African American diaspora stories on Juneteenth about Greenburgh

On Juneteenth Greenburgh recalling local residents stories about discrimination, civil rights, growing up in Greenburgh

For several years now, the Town of Greenburgh has been creating and adding to an archive of stories highlighting the struggles, challenges, and successes our local African American community has had during the last two centuries here. We post the stories every Juneteen, Dr. Martin Luther Kings birthday and during Black History month.

Click here for the archive: https://sites.google.com/view/greenburgharchives

Website produced by Assistant to the Supervisor, Krista Madsen, pulling from many sources, including: articles by the volunteer Greenburgh Town Historians, Riley Wentzler and Felicia Barber; videos from Janelle Wallace, town Cable Access TV director; interviews by Tina Harper, Senior Services Coordinator, Department of Community Resources/TDYCC; and many others.

Have a story of your family’s history in Greenburgh, or know someone with an interesting life story who should be included in this project? Please share by emailing [email protected], including a photo or more if you have any. Thank you for reading and helping grow this important archive.

Stories/participants on the site so far include:

• Vernon Jordan: legendary Civil Rights’ Activist
• Roy Campanella: Brooklyn Dodger
• Cab Calloway: jazz singer and bandleader with a career spanning 65 years
• Gordon Parks: highly successful African American photographer
• Atlantic Starr: World famous R&B group founded by three brothers from Greenburgh
• Olivia Hooker: the first African-American woman to enter the U.S. Coast Guard
• Anna Bernard: Parkway Gardens resident; first African American to be admitted to the Bar
• Bishop Wilbert Preston: Chair of the Greenburgh Housing Authority and Pastor of Christ Temple
• Eugene Rutherford: storyteller and retired educator
• Charlotte Phoenix, Phd. tells the story about her grandfather's northern migration from Mississippi to Michigan
• Civil Rights Stories from: Mike Sigal, on his participation in the Civil Rights Movement; Bill Greenawalt on the 1963 March on Washington; Elaine Finsilver, active in the fight for justice in the 1960s.
• Ron Cook: the first African American to integrate Ardsley schools in 1965 (an interview on the Supervisor’s radio show from 2018)
• Diana Bason: growing up in White Plains and Greenburgh
• Barbara Johnson Armstrong: from the Civil Rights movement to witnessing the swearing in of Georgia's first African American Senator
• African Americans during the Civil War: Daniel Weinfeld’s presentation to the Town Board about the military service of Greenburgh men
• Slavery at the Odell Farm: a report by Susan Seal and Daniel Weinfeld
• Alzheimer's and African Americans: a presentation by Esther McCarthy
• Determined to Fight: a presentation on black Civil War soldiers from Hastings and Greenburgh presented to Hastings Historical Society
• Irvington's new monument to the Enslaved: Vinnie Bagwell's "yesterday" dedicated June 10, 2023
• Jane Washington: former educator and Greenburgh resident
• James Robinson: former Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Community Resources and lifetime resident
• Barbara Perry: first Commissioner of the Department of Community Resources as well as the first African American woman Commissioner at the department
• Lee Burwell: growing up in North Carolina and migrating north
• Imani Bolling: educator discusses life in Greenburgh
• Home Ownership: mapping Greenburgh’s African-American home ownership stats from the 1940s census
• History of Parkway Gardens: “bucolic haven for middle-class black families”
• Moms Mabley: famous comedian Loretta Mary Aiken

Click here to read/watch them all: https://sites.google.com/view/greenburgharchives

PAUL FEINER

Greenburgh Town Supervisor