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Michael Snow: This is--this is tape one of a state and local government
archives interview with Reverend LeRoy Patrick.
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Reverend LeRoy Patrick: No, I told you, that's a capital R-O-Y there. So.
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Patrick: I...[pause]
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Patrick: I'd be recognized either way. But anyway, I prefer the capital R
and I've been using it for years and years. I didn't start out with the
Capital R now, but I discovered that in high school, I think. That's the
way it's going to be from here on in, but nobody uses it except me.
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Snow: Amiri Baraka when he was LeRoi Jones. Amiri Baraka used to go by Le
Roi
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Patrick: Yeah, yeah. He had a-he was R-O-I--Roi, though. Snow: So you're--
Patrick: Didn't have R-O-Y. Yeah, as I remember. Because he didn't
spell--he's not spelling it correctly.
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Snow: Okay. Um, Reverend Patrick is pastor emeritus of Bethesda
Presbyterian Church. A former member and president of the Pittsburgh School
Board. Former member and chair of the Pennsylvania Black Democratic
Committee and a member of numerous other boards. It is February 18th, 2002.
The interviewer is Michael Snow of the Archive Service Center of the
University of Pittsburgh. And we are sitting in. Reverend Patrick's dining
room in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
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Patrick: 128 North Craig Street. Snow: All right. LeRoy: Apartment 312.
They probably have torn this down by the time this thing is read by
anybody. Snow: Possibly. LeRoy: Because it's an old building. It's 40 or 50
years old now.
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Snow: Could you begin by stating your full name and date of birth?
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Patrick: My full name is LeRoy. First name, and I have no middle name.
LeRoy. Patrick. And the LeRoy is one word. My birth is November 17, 1915.
But strangely enough, when I--some years ago, ordered a passport and had to
call--go right to South Carolina to get my birth certificate. Their record
is that my birth date is November 29th, 1917. My feeling is back in 1917,
the doctor who delivered me probably didn't send in the record until 29
because my mother told me I was born on November 17th and I figured that
since she was there, she should know when I was born. And I have always
used November 17th. But on this particular occasion, I had to change it
because the whoever it was who issued passports. So, yes, this is November.
Okay. All right. I rather be, you know, now, I wish we could take off about
ten years and say November 17th, 1927, but we can't do that now. So at 86.
I'm content to go with the--I'm still going with the 70 and I'm November
17th, 1915. That's my date of birth. Snow: Great.
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Snow: Where? What town in South Carolina were you born in?
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Patrick: I always say Charleston. Actually, it's about 15 miles out of
Charleston, a little place called, I believe, Adam's Run. So I never tell
anybody. Adam's run. But I say Adam's Run-- What? Where? How, what? No, I
say, Charleston, that settles it. So I always say, I'm born in Charleston.
I said, okay. All right. So I'm not really a Charlestonian. I just pretend
to be one. Snow: Okay. Patrick: All right.
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Snow: Wonderful. And what were your parents names?
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Patrick: My dad was Edward Patrick. My mother was Loretta Patrick.
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Snow: And what was her maiden name?
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Patrick: Gordon.
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Snow: And do you remember when and where they were born?
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Snow: No?
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Patrick: Except from around where I was born. It would be in that
vicinity. So if you said that, you know, it would be as near as I could get
unless somebody would search some records. I don't know what it would be. I
was wrong--I think the post office is called Osborne. Osborne Post Office.
But the place is called Adams Run. There was a general store and there was
a post office. There were crossroads. I remember. I remember very much
about it.
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Snow: And the Pittsburgh Courier said that you grew up in Philadelphia.
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Patrick: From Adams Run, we moved to Florida. I think it was in 1925. I
remember I was very young. We lived in Florida for a couple of years and we
moved to Philadelphia. In 1927, I believe. So I say I am a Philadelphian
because I was, what, 12 years old? By that time. I finished the grade
schools and Philadelphia High School in Philadelphia and lived there until
I left. Until I became grown.
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Snow: Wonderful.
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Patrick: So I'm. [chimes sound] That's why someone asked me, who--where
are you from? Philadelphia. And that settles it. Where were you born? All
right, so I have to tell her where I was born. They wouldn't want to know
everything then. You know I don't. I don't. There's no point in my fudging
it. I was born in Adam's Run, South Carolina, but I tell you, Adam's Run.
Where is that? Is that. Well, that's Charleston. Oh, you say. Oh, all
right. Don't you feel comfortable then, with me?
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Snow: Do you know why your family moved to Florida? Patrick: What? Snow:
Do you know why your family moved to Florida and then Philadelphia?
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Patrick: My family left Adams Run because there was no work. My dad was a
lumberman and he had us--was it two--four horses. What did that make a team
for? He used to take logs to the what? What do you call it? What do you do?
Sawing up logs?
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Snow: The sawmill. Patrick: Huh? Snow: A sawmill?
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Patrick: Yeah. Yeah. He took logs to the sawmill, but then they ran out of
the. As I recall, that there were no, no, no more trees. That--that
he--that the company--I don't know. I don't know for whom he's working. But
anyway, there was no more work for him, so he had to get rid of that stuff.
He had to find work. There was no work around there. He had heard there was
work in Florida. He went down there. He settled himself and then sent for
his family, sent for us. Then we went to Florida from 1927. There was no
work in Florida. So we're going to--we're going to go to New York. He'd
heard there was work in New York. So we got in our little sliver, our Ford,
and we started on the highway. And we finally landed in Philadelphia where
my mother had a sister living in Philadelphia. And we said, we'll spend the
night a week or so with her since they had not seen each other for a long
time. And we never did get to New York. We decided--my daddy decided to
stay in Philadelphia, and he found some work there. That was in '27. And
then '29 came October--October 29th, 1929.
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Snow: That sounds right.
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Patrick: The bottom fell out of everything and fell out of our lives
because we were--he was--well, I was still a youngster. But it was touch
and go, you know. Family live. Let's work. He can pick up here and pick up
there and pick up the other place. That thing continued until, well, all
through. I went into high school and finished high school in '33 and the
Depression was still on. So you pick, you pick up odd jobs. You know, there
was no there was no regular work that that he could find. So I remember
saying to people on the street selling apples $0.05 a piece, those apples
look very good. They were nice, large red apples. But I was never able to
buy red apples. I didn't have the $0.05. That's why we went to Philadelphia
and we stayed there because it looked all right at first. But I suppose
nowhere during those years would have been a good place to be. The best
place to begin would have been where? Dead somewhere, you know, because it
was those were very rough years for millions of people. And they remained
rough until what, we went into war. Snow: Right. Patrick: Yeah. That's what
really took us out of the Depression. So that's why I landed. So I speak
now by being a Philadelphian. And and so I am.
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Snow: And did your mother work outside the home or work as--?
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Patrick: From time to time? Snow: Did she? Get work in a restaurant as I
remember she was once a worked for Horn and Hardart as a salad girl. You
sell--you make it. The salad, now you serve the salads. That's about all I
remember what she did, but she did other jobs from time to time. But there
was little that she could do--that she could find to do. From I don't know
what--I don't remember where my dad worked. He worked all over the town.
He. He worked for a while for Philadelphia Electric Company and laid off
there and. All our jobs, a lot of smaller companies. So I don't--I don't
know where. But there was no permanency. That's--the point I'm making is
that there was no permanent source of income for the family. Snow: Sure.
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Snow: I'd read that during the Great Depression, two thirds--during the
Great Depression, two thirds of African Americans qualified for emergency
relief and work relief, but only one third received it. Did your family?
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Patrick: Well? They gave us what we--I can remember taking a, I guess it
was a food voucher that came to the house because of my dad must have gone
on wherever they were and going to the ACME American Stores. That's a
Philadelphia, something like A&P. It was not a A&P. It was American Stores
as I recall that--the--there was a corner store and I remember going in
there with [??] after getting a getting a--food and giving them the
voucher. Then the voucher for us for X number of dollars and then he would
figure up X number of you know, until I got--til I spent my voucher. They
had me go because what I'm, what, 12 years old or 13 years? 14? No. I. I
could. I could add two plus two equals four. Four plus four equals eight,
you know? So go LeRoy, go, go get the food. [laughs] So LeRoy had to go get
the food. So it was. I feel what we. But here again, as I recall, it must
have been a--sporadic thing because I don't remember going every week.
Snow: Okay. Patrick: You know, I don't know why and why and I've never even
thought about it until this moment. But why didn't I go every week? Because
the voucher apparently--I don't know whether he had to go get the voucher
or whether they mail the voucher. I don't, I don't know how that happened,
but I only remember using it several times, but I don't remember using it
regularly. You know, week after week. So what do we do in between? Well, I
don't know. We manage. Snow: Yes Patrick: You manage our best way you
could. I don't know. But we all. We were never hungry. Let me put it like
that. Snow: Ok. Patrick: My dad always managed to have food for us and--and
we always could pay the rent, so we never went out on the streets.
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Snow: That's pretty unusual for then.
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Patrick: I mean, he might have been behind, but he--at least the landlord
never put us on the streets. [laughs] So I guess he did all right. I don't
know. I was not conscious of that element in our lives. Um, I remember he
made a shoeshine box for me and my brother, and I remember shining shoes on
Market Street. Going up on a--on a Saturday going up and you shine a shoe.
You got $0.05 for a shoe shine. That was, you know, five shoes. You got a
quarter. And sometimes the guy'd be generous, give you an extra nickel. So
you got a dime. By golly, you got a dime. [laughs] Oh...[laughs] oh.
Shoeshine boy. Shoeshine boy. I tell you. But when I see these fellows now
with their boxes, it flashes in my mind that I didn't have a stand. There
were, as I recall, there were--some--some stores had a stand in front of
the store and there was a Black man shining shoes for--but I had my little
box over my shoulder, which my dad had made [laughs], and I was a
shoeshine. Let me see. You know, I know you wouldn't need a shoeshine, you
son.
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Patrick: I got a fellow shoeshine, you know. [laughs] But then I had a
little pocket change. And when my dad had any money, he'd give me a
dollar--slip a dollar to me, you know? You know, if he could spare it, he
would. He was not--he was not--he was generous when he could afford
generous. Snow: Right. Patrick: And so was my mother, when she was working,
when she'd work, she would. Saw that I--well, I would, I would--well they
would give me money to to go to high school. I went to Central High. We
were living on South 10th Street and I started going to South Philadelphia
High. I elected to go to Central High, which is at Broad and Green Street.
And they would give me the $0.15 I needed for car fare. You know, it
was--from my place up to school. And sometimes I'd walk and I'd save the
$0.15. [laughs] But I had--depends on the weather, you know. So what
I'm--what I'm saying is that it was a matter of touch and go. What
were--those little money around. Why? You had other chance to--to get a
little bit. A little bit of it. Snow: Yes. Patrick: So.
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Snow: And how were race and ethnic relations in Central High at that time?
Patrick: What? Snow: How were race and ethnic relations and tensions in
Central High at the time?
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Patrick: I mean, was there racism, race? Snow: Yes. Patrick: Oh, yes.
There's racism, as you just sort of given. You weren't--but I don't. Only
once do I remember having to run from any race. My brother and I, said
another kid was somewhere over. And I must have walked because I remember
being in what would be the vicinity of University of Pennsylvania, and we
must have been, what, 13 or 14, something like that. And some white kids
said, look at those, let's go get them. So we took off. They didn't get us.
We got away. Well, now, I don't know whether that was a--was that a
sporadic thing on their part, but in our where we were living, we were
living among Italians. We did not have any race problem. We didn't
associate, but there was no--sometimes we played baseball together and on
the streets, you know, or that sort of thing. But it was not a race. Race
was not a part of our problem. It was only when you ventured out of your
neighborhood that you might, you might run into strangers. You know,
strangers were always suspect. Snow: Yes. Patrick: So [laughs] so, but I
don't remember wandering out of the neighborhood because might go to South
Street. Well, that's a busy business street. Still a business street in
Philadelphia. And you just to be on that street was to be in an exciting
then you went up to Market Street that's in the center of town. But I
didn't have any buddies that I hang out with, you know, so I'd pick up
somebody walking along [??]. But, um. So I--maybe because I was somewhat of
a loner, I never was part of any any gang that was--was--that might have
been operating. Partly, I think, because once I discovered the Philadelphia
Free Library, I was--I had a library card.
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Patrick: And spent time with books, getting at books and reading them at
home, reading them in the library. So I'm trying to think of why I was not
in a group, and I think maybe that's why because I don't recall others. I
recall a couple fellow, Hugo Hyde, a friend of mine in high school who was
also a member of the library, and he said, Have you read this book? And I
said, Oh, yeah, I read that book. How about this one? I know I have that.
You know. Both of us borrowed a book from the library, but to read it and
get it back, then get another book out, it was exciting for me. I was then
in high school, I think I was probably, discovered that library when I was
about the eighth grade. Because I can remember using it during high school
years. Then there was a main library in Parkway on Park. You know
Philadelphia at all? Snow: Some. Patrick: Parkway is the big, you know,
leading to the Art Museum and the the--as you go toward the Art Museum,
the--the library, the main branch of the library sitting off to the right.
And when I discovered that--that was a. Who was Looked into the Home of
Chapman's Homer? [laughs] It was such an exciting thing for me to find
that. I was at the little branch on South Street to find this big library,
and I--I frequented that. So it was a nice place to go to and there were
many, many books to just look at and then you pick out a book and you read
it. It was a very exciting time. A time of discovery for me.
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Snow: It sounds wonderful, actually. Patrick: Huh? Snow: It sounds
wonderful.
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Patrick: I found it wonderful. Was it Shelly or who was, "On First Looking
Into Chapman's Homer?" You know--you know that work, you know. Anyway, one
of the romantic poets used--has a sonnet on one of those. He discovered
Homer through a man--and I've never seen I--a man named Chapman had
translated Homer when he discovered Homer. And I've always remembered that
because that was something of what I felt when I got this whole [chimes
sound] library of books that were mine. It was great. It was great. I
don't. I still--I, I--still love books. Books that I have now, I, I just
got that book on the table there. You see, that Maida Springer. Eric
Springer's mother. You know. Eric Springer? Snow: Yes. Patrick: He's a
hero, Eric. It's his mother, Maida, is his mother. And she--this book.
Well, Ava, what--who wrote it? She didn't write it. She's...anyway, a book
about, uh, Yvette Richards. She's--this book was the story of her life. She
was a labor person way back there. She was with the New York Garment
Workers Union. Snow: Oh, my. Patrick: Dubinsky, Dubinsky, and the other. So
anyway, she put out the book and she had a signing for it. And, and I
didn't, I didn't get to the signing. But I call the house afterwards and
Cecile said, I'll bring you the book. So she signed it. See, Maida Springer
Kemp, just--just--just last year. And I've had it, but I'm just starting to
read it. I didn't get through it yet.
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Patrick: I have--I got a couple of books I started reading and I didn't
get through yet. Well, I said that to say that that I have--you get hooked
with books. Snow: Yes. Patrick: And you, you find that. Well, I'm going to
have to finish this because she was a black woman who was remarkably active
in the labor movement with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union,
which is New York. And she's a little woman. Little by I mean, maybe five
feet and what 115 pounds.She's now 90--90 years old. I saw her last night,
as a matter of fact, at Grace Memorial Church. Johnny, Johnny Monroe had a
program. On. [pause] Program, maybe it will come to me. Anyway, the first
pastor that founded Grace Church, who also was born in 1815 and escaped as
a slave, he and his family and finally became--got some education and
became Minister of Grace Church, among other things. Snow: Right. Patrick:
So they they were having a service honoring him, as they did last year and
giving out awards. And she gave out one of the awards to Gazelle, I think,
Gazelle. Who's the woman? NAACP person, NAACP executive. Not, not Tim
Seekin [??], but the executive they hired. Her name won't come to me,
though. But anyway, she gave it. So I had to mention something too, about
it. And then I said I must finish reading your book because it was
interesting. Anyway, I digress, but this is--that goes back to when I
discovered books.
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Snow: With your--with your love of books, were your teachers steering you
towards scholarly work in college or--or towards a career?
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Patrick: In my career?
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Snow: Well, in in high school, what career were your teachers steering you
towards?
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Patrick: Well, the teachers--I don't remember mine, the teachers' names. I
went to Central High, as I said, and we were--we were Blacks in the school,
but it was mostly a Jewish school. Snow: Was it?Patrick: When there was a
Jewish holiday, the halls were [laughs] not empty because it was not a
school holiday, it was just their holiday. But you--you were conscious. So
they never--we Blacks were there. Well, in a sense on sufferance, I guess.
[laughs] But we were there by right, of course. But I...I remember being in
the--in high school [unintelligble] most of my Black brothers--it was a
boys school, Central is boys around the corner, two blocks away at 17th and
Spring Garden is the girls high school, which is the girls. And Central
was, was--it is a good school. They gave a Bachelor of Arts degree which
law [??] has that it, in its early days--it was founded in the 1800s or
something--want to take that degree and move into his third year in
college. You know, it was--it was that kind of rigorous school. Well, and
my Black brothers and I were in the industrial arts, and they were runners,
and they were on the--I don't remember them being some of them on the
basketball team. I'm not a sports person. So I didn't go for that. I went
into debating club and the dramatic club. But in this point I'm getting to,
I was never allowed to debate, even when I was a senior. The--I could be
the timekeeper, but I was never appointed as one of the debaters. It wasn't
till I got into college that I was actually--I mean, I could debate in the
club meeting, but when we would go against South Philadelphia High or other
sort of high, it was always the white guys who were debaters.
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Patrick: And and I was--and that was the way the world was. I didn't
feel--I don't recall feeling angry because that well, you know, that's the
way things were. So you just accept things like that and the debating and
the dramatic club. I was never in a play. I could help move the furniture
around on the stage as I did. I was well, I was debating. I could be a
timekeeper and I was often the timekeeper for the club. And the dramatic
club, as I said, move the furniture between action or something like that.
But I was never allowed to be in the play itself, I suppose, because the
plays they put on didn't have any servants. [laughs] I guess that's the
reason. And here again, I don't recall being resentful because I would have
quit, you know. But, um, I remember when I when I was going to high school,
I told my dad, you know, I think I want to be a civil engineer. I didn't
know what a civil engineer was, but I saw the name and he said, now LeRoy,
you know, you can't be a civil engineer, you know. I took his word and I
never thought. But. He took, we-- I should--we took this sort of thing, the
racism, what, you know, as part of the way the world was created and there
was no point in being resentful or angry about it, you just accepted it. So
in high school, I, I, I accepted.
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Patrick: They came, went around and said I was taking an academic course.
I didn't know much, but I knew I didn't want an industrial arts course. I
knew that. And I had. I had somewhere--I had to take an industrial arts
class because I remember making a little gadget one which you could
[clattering sound] hang a towel. And I remember taking it home and I'm in
the shop class. But I knew this is not what I want to do. This is not, this
is just not my thing. So...when I signed up for the academic course, then
they came along and said, baby [??], being somebody from the principal's
office that they were. They were--they were starting or continuing a
classical course. And those who want to be go in room XYZ and sign up for
it. So I signed up for the class, of course, which meant that I had to take
Greek and Latin. And that's why I guess I remember Homer listening [??],
you know, because--and I enjoyed, I had four years of Latin and rather
three years of Greek. So in a sense, I was introduced to the kind of things
that allowed me to appreciate books, I think. It wasn't that I was out
trying to make the, the, the running team or something like that.
But...here again, it wasn't--it wasn't really until I became conscious of
race and the fact that I was being discriminated against. And that was not
during my high school years, but I was conscious that I was I was always
the outsider-- Snow: I see. Patrick: -in the, the classroom. The teacher
paid no attention. One teacher.
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Snow: Excuse me one moment.
