Kentucky Seven - Text
Subject is an African-American female, 52 years old, recorded by Rinda Frye on 4/22/2000. Although she is currently a university student, she is from a modest, working-class background in Louisville, Kentucky. She tells very interesting stories about her experiences with racist discrimination growing up in the South of the 1950's. Edited by Paul Meier 10.13.00. Running time 00:03:33.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
When I was a little girl, I grew up in the Shepherd's Square Projects, uh, Louisville, Kentucky. And, it wasn't all segregated at the time. I went to black schools, I went to, uh, the community center. That was my favorite part of the living in the projects. Because living there, you know, I learned how to end (unclear) us dinner. We had cooking schools, we had sewing classes, we had the choir, we had skating, we had everything that could keep you in that community where we were supposed to stay anyway. So, it was alright growing up there and I loved that. It was Grace Presbyterian Center. That’s where I spent my entire evening, in that center. And I learned to sing, I learned to sew, I learned to cook, and I learned to play, and I learned to have fun. And I attended Booker T. Washington. That was from the first th’u the sixth grade. And it set right beside Jackson Junior High School which is now Meyzeek and its integrated now but when I went it was just an all black school. An’ I went there one year, and that was, uh, sixth or seventh grade, and then we had to leave the projects because my mother got sick. She caught, uh, tuberculosis. So we moved with my grandmother for a whole year. Which was a whole move from the east end. I don't know if you would call it the west end but we was at 24 Vincesne (spelling?). She was running a boarding home that she was buyin’, so she rented out rooms. So we moved in with her and my mother went to the sanitarium, Hazelwood Sanitarium, to stay for a year, n’ we stayed with my grandmother. There I went to Madison Junior High School, which is now part of C. Russell, and it was an all black school. I didn't care for that school too much, it was rowdy, really rowdy. So I sort of stayed to myself. And when my mother came out of the hospital, she went into, uh, LPN training, to become a nurse, and we moved over on Cedar Street and I started into Central High School. Life really begin to pick up then, but it was still segregated, we still was all black, but my mother was makin’ better money, and we bought a home. 1523 Beach, and, uh, that was the best time of my life.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY CHRIS OLMSTEAD 2 APRIL, 2008, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR SANDRA LINDBERG