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Transcript of full Ernestine Small interview

BY JENNIFER BARRIOS | jennifer.barrios@newsday.com

"My name is Ernestine Small. I was born in the village of Rockville Centre, and I am 71 years old. I am program director for the Rockville Centre/Lakeview Economic Opportunity Commission.

I'm an activist only because Rockville Centre is my home. Anything during the time that I was growing up that needed changing or that we thought needed improvement, I tried to get involved in. Positive things. When there was a need for desegregation of the schools, and I was young at that time, I was just coming along, but I knew that we wanted quality, equal education for all children. Housing really took my notice when I was in school, as a young teenager. And we needed affordable housing in Rockville Centre. Our housing stock was becoming deteriorated. As a teenager, we started with petitions when I was in Southside High School in the fifties, I would say about '53 because I graduated in 1955, and we petitioned for low-income housing in the western area. I then went on to join the NAACP and other local groups, civic associations, that was lobbying and rallying here in this area for those particular things. We saw a need for something, we believed in it, and through these organizations we continued to work toward that end.

It took 10 years after my graduation before we ever realized they even started on housing stock in Rockville Centre. It took a lot of petitions. We had to get legal redress from the NAACP. We formed, we worked with CORE and many other groups because the village at that time was resistant to low-income housing. We had some owners. We had black homeowners. We had a mixed community. We had black and white mixed community. We had black businesses. But a mix in that we had a lot of rooming houses. And we had a lot of older houses that were deteriorating. So we knew we needed replenishing of that stock. So we were rallying for that. We had more people from the South coming North, and we needed housing. So through these organizations we started rallying for housing. The village was resistant to this. And as I said before, it took 10 years with the help of the NAACP legal redress department, CORE and the civic associations, and we had to picket and lobby really to get public housing. But unfortunately when we started out in this, because it took 10 years, we were looking for scattered site housing, which would have been available had we got it immediately.

However, we had to fight for so long, 10 years or so. The laws, the state laws and things had changed, and urban renewal laws had come about. And that meant clearing of your total area. Urban renewal meant, uh, we called it at that time "Negro Removal." And that's truly what it was. We lost our families and businesses and things like that. And not just in RVC, throughout Nassau County.

The government, that was the housing law those 10 years ... Urban Renewal meant you had to clear that whole area to restore it. They didn't do scattered site. That meant we would lose the homeowners and the black businesses. That was unfortunate for us. And because then they just give you a small site where they gave you 160 or 160 something apartments, and then later on we did get another 70 to 80 low-income apartments. So we lost our homeowners, we lost our black businesses, which was very important to our economy. Economic development goes along with that, too. After we realized that we were losing black businesses and things like that in our area, we formed the Stable Inn Corporation. And out of that ... they did build six or eight housing units that people could buy, not many. And we did get about four or five through Stable Inn ... we tried to get some black businesses started. They started for a while but later through the years were not successful, because of [the] changing economy. I wouldn't just say Rockville Centre. This was happening all over Nassau County ... This was happening in Hempstead, in Roosevelt, in Freeport. All over people wanted to have their communities revitalized. And who's resistant to it? Your governments. Your village governments or your local governments. Because before housing can come into a local area, it has to be approved by your mayor and your village government if you're in a village or either by your town. And if it's not approved, you don't get it. So your first battle is with your politicians that run your community. And this was not just, like I said, in Rockville Centre, this was throughout Nassau County.

Well, I was younger. And see, when you're younger, you don't think too much about fear. Yes, we picketed, yes we went out there on many lines and things. But at that time, I truly didn't feel fear. We felt change and that's what we wanted was change. We were motivated, Dr. King had motivated us throughout the country. We knew what we wanted and we weren't violent. We were taught not to be violent. We were Christians. I come out of a Christian home. We were persistent, and we did what we had to do, and we did it in a legal way.

I served 22 years on the Rockville Centre Housing Authority as a board member, an elected board member, and I am very proud that of those 22 years, we had 160 [units of] low-income housing [built] and it was quite nice at that time, and naturally through the years it had deteriorated and now they're starting to do some renovation. While I was a board member, we were able to get senior housing in on Merrick Road. So those are great accomplishments for the village and for people. I'm a people's person. And now, although I'm not a part of this community, I live elsewhere, I still work here in Rockville Centre, I still work with the families and children. That's to promote families, to develop themselves, family development. We lost homeowners. We had homeowners when I was growing up, and we had black businesses. We lost those things. That empowers people. That empowers communities. And because of this, we lost something in Rockville Centre. It's not the same. As I grew up as a girl, we had more of a community feeling, to see more family life and your businesses and mom-and-pop stores. We don't have that any longer.

I've been here at the Economic Opportunity Council for the last 33 years. When you're young and you see other families coming up from the South, young girls ... I was 15,16,17 ... I used to see young girls coming up from the Southland to work here, to make a living. And that bothered me, that they wasn't in school getting their education. So when you see certain things like that. They were coming in to do housekeeping and things like that, to send money back south to help their families. So when you see this and these young ladies, it inspires you to want to not only to help them [that's] coming from the South, but for those that's here and help them move up the ladder. And that's what it's all about. Each one help someone else. I come out of a Christian home, I'm just a Christian, and thus say the Lord. You must give back.

As I think back over the years now, I happen to be at the school, at the middle school when Dr. King was there, and Dr. [Ralph] Abernathy [president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference]. [King] gave as always a most inspiring speech, motivational speech, helping people, and what he was doing and why he was doing it and why he was going to Memphis, why it was so important, and that was to help the sanitation department. And he told us at that time that he might lose his life. But as I look now and as I think about Obama running for president, it's one of the happiest times in my life. Whether he becomes president or not he's running. And that's what's important. And that's what's important to the young people, that you can be whatever you want to be, but you must step out on faith."