in her home. Catherine Street, both places on Catherine, it was outdoor toilets and outdoor faucets.
One of the things that I have read in some of the newspaper articles is, they talk about these houses could not easily be converted to indoor plumbing.
There was not enough room. You only had three rooms. So if you took part of the room to put a toilet in, then you were out of space and the landlord would not have anything to rent.
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Do you remember knowing people, though, who were making those improvements?
Across the street in those apartments, my girlfriend, they had just a commode, by that had a toilet inside of their house, they didn't have to go outside to the bathroom.
Were they homeowners? No, they were renters.
Again, with redlining that was so prevalent during those years I understand, I was wondering if you knew families, or do you remember discussion with any people in the neighborhood being frustrated that they couldn't get loans for that kind of improvement? No, I didn't know those persons that were in that economic arena, but there were families that lived on Clay Street that had all the amenities that the renters did not have. They had indoor plumbing, and a bathtub, and that kind of thing. On Clay Street.
So those houses would have been improved...
Even the house I'm living in now, it was a very, very tiny bathroom, but they had a bathroom inside the house on the second floor. And one of those tubs with the feet on it, and the face basin hung overtop the tub. And then there was a commode. So they took a little space so they could have indoor plumbing. No central heating, but they did have indoor toilet and that kind of thing inside this house.
For somebody from the outside, and we haven't looked at pictures, but as you know in the fifties and even into the sixties there were lots of articles written about Carver. I shouldn't say lots, there were some articles written about Carver and the deterioration of the buildings was one of the images that was put in the newspapers. Now, I know that you had experiences in Carver growing up, of feeling loved and being nurtured, and your perception is different. And so that's what I'd like to talk about a little bit, the difference between what an outsider might see looking at the neighborhood in the 1950s and what you experienced as a child, and then how that impacted you, also, to have dreams.
It was a great, if you don't know any different or if you haven't experienced anything differently, then what you're living in is fine. We lived in a neighborhood that everybody was your mom and your dad. You had lots of mothers. And in the neighborhood I grew up in there were very few fathers in the neighborhood. It was mostly single women raising children. My best girlfriend who lived across the street from me, there were four of them in their family, her mother worked, and my mother worked, and their were five of us, and the notion about in today's society people are always saying the kids turned out this way because they were reared by a single parent. I'm just not one to buy that at all. Because my mother raised five of us and I think we all turned out pretty well. And I think the reason being is that the neighborhood was also involved in your rearing. My mother worked at night from 3 to 11, and at certain times during the day she gave us a schedule. Certain times you have to be in front of the house, but you never really went out of your block anyway. You had maybe a two block area that you would be in, but you never went further than that. Ours was from Goshen to Harrison, and that was the space that we could play in. So that when your mother called you could hear her voice. And so everybody on the block would be your parent, and like I said, when we had to be home in front of the door by a certain time, on the porch at another time and inside the house at another time. And we didn't stray from that because there were consequences for our actions. And even if we thought we could get away
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with it, there were persons on the block with eyes, and they would tell our mother that we know Ms. Bertha that you wanted the kids to do thus and so at such and such a time, they were not where you said they should be. And they could spank us for not doing as my mom had said. And when she got home there was another one that was coming to you. There was a lot of discipline. We played mostly in the streets, we didn't have playgrounds but Carver School, well it was Moore Street School, they had a playground in the summer time that we went to, we did arts and crafts, I learned how to square dance, and how to make a key chain, pot holders, they had summer programs that were going on at that time, recreation and parks had lots of programs in the city during that period of time so kids had lots of things to do. If, you know during the earlier part of the day in the summer time, even after school, they had things in the basement of the school where you would do arts and crafts and things like that. And so we did that, and we played in the street mostly. We'd draw hopscotch, because there weren't any cars in the street during the time when I grew up, there weren't a lot of cars. You could play in the street for hours before a car would come. And we would ride our bicycles, or we'd draw hopscotch in the middle of the street, you could play hopscotch, or we did jump rope or handball against somebody's house until they tell us to stop batting the ball against their house, and hide and go seek. All the little games that kids play, well they don't play them now, but all the little games kids played when I was growing up. Simon says and all that kind of stuff. We had very few houses that didn't have persons living in them, no matter how bad the structure was, persons lived in those houses, and people had, even if the house was not of the best quality, people had pride in their houses. You know, they would wash their windows, we had to wash windows, and you did windows with kerosene and water.
I have never heard of the kerosene being added.
Oh, yeah. Kerosene and water, and the windows would shine, and you washed them and you wiped them off with newspaper. And so the windows would shine. We did outdoor washing, and so you had a washboard and tub, that kind of stuff, and we would wash the curtains and starch the curtains and hang them up at the window, and even though we had linoleum on the floor, there might not be a pattern on that linoleum, you had to scrub and wax those floors every week. Really?
Yes you did.
Took great pride in what you had.
Absolutely.
Then do you remember people talking about the newspaper articles in the neighborhood? No, we never took newspapers when I was growing up. So I guess my mom worked so hard that she didn't have time to do that.
And the other thing, I guess I need to put it in context even for myself, I've read census statistics that there were approximately five thousand residents in the Carver/Newtowne area in 1934. And then the census started going down a little. But still, we're talking about a huge number of people. What, so Oliver Chiles is a name that I've read... Chiles Funeral Home.
Okay, and he evidently was an early community activist. Do you remember him?
I don't recall. I just know he has a funeral home and now his funeral home is in Church Hill at this time.
Oh, there still is a Chiles Funeral Home?
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There is, yes there is.
What age were you, or did you ever become aware of the change in the neighborhood? Yes, there used to be employment, a lot of persons in the community worked. Within the community there was Old Dominion, which was at, where the Bookbindery is now in the 900 block of West Catherine Street. A lot of the men worked there, it was Old Dominion, and then it was Davidson, and then it was Brooks Transfer. A lot of different names. But a lot of men worked, they were helpers on the trucks, because white men drove the trucks, and our fathers were the helpers on the trucks, and they would go around different places. There was the tobacco factory which was at Lombardy, which turned to Rehrig, a lot of men worked there, a lot of persons worked at Freeman & Marks, which was where Santa's warehouse is now. So there was industry within the neighborhood. And so when those businesses started to move out, it started to cut down on the number of persons that lived within the community. And then the buildings were deteriorating still, even though we did what we could to patch up, and put a board here or something like that. Time does things to materials, and so.
Many of these buildings were going on a hundred years old.
Yeah. And so a lot of persons just moved out and found better places to live, and unfortunately they were not in the Carver community.
Right. So okay, you experienced, then, people voluntarily leaving the community because of lack of employment?
Well, not voluntarily, because the houses were so bad. So it comes to a point where you just can't tolerate it any longer. And since the landlords were insensitive to the needs of the persons living in those houses, they just decided to pack everything up.
How old were you when you started to recognize that though, do you think?
I guess it was subtle. I never, ever really paid any attention to it. Just know that lots of my friends had moved to other places and were no longer around to play with or to be friends with any more. They had gone to some other places. Some of them I don't even know where they moved to. My girlfriend who was my best friend across the street from me, they moved to Moseby Court. When she moved off of Catherine Street she moved down to Clay Street, there was a two story house at 707, because I lived there at one time myself. Her and her mother they moved there because the apartments were getting so bad. Just different persons moved different places, and I guess we didn't even think that we were being displaced, or that conditions were causing it. Now, in retrospect, I look back at it and that's what was going on. But as a child you're just happy go lucky and those kinds of things don't even enter your mind.
One has to admire the community that it could help you feel so secure as a youth growing up even though your mother must have been under tremendous pressure to earn a living to keep you fed and clothed and all those things.
Well, if it wasn't for my grandmother who lived, oh, there's a laundry also, T&E Laundry also up on Marshall where a lot of people worked, as my grandmother worked there as a presser, and one day the presser fell on her arm and burned her really bad and she had 3rd degree burns. And so after a period of time she couldn't work any more, and so she moved with her daughter in New York, and my aunt lives in New York, and if it wasn't for my grandmother going to the Salvation Army and sending us boxes of clothing, we wouldn't have had the proper things, or
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had sort of decent clothing to wear to school. So she really helped my mom out in that respect by sending things to us. Even though they were second hand we were so proud of them. I recall one time when I grandmother had sent us a box of clothing, winter clothing, and we put them on and went all outside we were so proud of our new winter coats, and my mother said Take those things off, and we went outside anyway and we got the spanking of our lives. Burning up, sweat pouring down in these winter coats.
But you were so tickled, it was Christmas in July.
Yes. Crime, didn't know about crime. People had altercations, or there was domestic violence a lot of domestic violence, I guess because of the pressures that persons were under trying to maintain a household, a relationship, or what have you, because salaries were not the greatest things in the world. We struggled to pay $35 a month for rent, it was a struggle for my mom to pay $35. For rent.
Back in the 50s?
Even when I left here. In the sixties. She was living at 814. It wasn't even a hundred dollars, and it was hard. And when they built the Hartshorn homes, I remember the sign, I think the sign said either $89 or $99 a month, and she could own a house in Hartshorn homes. We couldn't afford a Hartshorn Home because my mother's salary, it was only her. You know, there was no child
support for me and when he could give some moneys he did, but there was no court system like they have now that you pay child support. And so we had to continue to live and we did. And could not move to the Hartshorn Homes and have a decent house and indoor plumbing and central heating and that sort of thing. We couldn't afford that.
Okay, so when you went to Washington and worked as a secretary, or a clerk...
A clerk. When I first got there, my girlfriend's aunt said we could come stay with her. And so I went to Washington with a round trip ticket and $25. And we got there and there was no room in the inn. Her aunt decided that we could not stay with her. And so she took us to this hotel called Hotel 1440 on Rhode Island Avenue Northwest. And that's where we lived for six months. I had a little bit more money in the bank, so I came back home to take the rest of my money out of the bank, and went back to Washington, went to the agency and they found me a job, you had to pay for your jobs at that time, or we were just so green we didn't know. So we just needed to have a job because we had to pay our rent. And so the first job I had there was at the National Wildlife Federation. I typed stencils all day long. And stayed there for a year. And then I went to work for the law firm of Arnold, Fortiss, and Porter. Abe Porter was a supreme court justice. And so I worked there as an accounting clerk. I stayed there for ten years. And during that time was when I went to Boston Massachusetts. After I quit Arnold and Porter and then I went to Boston Massachusetts at that time.
Let's jump forward years. When did you then become interested in being an activist in the neighborhood and working for the betterment of the community?
Let's see. Miss Elizabeth Williams who lived on West Clay Street, they had formed the West of the Belvidere Civic Association. And I lived across the street from her, I shared a house with my brother at 707 West Clay, and my sister, she was living right her at 806. And Miss Williams kept bugging me, Come to the meeting, You need to come on to the meeting. At that time they were trying to get signs for, what are those signs they have, the watch signs.
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Oh, neighborhood watch?
Yeah, neighborhood watch signs. That's what they were doing at that time.
This was late sixties?
No, this was when I came back home.
Oh, so you'd been gone for twenty years. So now we're early eighties.
This is early eighties, yeah. And she just kept bugging me and bugging me, Come to the meeting. And she came to my house and she dragged me to the meeting. So I started going to the meetings with Ms. Williams, and she was the president of West of Belvidere at that time. And that's before Carver became a conservation area, because we were just dealing with our little block, and the things that were happening to us. And we weren't really that active, but we were associated with Richmond United Neighborhoods, an organization called RUN. They were over there on Broad when we were doing West of Belvidere. And we were sort of connected to the city too because of the city planner who used to come to our meetings to help us with facilitation and that kind of thing. Stayed there for a while at the West of Belvidere, and then when Miss Peters became, Miss Madeline Tyler Peters, became president of the West of Belvidere it sort of started to disintegrate because of her style of leadership. Some persons sort of drifted away. And so I stopped going. Then Miss Williams got me to start going to the Carver Area Civic Improvement League meetings.
So there were two associations that existed at that point in time?
Yes. And so West of Belvidere was sort of this springboard for Carver to start its conservation because they were sort of defunct at that time, and so all the initial process for what we are about today started at West of Belvidere. And then the big umbrella was the Carver Area Civic Improvement League. So I went to the meetings and they were discussing the conservation plan and what have you, so I just went to meetings. And just became interested in what they were doing, and then the conservation plan did not include my block, which is Marshall Street. I guess that gave me the appetite to want to lobby for myself and for my block. And they had different committees, they had a housing committee, and they were making a lot of decisions in the housing committee, so I asked can I be on the housing committee. They didn't want me on the housing committee, so I said Well I'm going to be on this committee. I started out on the housing committee, then after things started going and we were making decisions about the townhouse as part of the housing committee agenda, did that, and then I was secretary. Cassandra Calder Ray was the secretary, and when we had the big suit about the houses, and somebody brought suit against Cassandra.
Is this all part of the suit to stop construction of the townhouses? When they were first proposed?
Yes. And so since we didn't go down to court to support her, I kind of blame it on ignorance as far as my part is concerned, but then I guess I wasn't the strong person that I perceive myself to be now, I didn't want to step out, and because Miss Peters didn't support her, so I followed Miss Peters lead. She said I don't think it's a good idea, we should not do this, and so Cassandra called me and asked me Would I, and I said No, I can't support you. And it wasn't, like I said, I was following Miss Peters lead. She said not to do this, and so that's what I did. So Cassandra, she was our secretary, and after we didn't support her, she sort of drifted away from the association, and I picked up her job as secretary. I was secretary for many years, because Miss Peters was always Miss Smith's vice president. And then Miss Smith died and Miss Peters became
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president. I think she was president two years. And then I ran against Miss Peters. And then I became president of the Civic League. But going back to the part about the conservation thing. We could have held it up by not going to the council and waiting until they included our blocks in it. But it was explained to us that for the good of the whole community we should let it go. And we had meetings sometimes until 12 o'clock at night at Moore Street Church because Miss Smith had a key, so nobody had to be there to let us in and let us out of the building, so we met there. And so we let it go, about the conservation, about Marshall Street, and our all the little side streets, Gilmer, Goshen and Hancock, all those little side streets were not in there and were not zoned residential. So that was the biggest piece, because we were not zoned residential, and that would have really held the plan up to wait to get the zoning changed in that time frame. So they said for us to let it go, and they would support us when we went down to the planning commission and what have you to rezone our part of the neighborhood.
And you'd asked for clarification from the state?
The civic association.
So was Richmond Redevelopment and Housing also involved in this decision?
Yes. Because they were the ones who did the technical stuff for us, the technical know how, the typing of the papers, that kind of thing. We didn't have an office.
I didn't think many civic associations did.
Well, I mean not persons. Computers were not the thing at that time, and Miss Peters she did her typing on a standard manual typewriter, so that would have been a lot of work to try to type the conservation plan on a manual typewriter. So they were our technical support. And they were the ones who helped us with the wording and the whole big spiel about the conservation plan. So the housing authority and the association decided we should wait, let the conservation plan go ahead, and we would address our needs at a separate time. Then of course once persons got what they wanted, some of the people got what they wanted, when it came time for us to do our piece, there were very few of us. We were part of that coalition for the rezoning of Marshall Street and the little side streets.
Did CAUL support it though?
Yes.
They backed you, you just didn't have a lot, the association didn't have a strong voice. Well, didn't have a strong presence either, because the meetings we had was Joanne Childs and I mostly and the meetings, and someone from, David Sacks of the planning commission. I guess it was planning that he was in. He would come to our meetings to talk with us about the process that we had to go through. The first time we went before city council we were denied the rezoning. And I just thought when I bought this house that this was a residential. Houses mean residential to me. Then I found out that my house was zoned industrial. And so the first time we went down... To backtrack a little, we had a whole coalition of persons who we rely on when we went to city council. It was Newtowne West, Newtowne South, North of Broad Church Hill, and Carver. We were all four communities who were under the umbrella of the task force.
Okay, that's the task force for historic preservation...
Of minority communities. Um-hmm. So we all, whenever there was a problem with any of then neighborhoods, we would all go to city council at the same time. And so Newtowne West and Newtowne South had the same problems that we had in Carver, about houses being in industrial
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areas. So we'd all go to city hall at the same time to get it rezoned. Newtowne South got there's first, and we went down to have ours done, no we all went at the same time. Anyway, when we went to have ours done, there were council persons who denied us. One was Henry Marsh. Claudette Blackwood Daniel whose no longer on city council. Mayor Kinney, who was the mayor at that time. I think those were the three, I can't think of anybody else who said that we should not have our neighborhoods rezoned to residential. So we had to go and lobby those persons to get them to change their minds. There was John Brown, because I was co-chair, Joanne Childs was the chair of the zoning committee, and I was the co-chair, and so John and I went to see Marsh and Kinney to get them to change their minds, and also Claudette Blackwood Daniel also because the constituency she represented had the very same problem that we did. Because Newtowne South backed right up into Philip Morris. Their neighborhood backed right up into Philip Morris. And so they too were trying to get their area rezoned. And it finally came to pass. And we tried to get it zoned for it to be single family residential, but the master plan of the city said it had to be multi-family, that's why we're facing some of the problems we're facing now. Because of the master plan of the city. It took us over a year to get that zoning changed, because there were businesses in the community, of course, who did not want the downed zoning, because industrial is a higher use for their land. So we tried to do the whole entire corridor of Marshall Street, but this building next to me, Monarch, they were just coming to use that building because it was Universal Ford's Paint Shop at one time. Bick's Building, of course they didn't want theirs redone. And then there was a plumbing place in the 1000 block, and I guess we were so thankful that we could get the housing part of it done that because they had their lawyers in it, and we didn't have no lawyers, we were just citizens who went down to the planning commission, telling them how we felt and what we needed for stability in our neighborhood, and they had lawyers down there for them. How do you fight a lawyer? Legalese we did not know. But the sad part about it is that we could not include the south side of Marshall Street in our plan. So those persons who were on the south side that had come to all the meetings that we had concerning the conservation plan and what have you, they sort of felt let down and left out of the neighborhood. Miss Smith does not even come to our meetings any more. You mean Helen Smith?
Yes.
The former president?
No, another Miss Smith. Miss Smith right across the street. Helen Mickey Smith was the former president. But there's a Miss Smith who lives right across the street across from the Baskfield car repair place.
It would appear as though the industries that originally had such a vital, that contributed so to the community by providing jobs, now the buildings that are left by those industries are creating the hurdles for you to recreate the single family.
Yes. And it seems like the city, because every time you go before city council or any of the bodies down at city hall, they always speak to us about businesses that need to stay in the city. And it seems that the businesses, when they need to stay in the city, are always in lower class neighborhoods. It's no problem for them if a business moves out, just like they expanded the Richmond Center. Bliley was a big contributor as far as taxes, but that didn't make any difference because that was something that the city wanted to do. And so Bliley is gone. And that was moving a business out of the city. So it's a double edged sword, I guess you'd say. It
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depends on where the business is, and how they perceive the community, I guess, as to what stays and what doesn't.
What there ultimate image is through history, from my reading, this area has always been targeted, at least along Broad Street and along Lombardy, for industrial expansion.
Yeah, well they wanted to just let the whole neighborhood die. The whole neighborhood was just going to die, because it would have been from here all the way into Newtowne that would have been a total industrial area. Once the houses really fell to such disrepair that they no longer could be saved. Then it probably just would have all gone.
What do you attribute the fact that didn't happen?
Persons being concerned about where they lived and how they were being treated. And wanting a better way of life for themselves.
And who would have helped organize that initially?
I said we would run, the West of Belvidere was the first spark to me. That I knew about. Maybe CACIL was meeting and I was not aware of it, I don't know.
Well, one article talked about Mr. Childs heading something called the Carver Displacement League. So that must have come out as a reaction as an organization that opposed that first Carver plan when you were a young child in the early 50s. I don't know how where I live at was zoned industrial, because there was a preacher, Mr. Belcher, on this corner, and the house that my sister lives in next door, and Miss Fry, who was a schoolteacher, she lived in that house. And so I wonder how they went about rezoning, because I can't imagine that this was industrial the whole time.
It was.
They built houses in an industrial area?
Well, the first zoning wasn't implemented until 1927. And these houses were all built in the late 1800s, early 1900s. So the first zoning designated this as industrial, and then from Gilmer on over towards Belvidere, that was residential. But this was industrial initially, even though there were houses. And also on Clay Street. And then in '42 there was a rezoning that made a little more of it residential, the 60s I pretty much believe stayed the same.
Yeah, they didn't change it in the 60s.
Because then some of those plans were looking for industrial reuse. And so why they originally zoned this industrial, I don't know.
Because these are sturdy structures. Its not like it's a shanty town.
And all the way on down West Marshall there used to be a lot of residences.
Yes, it was. So the school was built, Elba School was built, in an industrial zone too.
Well, you started out with light industrial, which would have been a little more restrictive than it is right now, and I'm certainly not an expert on any of this, but that is the impression I have. And they had fewer zoning categories. Six zoning categories. And so I imagine they took kind of a mixed use, and at that point in time they were looking for more industrial land, and so industrial was a logical choice. Plus you had the railroad going through--the Ashland line.
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Right here next to my house.
The trestle is right there?
Yes.
Okay, because I had a hard time visualizing that. And so that probably would have contributed to this remaining in that industrial zone. Tell me about the train.
I really don't know a whole lot about it. I just remember it ran across the city. I remember more about the streetcar than I do about the trestle. I remember the trestle being there, because I remember Miss Peters telling me she was part of the, she was partly instrumental in getting the trestle torn down. I don't even remember that, that part of it.
It didn't come down until the 60s, I don't think. Would that be about right? I don't really know.
Is that when you were a child?
Yes. I don't remember when it came down. I could remember, but certain things you just don't put into your memory bank to recall.
No, no, they weren't important to you. There was no reason to.
But I just remember the streetcars in our neighborhood coming through. Because they made the loop around Clay Street, came down Hancock, made a loop around and went back to Harrison Street.
Tell me, did you attend Moore Street Baptist? I know you're a member now.
Yes. I attended Moore Street. I also used to go to, what's the church named, in the 900 block. It's Bethany now, but it was something...Mount Hermon Baptist Church. I used to go down there also when I lived in 1019, I went to Mount Hermon Baptist Church. I used to go down there on Sundays. And then as we grew older, Mount Hermon actually moved out of the community. And then we went to Moore Street Church, I went to Moore Street Church as a child.
I know your faith is important to you. How has that influenced?
Well, my faith is not, I'm building it. As a child, we didn't go to church a whole lot, we didn't go to Sunday School like some children do who grew up in the church. We didn't because the clothing factor, because Moore Street was sort of an uppity church, and I said, that's why we moved to Mount Hermon. Because it was down to earth regular people. But at Moore Street you had to be dressed a certain way, and since we didn't have those clothing to wear, we didn't really go to church that often. We went most primarily on the holidays. When we got a new outfit, then we would go to church in it, and Sunday school. And then I got to the point where I didn't want to go on those days either, because kids would tease us to say we'd only go on holidays. And the Abernathys only go on holidays, come to get the Easter candy or the Christmas candy, and that kind of thing.
Children can be cruel.
Yes. So we didn't go to church a whole lot. I guess my faith is more grounded since I came back home, and my cousin started getting me to go back to Moore Street Church. It didn't have very fond memories for me.
I can see where it would have been difficult to walk in maybe the first times there.
Yeah, I think God leads and directs us in, cause in my wildest dreams I would never ever think that I'd be doing the kinds that I do on a volunteer basis. In school I was very shy, I was an introvert. When school opened I went there, when school was over I came home. I was not
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involved in any extracurricular activities. Not because I didn't want to, but during that time, you had to provide your own uniform for majorettes, or if you did modern dance, so that sort of knocked us out of the box there, because we couldn't afford those kinds of things. And I never would have thought I would have the nerve to stand before people to talk about anything, no matter how strong I felt about it, I would never get up and say anything to anybody. I would say it maybe to a friend, or something like that, but to speak for myself and for other persons, no. And now you regularly speak in front of the council, and you regularly speak to developers and the president of VCU.
Because even when I went to Washington, when I moved to Washington, I really didn't have friends when I was there, and I guess I sort of trained myself at that point that I needed to be more outgoing. I said Barbara, be real now, who is going to come knock on your door and say Barbara Abernathy, we know you're in Washington and you need a friend, here I am. So if you don't put yourself out there, then you're never ever going to meet people and do things. I sort of forced myself to be a bit more outgoing when I lived in Washington. I wasn't involved in any political or anything like that when I lived in Washington, but I did learn better social skills. That's the right word. I just think that God gives me those powers, that knowledge. Sometimes when I'm speaking I don't know what I'm going to be saying until I say it. I will write my speeches about an hour before I go some place to speak. And I have ideas in my head, I guess I need to write them down when I'm thinking about them, but then when it comes time for me to actually go to speak, they just seem to come.
You believe in your message, I would say.
Oh, I do, I do. I love Carver that much. This is really my heart, this is my focus on most things that I do is the Carver community. And so since I have this great love for it, I can, I think I'm a good ambassador for the community, because I just think it can be such a great, great place to live. It's home, this is what I know, I never lived any place else in the city in my whole life. Growing up and then coming back to the city, and then coming right back to where my roots are.
What's your vision for Carver?
If I could have won that $150,000,000 lottery... All these pockets in the community that are giving us problems right now as far as our developing it the way we want to, and this whole deal about all the student housing that's going to be along Marshall Street, I would have bought all of those properties, so that those developers could not have them, and not turn our neighborhood into something that we have not envisioned it to be.
And what is that vision?
Homeownership for low and middle... all incomes of persons, I think, would enjoy living in Carver. We're so close to everything.
You have a wonderful location.
Yeah. And so we worked so hard with attending the meetings at the church. And then going to city hall, and being the last thing on the agenda. Sometimes we were down at city hall until eleven and twelve o'clock at night, and it seemed as though council would say if we don't look at them or entertain them maybe they'll go away. But we stayed there. And we were the last thing on the docket. We stayed there until our issue was heard, until we were heard, and then we would go home. I just think that we've just done so much groundwork not to have our dreams realized at this point. Student housing was not something that we saw up and down Marshall
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Street. That's why I said if I had that money I would have bought the 700 block so that 164 students could not be housed down there. These industrial buildings that are on Marshall Street, if you could buy them and make them into homes, because there's such a need for housing, and the city keeps saying there's such a need, but they will keep putting buildings that people can't live in. Or they do construction or they do housing that is far beyond the reach of those persons who really need access to decent and quality living. And I know what it means to live in housing that is not up to par. That you don't have central heating in and your bathroom is outside, and if the window pane broke you can't touch it, you have to put a piece of cardboard in there because you can't afford a window pane. I know the struggles that those persons are going through, and they certainly deserve a decent place to live. We may not make the best wages in the world, and we all don't have the aptitude sometimes to make a whole lot of money. But you still should have a decent place to live where you're not afraid of your child getting lead poisoning because the building's been there so long and the landlord just keeps on painting and painting on top of it, and your child has a problem with lead and learning disabilities because of the kind of housing that you can afford to live in. I just think that Carver could be the answer to a lot of persons problems as far as decent housing to live in. It won't be $80,000 or $100,000 housing. The apartments that are already here someone needs to come in and redo them and give people incentives to want to live there, and teach them how to maintain their own little space that they're living in.
I was going to ask you, are there some pieces that are missing in the present plan that, the Neighborhood in Bloom plan I guess I'm talking about, are all the programs to help people understand the budgeting and those kind of services in place?
We did some of those programs with VCU. We had some students in the urban studies department, and we tried to do those kinds of seminars at Moore Street Church. But people just didn't come out.
Does it almost have to be a requirement of their being homeowners?
I think it's the renters who need assistance, who need to know about the houses that we have here to sell, and how they could become qualified to live. It's almost as if you need to go door to door to talk to persons, but we don't have staff, all we have is volunteers. And so after you do your eight hours of work on your job and try to attend some of these meetings where you need to be there to have your voice heard because if you're not there, then they just skip all over your little community. And so, I guess if we were more of a neighborhood (end of tape side).
You were saying that if you were more of the neighborhood you grew up in...
Yes. Well you are your brother's keeper, and if you care about the person who lives next door to you, or across the street from you, tell them about the programs. We write letters, but people have a tendency not to read them.
Well, we're a society right now that seems like we're bombarded with so much information. And we still have a number of single parents who are working, and some of them are children themselves.
The piece that's missing is the outreach part, how to get in touch with those persons who desperately need the information that we have. To get them interested, because sometimes
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people have a tendency to think this is not for me or I can't afford it or they're not talking about me and there's no point in me going to the meetings cause there's nothing that pertains to me.
Just as you said, you were quite content growing up because it was all you knew, so it's probably true for some of these young women and young couples. They don't think it's feasible, so they don't come and find out that it could be feasible.
Like I said, we probably need that one on touch, some people are trying to institute like what the VCU partnership is to have persons on the block who are responsible for a certain amount of people in your block, and so maybe that way we could have more outreach and whoever is in charge of the case it's not their total burden to recruit people in or to disseminate the information to give to persons, but somebody in your block that you know and that you trust.
Kind of a block captain.
Yeah, that you trust. That they can come to you and say won't you come to this meeting tonight you know at Moore Street Church, we're talking about how you can become a homeowner, or we're talking about how we can get you to bargain better with your landlord to get the kinds of things that you need done in your apartment. Because sometimes we become so complacent, and a lot of times there's fear, especially if you're a renter. If you say something, or if you call the city and the city comes and does something to the landlord, if he has to fix something, then your rent is going to go up, and it could reach the point that you could no longer afford to live there. And so you don't say anything, you just put up with the conditions that you're living in because you're afraid of displacement. And so, so much information needs to be gotten out to persons about their rights, and how they can empower themselves to really take care of themselves and to look out for themselves, and to get the best that they can for the dollar that they have to spend. Because the landlords are getting rich. Maybe not as expeditiously as they want to because they can't charge but so much rent, but if you're not doing anything to your property, and you're getting funds in all the time and you're not putting anything out, then that's better for you.
When you mention working with VCU, the Carver/VCU Partnership was formed almost two years ago?
No, a little longer than that. Let's see, this is our third year of the COPC grant, I guess it was 1996.
You work together to identify programs for the neighborhood, to empower the neighborhood. So often, when a small neighborhood works with an institution like VCU, its very easy for the institution to inadvertently overpower the neighborhood residents. How do you work together so that that doesn't happen?
I think the steering committee sort of keeps it in check. We have persons from the community on the steering committee, and there are persons from the University on the steering committee. And it's up to the community to keep those things in check, to make sure that the programs that are being followed or instituted in the neighborhood are programs that we say we want, and they are there to help us implement those programs, and let those programs be the ones that we think are best and nearest and dearest to our heart, that we think would help make the neighborhood a better place to live. Like with the safety piece of it.
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The VCU Patrol?
Police Department. Yes, we lobbied very hard for that and it took a long time for it to come. But it's something that has helped the neighborhood. To give it more of a sense of safety and freedom, because we were overpowered by drugs. There's still some here, but right at the corner of Gilmer and Marshall it was like an open air market for drugs. And we changed Gilmer straight so that persons couldn't come off the highway to go up Gilmer Street because that's what they were doing, come off 95, come up Gilmer street and make their buy, go down Marshall, get onto Belvidere, and get back on 95 and go back to wherever they came. And so that was a major piece there. Just different pockets of, what was it, Hancock and Clay, there was a big thing there, then on Munford Street, a little alley there, between this vacant lot and the houses on Clay Street there was a big practice there. And so they've done that for us. The police department has also helped us out with some of our residents. Thanksgiving and Christmas time they do care packages, care baskets, for persons who live in the community. So it's not just all law enforcement, there's also the community caring piece that they have that has helped and assisted persons in the community.
I have always picked up that you feel quite positive about the relationship with VCU. Do other Carver residents feel as positive?
Maybe because I'm closer to it than most.
That's what I was thinking.
I have more direct contact with like Dr. Trani, or Sue Messmer, or Cathy Howard. And I'm comfortable with them to a degree, but there's always some things, everything that a person does is not always 100% the thing that you do. Because there are things, when Cathy was talking about making this a citywide program, what we're doing with the Carver neighborhood, when they went to city hall, nobody from Carver went. They told how we felt about the program. We were not at the table.
Were you invited?
No, we were not. She just told me that they were going to go to talk to I think Connie Bawcum at that time and Selena Cuffee-Glenn, that they were going to talk to those people about the program, about you know the whole project to make the city buy into it. But no one from the community was involved, and those are the kinds of things that bothered me. They come to our meetings, but when they have the meetings with staff persons at VCU, we don't have a presence there, so we don't know what they're saying in their meetings, but they know what we are saying in ours.
And has that been pointed out to them?
To a degree but we have no one to go. We are all working people. It's like city government. I think they have it strategically planned that persons have meetings that affect your livelihood and your life in the middle of the day. Because they know a person is working and you cannot get there.
I think you're right that sometimes it's on purpose, but sometimes people just don't think, they just don't realize the full logistics. But unfortunately, like you say, that breeds suspicion, even though that can be the furthest thing from their minds.
Yes. I'm sure it was not a calculated thing that happened, but if you work in the community, you need to be sensitive to how persons feel. And as long as we've been working together, it seemed like that would be just a matter of routine. That a community person would be sent. They ought
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to ask do you know somebody in the community who might want to go sit in on this meeting so the city can see how you all feel about this process and how you have bought into it. Because nobody will tell your story the way you can tell your story. I'm a firm believer of that. You can talk to me til I'm blue in the face, well she said so and so and so, but it's not from my heart, its just your guess or not what I said. I just think that persons need to be there to talk about, if persons are going to talk about our community, then someone from our community needs to be there at the table.
I have wondered whether you, whether the community doesn't start feeling like an ongoing case study for classes.
Oh sure. Because you keep talking about these surveys. I said No more surveys. We've been surveyed to death. And I don't think persons in the community want another survey. If you need to get at more data, you need to find some other way to do it. Surveys. I hate surveys. I can understand that. And one of the things that I observed reading the evolution of the housing plans in Carver is that they studied and studied and studied the community, and the rest of the communities in Richmond, to death. And I think part of the reason they went back to studying one more time is they couldn't reach a consensus at any time so it was "Well, let's see if we can gather more data," rather than talking to people and trying to promote understanding. At the same time Carver provides such a valuable experience helping students be more sensitive in their future careers to community needs, and I know that has to be part of your motivation to cooperate sometimes when you don't necessarily want to cooperate.
Yes. They help with neighborhood cleanups and things of that nature. I'm very proud of the kind of work they do at Carver Elementary School. Because there's such a great need there because they have so many students there. Almost a thousand students there at one time. And for them to go ahead and mentor and things of that nature. But I'm in a quandary about that too because most of the [transcription ends at 12:03]
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