Barbara Davis Crawford
section: Interviews
Reverend Barbara Davis Crawford was born and raised in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina. She attended Myers Street School and Second Ward High School and was very active in the athletics and after school programs at the High School. Reverend Crawford is an Assistant Pastor at Greater Bethel AME Church in Charlotte, formerly known as Bethel AME which was located in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Reverend Crawford helps to define the boundaries of Brooklyn by remembering the various buildings and businesses as a “walk-through” the neighborhood. She is also an outspoken advocate for the preservation of the heritage of the Brooklyn neighborhood, fighting to keep the existing gym in place as a reminder to all generations of the neighborhood and its memories.
Part I
Part II
Tape Log
Tape Log: Oral History Interview with Barbara Davis Crawford
Interviewed by Kathryn Wells
| Time | Description of Interview Contents |
|---|---|
| 0:0 | Beginning of interview. |
| 0:0 | Introduction by Kathryn Wells. |
| 0:3 | Introduction from Reverend Barbara Crawford. n this section Reverend Crawford discusses extensively growing up in rooklyn nd mentions several business names and names of friends and family. he also iscusses her time at Myers Street School and Second Ward High School. |
| 17:1 | Discussion about Grier Funeral Home. |
| 24:2 | Question regarding Church missions and activities in the community. n talking about the churches and being central to the community: “It was a bond, and it gave us something to do and somewhere to be and ade us feel like we was wanted in the society at the time because we had o many hardship of places we couldn’t go, so it made us aware that we ad somewhere to go…” |
| 29:1 | Reverend Crawford takes a memory “walk” through the Brooklyn eighborhood, iscussing the boundaries of the community. |
| 35:5 | Discussion of the rivalry between Second Ward and West Charlotte. |
| 38:5 | Discussion of the wealthy and poor in the community. |
| 40:3 | Discussion of whether the residents of Brooklyn were given a voice in the ecisions surrounding Urban Renewal. “And it was just heart crushing, when you come and see your historical actor just gone, just like that, and I could not even keep a brick from my chool because I wasn’t here. A lot of people gathered bricks for emories and I wish I could have gotten one of those bricks because I’m a erson that saves, kind of like everything.” |
| 46:0 | Question about the church congregation holding together. |
| 48:1 | What lessons do you think politicians should take from the experience of rban Renewal in Brooklyn? “Politics should try to keep and preserve some things that is historical…” “And my heritage I want to live on for boys and girls that might have nown me, all their parents and their grandkids might say, ‘Well this is the irst school.’ And, I just want them to, just to keep their history, not only he black history, but just keep the history of old people, of young people, f the generation so they would know.” |
| 53:1 | End of File 1. |