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Transcript of full Hazel Dukes interview

One of my dreams is to see that we can really put the culture into a curriculum form that we the presenters, such as myself and others, do not kill themselves in the shortest month of the year, in February, trying to rekindle and re-recite the history of African Americans. And I'm sure that there are other ethnic groups that feel the same way. So my dream is somewhere in civics, social studies, whatever our state board of regents come up with. And every year when the NAACP goes to Albany we continue to say this and my dream is one day that this is really a reality.

My name is Hazel N. Dukes. I am 67 years old. I reside in Manhattan. My occupation is a consultant [in health matters] and president of the New York State NAACP.

Q. Tell us what you did that has led to your being called an activist.

Dukes: I think several things that I feel identify me an activist: fighting for the rights of African Americans through my profession, my employment, as well as for myself in housing and active in the political process.

Q. Start if you would Ms. Dukes about moving up from Montgomery to Roslyn.

Dukes: 1956, in Roslyn. I was in Queens before I moved to Roslyn. And when I came to Roslyn I was looking for living quartersand I read the papers and I saw that there were apartments, named the Roslyn Gardens Apartments. I had the money. I was employed. I went and did what you were supposed to do. I filled out an application for the apartment. Most times they run a credit check and they need a reference from you and I had all of that prepared. And next day, I received my deposit saying that the apartment I had looked at had been rented.

I had known and had met Marge Rogatz and members of the Roslyn community through other activities in education, and we had become friends. I called and said what had happened to me. They immediately went to Roslyn Gardens the next day and applied for an apartment. I told the apartment I had seen, gave them the number. They went and of course, two white women were immediately given the apartment. And so we then started our action. We filed with the Human Rights Commission on discrimination of housing because of color.

Q. Did that mark the beginning of your activism on LI?

Dukes: not really. I had been involved in the political process. I had been involved in the education system and my employment. I worked for the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission. That was the first real entrance to politics. Our job was to go out and to assist the poor in Nassau Countyto gain employment, education. It was three of us at that time. Two [are] deceased and I'm the living of that group. Lanetta Miller from Rockville Centre and James Davis of Glen Cove. It had to be about '62, '63, '64, '65, somewhere in that era.

Q. Why did you become an activist?

Dukes: I became an activist because my father was a Pullman Porter. My father was a Pullman Porter and I remember him talking about how African Americans was treated and why he joined up with A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. And so being the only child, I guess children sit and hear and something sparked in you that you want to be different. And don't forget, I saw my parents being degraded. Getting on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., that they gave the nickel to the bus driver and if one white person is sitting on the seat, they had to enter [through] the back door. I remember going to a theater where blacks had to sit upstairs, and whites was downstairs. I know about the difference in drinking of the water. While I was a child , undoubtedly seeing these things put a spark in me that made me want to see change.

Q. Before you came up North, were you involved in any kind of activism?

Dukes: No I was not. Just my dad.

Q. Describe further your activism on LI.

Dukes: One of my assignments [in Nassau EOC] was Long Beach, Roosevelt, Freeport. And I saw how the African Americans in those areas -- don't forget I came from the South, so I thought New York -- what you always thought was a dream. Those people lived -- in Freeport -- the housing was like shanty shacks, things that I had read about because I lived in the city of Montgomery, I didn't live in the countryside. So I was amazed to see how people were living [on LI], how they were treated. One woman befriended me, she's deceased now. Her son is known in Nassau County. Her name was Mrs. McCall, her son worked in the EOC with me, was a lieutenant and a deputy for the late John Kearse, Billy McCall. His mother befriended me and said to me you have the energy to get our community moving and I'm going to assist you. And Ms. McCall got persons to come to meetings to hear what we needed to do. To make sure that urban renewal would build housing, that the people who lived in Freeport, Roosevelt wouldn't have to be displaced. We began to work with parents on school -- children in the school -- Alonzo Shockley who's still living now, was the education director for the EOC. We went out and told parents about what they needed to do so their children could succeed in schools. That was our job. Our job was to go out and empower -- the word wasn't empower at that time, it came later--but that's what we were doing, empowering the community to be able to speak to the town and the village fathers.

Q. And when you came to LI were you surprised at the separation, isolation of black communities?

Dukes: Absolutely. Absolutely. I never dreamed that that was happening in the North, because that's not the picture. It was always the South that had been segregated and was the worst and no cohesiveness between the races. But when I came and worked in those areas, it was worse, some of it, than what I had seen in Montgomery, especially the housing.

I was reared in a house that had indoor toilets. I saw shanty shacks almost in Freeport-Roosevelt. I mean they were not properly built. It was missing indoor toilets in some places. That was the kind of place. You had two societies in LI. You had the rich, which was the North Shore. Which was the Glen Cove, the Roslyn, the Great Neck, the Manhasset and Port Washington. Port Washington, there was a small black community. In Roslyn there was a small African American community. But on the South Shore, which took in Hempstead, Freeport, Roosevelt, and the politics of this--remember Roosevelt is an incorporated village, so the funds that they got -- what happened in Roosevelt, the people didn't have a tax base there,. And in Freeport, what we did was build up African Americans who went out and began to advocate for their community and changes began to happen. The late Rev. Millettewas an outstanding pastor that worked with us. The Rev. Simon Bowie, who was then the pastor at the Methodist church there in Freeport. They began to work with us, so we got a group of leaders that we found in the community that we worked with to give to them issues that was confronting them, to be the spokespersons for it because they were residentsthat was our job as EOC workers.

Q. Did you see improvements?

Dukes: Absolutely. We saw improvements through our advocacy work with them. I then later, I was transferred from working with the parents, to working with Nassau County and the state bus company. We didn't have buses leaving out, so the employment problem in the area, they didn't have bus services, they didn't have the services they needed to get from one place to the other. So my job then was to make surveys of Rockville Centre, Freeport, Roosevelt on the service to get people from A to B... So we were able to see bus routes established. [took about 2.5 yrs].