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Speaker1: May I have your full name, please?
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Speaker2: Bessie. Roberta Harrison.
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Speaker1: All right, Mrs. Harrison, what is your age?
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Speaker2: 77 years old.
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Speaker1: Okay. What's your place of birth?
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Speaker2: New York City. New York. United States of America. Okay.
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Speaker1: And may I have the maiden name of your mother?
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Speaker2: Robert Evans. Evans.
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Speaker1: Okay. Have there been any name changes? On your mother's?
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Speaker2: My mother's name. Married one.
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Travis Roark. Travis Roark. Okay.
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Speaker1: Uh, can you tell me some information about your mother's side of
the family?
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Speaker2: Well, uh, my mother is the daughter. On her father's side.
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Slave parents. Her.
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Speaker2: Her mother was a native African, brought to America on one of
the slave ships to Virginia and was bought by one slave Master Evans don't
know his first name. Petersburg, Virginia. And she was kept at what they
call the big house. She was his concubine.
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As he was not married.
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Speaker2: And they had one child, a son whom they named Joseph. And he was
as black as your shoes. He was educated by his father. And he earned money
teaching the white children in the community who were of the poor whites.
And the money that they were able to pay him since they couldn't send their
children to school, pay to send them to school, they paid him and he saved
it. And when he got sufficient, he borrowed $500 from an uncle who was free
in New York City and purchased himself and his mother. He married one
Josephine. I don't know her last name, but she was of Indian Irish descent.
Uh, I'll show you her picture before you leave, and you can see that she
doesn't look like a Negro at all. And to that union, 12 children were born.
My mother being the oldest girl. This all happened before the Civil War.
And when my mother was born during the Civil War. They had built.
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Speaker3: I guess you. That's right.
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Speaker2: Don't work underground passages for underground places for the
people to hide in. And Grant had made that arrangement. And and in
Petersburg, Virginia she. Can you stop? You just signal.
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I love your finger.
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Speaker1: May I have your full name?
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Bessie. Roberta Harrison.
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Speaker1: Mrs. Harrison, may I have your age?
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Speaker2: 77 years old.
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Speaker1: And your place of birth?
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Speaker2: New York City. New York. United States of America.
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Speaker1: Mrs. Harrison, what is the maiden name of your mother?
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Speaker2: Evans.
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Speaker1: Evans. Okay. Have there been any name changes?
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Speaker2: Yes. My mother married one. Travis Rock. Travis.
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Speaker1: Okay. Can you give me some information about your mother's
family? Your mother's side of the family?
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Speaker2: Uh, my mother on her father's side was the daughter of. A slave
whose father was a slave master and whose mother was a slave. Directly from
Africa. She was the slave master's concubine. As the master was not married
and they lived in what they called the big house. He educated his son
Joseph, and he was able to teach the poor white children whose parents
couldn't afford to send them to school. And as they weren't financially
able yet, the money that they did have and paid him, he saved. And with
money, $500 borrowed from an uncle who lived in New York City, a freedman,
an he was able to purchase himself and his mother. He married one.
Josephine. I don't know her last name, but she was of Indian and Irish
descent. She and to this union were born 12 children. My mother being the
oldest daughter. She was a baby during the time of the Civil War. And when
Grant raided Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, they had what they call
dugouts. And she she they when the soldiers would come through, they would
hide in these dugouts. I. Her father became a postmaster in Petersburg,
Virginia. She had one brother named Joseph Evans. And in Roanoke, Virginia,
who became a state legislator. Um. She moved to New York. She taught,
rather, in the Pittsburgh Institute. If I make no mistakes, it's now known
as. And I take that back. I made a mistake. I said Pittsburgh. I should
have said Petersburg Institute. And she It is now known as Petersburg.
State College. And later she moved to New York City. There meeting one
Travis Rock, who she married. The name originally is an Irish name and it's
spelt capital O apostrophe r o a c, h e. But. In this in the United States,
it was dropped to just rock. There were five children of whom only two now
live. One brother in New York City and myself. How's that?
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Speaker1: Can you give me some more information about your great
grandmother, Eliza, please.
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Speaker2: Well, yes, her name was Eliza. And, of course, as you know, the
slaves had to carry the master's name. I do not know her original name.
Eliza Evans. Uh, she was the mistress of the house. She had servants to
wait on her, which showed the difference between those that lived in the
big house and those that lived out on the plantation in whatever kind of
shacks or sheds that they could build for themselves. She. Learned the the
American English language fluently. She there were times that she didn't
always agree with her master and she opposed him. For example, she would
gather the grandchildren around her and would tell us of those days. She
would say when she would do something that he disliked, he would have the
whipping boss. That affect this. She would have the whipping boss. He would
have the whipping boss to tie her to the whipping post and would whip her
and he would whip her and tell her back, laid in ribbons. And then he would
have salt put in her on her back. And we grandchildren would say to her,
grandma, why? Why would he put salt on it? Didn't that hurt you, Grandma?
Didn't you cry? She'd say no. Chilling. I didn't cry.
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Speaker2: I would look up and I'd say, Thank God almighty, Martha hit me
hardest pepper this morning. Thank God Almighty. And then she'd say, You
see? Chilling. I was my mother's money. And then she would tell us, Look at
us and say. Now, Bessie, you're going to be the leader of them all. You.
And therefore you must study and prepare yourself. And we children would
say, Grandma, why do you always pick out Bessie? And she said because she's
the one. And of course, I did strive to carry out what she said. And I
believe I am out of all of the grandchildren. I have gone further than any
of them. She lived to be 112 years old. I was I can remember very good
because I was 14 years old when she died. My. Parents and and aunts and
uncles would not put her in an institution. And when the doctor would come
to the house to see her, he was puzzled. He couldn't understand it. She had
all of her teeth. No decays. She did not wear eyeglasses. She could thread
a needle at 112 years old. And. And I've been wearing eyeglasses since I
was 18 years old. You want to go on from there? Start something else.
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Speaker1: Do you remember or do you recall her saying anything about. The
ship when she was coming over being transported? Yes.
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Speaker2: She told us that when they brought them from Africa, that they
put them all down in the hole, in a hole in the ship was what they called
it. And it was so crowded and they didn't feed them very good. And there
was no sanitation. As such, they had to live with that and any number of
them would die and it would be days before they would move them out and
throw them overboard. The dead. And yet she came through all of that
writhing in Virginia.
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Speaker1: Did she ever talk about her homeland?
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Speaker2: Yes, she told us she we never got the name of where she came
from, but she told us of the happy life that they had in the tribe and that
most of the people that were taken away from Africa were either given by
the the. Head of the tribe or by being stolen away.
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Speaker1: All right, Mrs. Harrison. What is your ethnic origin and
identity?
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Speaker4: Uh.
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Speaker2: Well, I guess you'd have to say I'm a Negro. I don't like the
word black. But on my mother's side, African and white, that would make me
an American. African on my father's side. Uh, my father was. Negro. Indian.
So. I guess you'd say I was. I'm American. Negro.
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Speaker1: Were you aware of any other languages being used by your family
or your ancestors?
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Speaker2: No. They as far as I can remember, of course, I have a I had a
brother and a sister older than me. But as far as I can remember, the
American English was the only language I.
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Speaker1: What is your religious denomination? What church do you belong
to?
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Speaker2: I'm a Baptist and I belong to the sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church
of East Liberty.
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What? Mrs. Harrison, what is your level of.
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Speaker1: Participation in politics? Are you very active?
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Speaker2: Well, yes and no. I'm not say what you call real active because
I hold no position in politics. I have never held a position, but I have
given lectures. I believe that. My vote is my right. To to freedom. That
is, I have the right to economic, educational, social. And live in
facilities. And I believe that it comes through my right to vote. And I
have endeavoured to teach that in lectures that I have given to various
organizations.
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About how long have you lived in the Pittsburgh area?
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Speaker2: 47 years this past October.
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Speaker1: Do you have membership in a fraternal and or sorority?
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Speaker2: No. I belong to no kind of sororities or fraternities or secret
orders of any kind.
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Speaker1: All right. Can you tell me something about something else? About
your grandparents? Your grandparents?
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Speaker2: Well, my grandmother on my mother's side, as I have already
said, was of Irish and Indian descent. It is said that from the Irish part
of the family.
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It's trying to think of the man's name.
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Speaker2: Anyhow an Irishman who came to America and it just through that
and of course that relationship and of course as you know. Everything that
everyone rather that is of a dark complexion in America is classified with
the Negro. Uh. I can tell you a story that my grandmother told me once.
Told us once. So she was sitting on her front porch in Petersburg,
Virginia, and the white neighbors in the in the community would pass by.
Good morning, Auntie. And instead of saying good morning, back to them, she
would answer them and say, Am I your mother's sister or your father's
sister? How did I get to be your aunt? And they'd look at her and go on and
wouldn't say another word. And then she would say to us, They'll call you
auntie and an uncle and do that. You don't have to accept that. Remember,
you don't have to accept it just because you are Negroes. There's no reason
that you have to accept it. And of course, I have always remembered that.
And I think it has been a guide to me in that I have no respect, make no
difference in the ethnic groups, regardless of who they are. I respect them
all and I think that's the reason I get along with them. My on my father's
side of the family. I know very little of them. Um, my father's mother was
Negro Indian. I don't know what his father was. And. My father was a Civil
War.
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Veteran and he.
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Speaker2: Was an old man. I'm an old man's child. And. He went on raid in
Texas for Boone, who assassinated President Lincoln. But as to his parents,
I know nothing. He never talked about them very much. He did tell us of
experiences that he had in the Civil War. They had to furnish their own
clothes. The Negro soldiers had to furnish their own clothes wherever they
could get them. Sometimes they were taken off the dead bodies that they
found in the field. They had to forage for their food as best they could.
Yet they believed that they were fighting for the deliverance from slavery.
They. He gives one experience, said that they carried a man to the hospital
who was so sick, so weak. And the doctor, in examining this man and turning
him over the skin on his back at the back bone so thin and dry. And the
doctor pressed his finger and ran it down the back bone and it parted,
broke away and there, sapping his strength. Just nothing but lice that had
eaten themselves into this man's body. Uh, although they. My father said
that they were fighting for the liberation of the slaves yet. The Southern
people had very little respect for them. In fact, none at all. And the
northerners did have some, but not very much.
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Speaker1: All right. What's the birth place of your parents?
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Speaker2: My mother was born in Petersburg, Virginia. My father in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
