Interview with Doretha Nichson

              Special Collections
Public Spaces in Miami: An Oral History Project
Interview with Doretha Nichson
Miami, Florida, November 30, 2000
Intervew IPH-0051
Interviewed by Aldo Regalado
Recorded by Aldo Regalado
Summary: This interview with Doretha Nichson was conducted in November 2000. Ms. Nichson is a member of the board of directors of the Neighborhood Housing Services in the North Central Dade Area of Miami. She was born and raised in Overtown where her father and grandfather owned businesses. She is a graduate of the Hampton Institute, in Virginia, where she majored in Accounting. Ms. Nichson talks about life in a self-sufficient segregated African-American community and neighborhoods viewed as extensions of one’s family.
This interview forms part of the Institute for Public History (IPH) Oral History Collection, directed by Professor Greg Bush from the History Department and curated by the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections.
Copyright to this interview lies with the University of Miami. The interview recordings or transcript may not be reproduced, retransmitted, published, distributed, or broadcast without the permission of the Special Collections. For information about obtaining copies or to request permission to publish any part of this interview, please contact Special Collections at asc@miami.edu.
1300 Memorial Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33124-0320 * 305-284-3580 * 305-284-4901 fax Doretha Nichson
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Ameenah Shakir: Good Morning. Today I will be interviewing Mrs. Doretha Nichson. My name is Ameenah Shakir. I am a University of Miami graduate student. The first question I would like to ask you is what does community mean to you?
Doretha Nichson: When I think of community I generally think of unity; that is, people who have a common interest in the neighborhoods where they live and a common commitment to being a part of that neighborhood. So it is not just geographic things, it is kind of an experience, a shared experience.
A.S.: Where and when were you born?
D.N.: I was born here in Miami in Overtown in 1933, so I am now sixty-seven.
A.S.: Were you raised in Overtown?
D.N.: Yes, my father and grandfather both had businesses in Overtown ( ) and I guess when I was around twelve or so, our house caught on fire. So we had to relocate and we relocated to the projects on 62nd street and 12th avenue.
A.S.: What type of businesses did your father and grandfather have?
D.N.: My father had a jitney, [a] line of jitneys, and my grandfather ran a small store.
A.S.: And for those who don’t know, what exactly is a jitney?
D.N.: Well, jitneys then were not like they are today. They are kind of vans today. When my father had his jitneys it was more a seven passenger car or like a station wagon today, and so it took people - primarily blacks - that live in Overtown but worked over on the beach or downtown where it was an intercity transportation system.
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A.S.: Did your mother work as well?
D.N.: My mother worked in the store and at one point she also had a restaurant in the Grove. So traditionally our family has been self-employed in various ventures most of my life.
A.S.: I know you mentioned that you went to Dunbar Elementary School, but what other schools did you attend?
D.N.: I went to Dunbar, then Booker T. Washington, in Overtown where I graduated; it’s not there anymore. I only went to those two schools. I didn’t move around a lot; we were very stable.
A.S.: You mentioned that you lived in Overtown, in your early life, and I was just wondering if you could give me some of your early memories of Overtown, in relation to the way it is now and the way Miami has grown.
D.N.: Well, the most vivid thing I remember about Overtown now is the fact that the house where I was born and lived, and my grandfather’s store was in that neighborhood, is all- and the church that I went to- were all torn down. We were victims of urban removal and in order to put in I-95 expressway, they took those two streets. So, that memory has to be a personal memory because there is nothing to go back and look at. But I remember my childhood as being very warm, loving, positive experience; our neighborhood was like an extended family. I went to school within walking distance, within two blocks of my house, I went to church, within one block of my house, and my father’s and grandfather’s businesses [were] was right down the street from my house and I knew everybody, you know, in the surrounding ten square blocks. So it was, it was something as I look at young people today and don’t see that kind of experience very much. I really miss it because it is a very rich part of my life, my heritage.
A.S.: Do you feel that your parents’ early entrepreneurship encouraged you to become an entrepreneur?
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D.N.: I do believe so; my mother and grandmother and a friend of hers had-- went into business together and had an employment agency where they placed domestic workers, and my mother at one point sold insurance, and I had those same experiences. I had my own employment agency here in Miami and I also was an insurance agent in which I ran my own insurance agency. I don’t believe that I consciously attempted to follow in my mothers’ footsteps. I think that was coincidence because I only thought about it after the fact, but I do believe that that sense of making your own way, making something happen that you’re interested in, creating something, trying to make something out of nothing; I believe that is a part of my background in the experience with my parents and grandparents, and although I have had positions as an employee, I have always gone back and forth from one business venture to another all of my adult life.
A.S.: What was your first experience with racism? I know you mentioned earlier that your father ran a jitney service and took people to Miami Beach and your mother had a restaurant in the Grove; what were some of your early experiences with racism?
D.N.: During that period of my life, I didn’t even know the word racism because I lived in a segregated community that was self-sufficient, so I didn’t encounter other people. I went to a segregated school; I didn’t think of it as a segregated school, it was just my school, my neighborhood school. I didn’t have any significant contact or interaction with white people at that time; there weren’t a lot of foreigners in Miami, the way they are now, but I was not aware of the segregation and discrimination and so forth growing up as a child. Certainly [not] in my early years, and so, I don’t feel that I was seriously impacted by it, but I thought I was living the life. I thought it was great, I didn’t have any complaints, until I got to high school, and I think in high school I sort of became more aware of the fact that there were people out there doing things that I couldn’t do and going places I couldn’t go. And so, I… but again didn’t feel negatively impacted. I don’t remember being concerned about it, quite frankly, until I remember, when I graduated from high school, I went to school in Virginia and I do remember when we moved to Liberty City and I had, therefore I had to commute to come to high school in Overtown—Booker T, and of course we passed other schools in order to get to Booker T. Then that’s when it really, I think, impressed me that I couldn’t go to Doretha Nichson
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those schools we were passing. I think Jackson is one that comes to mind at the time; that was a white high school and probably there are other things that I have just put out of mind because they weren’t important to me at the time. But I’m certain [there were] signals and symbols that I was aware of…going downtown to shop for example, we couldn’t try on clothes in Burdines, and that kind of thing, but I am not much of a shopper. So I’d stay home while my mom did the shopping. I remember stories that my parents would tell but I didn’t personally experience, about my dad having encounters with who[m]ever and close calls. We had family and property in Georgia; during the summer we used to drive back and forth and they had to make special arrangements as to where to stop to go to the bathroom and we would take our food with us because we couldn’t stop on the road. And I would hear stories about sheriffs and law enforcement officers in Georgia giving him a hard time because he had a big new car and that kind of thing. Now they would call it racial profiling or driving while black, but back then you were running the risk of getting lynched and my mother and grandmother were always, when they were talking about it, they were being anxious about his safety. That was one of the reasons he allegedly, that he worked for himself, because he didn’t take a lot of, he wasn’t tolerant of people not respecting him. And one story that I heard was that at one time he was a chef on a ship at sea and the reason they sent him away was because they didn’t want him to get killed because he was having some dispute with white folks and so forth; they figured it was better for him to get out of town.
A.S.: You mentioned earlier that Overtown was a self-sufficient African-American community; how did that compare to moving to Liberty City?
D.N.: As I remember it, when we moved to Liberty City that sense of self-sufficiency moved with it; there became more and more black owned businesses because the population was there to support those businesses. And it was a black community; it was not mixed. Liberty City has always been pretty much the same as it is now as far as demographics, but the funeral homes, the medical professionals, the legal professionals, the stores, the neighborhood convenience stores, you name it-- your first line of resource to get what you needed was from someone within the community, you know, small sphere, and you only went outside of that to buy large ticket items, as they say, things that a small store wouldn’t Doretha Nichson
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carry. But for the most part, back in those days, there were just numerous black owned businesses of all kinds, so you expected that to be your experience; it wasn’t something that you had to struggle to accomplish.
A.S.: Did your father and grandfather at that time still have their jitney service--well, your father’s jitney service?
D.N.: Yes, my father had his jitney service until he died in ’63. He had a service station, on the corner of 14th street and 3rd avenue of Overtown, and that was also the sight where he stored the jitneys, and he had other drivers, and so he had his own medallion for jitneys. And he wasn’t a driver, there were other people driving for him; so he was, although he did other things from time to time, he was in that business for most of my life and up until he died.
A.S.: Did your mother still have her restaurant in Coconut Grove?
D.N.: No, she was in, she and my grandmother were in a serious auto accident driving down one time, and because they were in the hospital for an extended period, the restaurant closed, so after that they didn’t open it up again. It was after that that she started working with the insurance agency.
A.S.: What type of restaurant was it?
D.N.: It was called B’s Home cooking; there were people who used to come for breakfast, before they go to work. I don’t know what their lunch time traffic would have been like, but I remember that one of the reasons they went so early is so they could have breakfast ready for the people who would come and get breakfast and then go on to work, and I think they had a big Saturday weekend business. I was small, so I don’t remember the details just other than them talking about it, but it apparently was successful business while they were running it. Since it was family-run, the family members, primarily being my mother and my grandmother and my great aunt, but when they weren’t able to do it, there was no one to take care of it, because my dad and grandfather were busy with there own businesses. Doretha Nichson
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A.S.: In Coconut Grove, at that time in the West Grove, there were a lot of Bahamians. I guess those were mainly the people who frequented the restaurant, or did people from South Miami or other African-American communities?
D.N.: I wasn’t aware of South Miami; I don’t know what the black population of South Miami would have been like in those years. This was, this was in the forties, and there were a lot of Bahamians in the neighborhood surrounding Overtown as well. I didn’t know that I was eating the same food, the same things they were eating, using the idiomatic phrases and slang and so forth, but I think it was more the neighborhood. It sounds like the kind of business that people would was not necessarily travel to, but it was near home or near where they worked or when they where going from one place to another, and I suspect that it was largely a close distance.
A.S.: What were some of your early experiences of living in Liberty City?
D.N.: Well, we lived in-- the projects were squared off with an inner courtyard that came with playground equipment, it was really family-oriented, children-oriented, and I remember the people in that particular square. There was a music teacher; I took piano lessons, and of course I knew all of the families. Everybody knew each other and the children played together. It was, I don’t remember, I would think most of my memories were more related to school, than to were I lived, because as I said I went to Booker T and there was just so much going on for me with school, and I was active in different clubs and that kind of thing, of course. I wasn’t dating because I wasn’t allowed to date until I was sixteen. So, church and school really established the context of my early experiences during those years, and I was home just because I wasn’t at church or school, or if there was no one home for whatever reason I would always leave school and go over to my grandparents who still had the store in Overtown. So, I don’t remember any-- anything more than the fact that I thought it was a thriving community. I mean, there was always something going on; there was a community center up at Liberty Square, I think it’s called. And everybody took a lot of pride in maintaining their lawns, and it was required that if you didn’t have a lawn mower, as most people didn’t, you would go up to Liberty Square and borrow one from up there because you Doretha Nichson
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were absolutely required to take care of your yard and keep it looking nice. And this sense that people have about housing projects, the negative image that people have of housing projects, was not something that we were conscious of because they were new and well- maintained and the people living there, it was just like you were living in an apartment, and so I wasn’t aware of that stigma when I was living there; I only became aware of that after we left. When we say people live in the “projects” it’s something like, carries that image like “Good Times” where everybody was kind of down and out which is, I guess, would fit into the description now. But I remember it as being a great place to grow up… I don’t have any memory or experiences that gave me a negative feeling of it; we weren’t there for a long time because they only allowed us in because we had the fire, and I don’t know what the criteria was, but at some point we moved out and moved back into our own home, and we started another store over in Brownsville. And that store, I think he bought it-- that store had housing behind it, and so we were in the residential part and then somebody ran the store, so, for those years that we were there ().
A.S.: So how long did you live in Liberty City?
D.N.: Well, by the time, maybe about six years, because it seems to me when I went to high school, shortly after I went to high school, we moved out there and when I graduated from high school, we were no longer living there, so, without having some confirmation from my mother, I’m not really sure, but that is the way I remember it, that when I graduated from high school we weren’t living in Liberty City, but we were living in…
A.S.: Did you have other siblings?
D.N.: My father married again and had another family so I have half brothers and sisters, but I was in high school by that time so we didn’t grow up together.
A.S.: Was that experience traumatic for you, when your father remarried, or how did you adjust?
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D.N.: I am sure it was, but well, it was, but I don’t remember the specifics of what went through my mind at the time. I was-- I think I was more traumatized by the separation of my parents than I was by the fact that my father subsequently remarried. And when they separated my mother and I moved to Lincoln Terrace on 62nd street, but it was just a year before I graduated from high school and went away to college, so I wasn’t there for very long, and I was, and our family remained close. I was never aware, and I think the reason it was so traumatic was is because I didn’t see it coming, and even after the separation my whole family-- my mother, my father, and my grandparents, and my aunts, and cousins and all the relationships—continued. The extended family stayed tight, even though they were no longer married and living together, and so his remarriage didn’t come-- and I was way in college and so I didn’t deal with that very much.
A.S.: Where did you attend college?
D.N.: Hampton, and at that time it was called Hampton Institute.
A.S.: And what was your major at Hampton?
D.N.: Accounting.
A.S.: Do you feel that you majored in accounting because both of your parents were entrepreneurs?
D.N.: No, I didn’t think about it that much at the time, but when I was in high school, Ms. Shannon, Marion Shannon, was one of my favorite teachers, she was my bookkeeping teacher. She had gone to Hampton--that is why I went to Hampton--and I enjoyed bookkeeping, and I was good at bookkeeping and secretarial, secretarial skills or whatever they called the courses back then, secretarial science, I think they called it. So, I didn’t have any strong career choice like somebody who wants to be a lawyer or doctor. I decided to major in something that I was good at and would enjoy doing and so that is why I picked Doretha Nichson
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accounting, because I knew I would be successful at it and it was something I had an affinity for.
A.S.: How would you compare the community of Hampton Virginia to Overtown or Liberty City?
D.N.: I never saw the community of Hampton, the campus was the community. I think the only time I saw Hampton or Richmond was when I was traveling and went to Richmond to get on the train. So, traveling from the campus to the train station and back, I don’t remember Hampton as a community at all; everything we needed was on campus, and so I was deep into that college experience.
A.S.: So after you left Hampton, did you return to Miami?
D.N.: I didn’t-- I left Hampton when I graduated in 1950, and I didn’t come back here to live until 1970. During the summers, because my mother does not have other family and she and my father were by this time divorced, when I was in my second year in college she moved to New Jersey, so when I was having college vacations, campus vacations, I began to establish a community life in New Jersey where my mom lived, and when I graduated I got a job in New York, so I would come to Miami to visit my father and my grandparents and my family, but I didn’t live here again until 1970.
A.S.: What made you come back in 1970?
D.N.: Well, in the meantime, once I graduated from college and got a job, my mother did not like the winters; she would come down in the winter and come back in the spring. She would come back right after Thanksgiving and would come back after Easter, or something like that, and as she got older, she began to seem not to want to keep coming back and forth and she was trying [to] decide which place did she want to live, but because of the winters she decided she wanted to come back to Miami. I had always been very close to my mother and lived with my mother most of my life, and so after I got to the point where-- first of all, I got Doretha Nichson
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divorced in 1973 and I was thinking about leaving New Jersey and my first choice was California, San Francisco, but my mother didn’t want to go some place where she didn’t know anybody. She said if she moved at all she wanted to come back to Miami, so I said, “Okay, it’s back to Miami we go.” So during one of those times while she was down in the winter, I would come down for a long weekend to start getting the lay of the land to see what was down here for me to do, and I finally got a job offer and I came down.
A.S.: Who were some of your early role models?
D.N.: Mrs. Walton Robinson Young; she was one of my teachers at Dunbar and I think she was some sort of () and Ms. Shannon, of course at Booker T., Ms Harris at church, the ministers and ministers’ wives, () things they would see and talk about and they encouraged me to explore different things but… Actually, my father was one of my role models, too, because I always respected his sense of responsibility for himself. He took care of his family and his parents, and he didn’t give excuses about other people wouldn’t do this for him, other people wouldn’t let him do that; he seemed to find a way to do what he wanted to do and be successful, and that is what I always tried to do. And he was a quiet man; he and I didn’t talk a lot about any of this. These things are things that I have thought about as an adult, but when I was growing up he was just my daddy. I was always taken care of and never had a sense of lack or need, and while I became, as an adult, I became aware of his foibles and weaknesses like all humans have, but it never got in the way of his being responsible. And I think that is something that is important, that is take responsibility for what you do and be willing to look at the consequences and live up to responsibility to others, so in that respect he was also one of my role models.
A.S. You mentioned your neighborhood where you grew up was destroyed, and in recent times they are talking about rebuilding the Scott Projects. I was just wondering, you being a person who had a community that was established and now it is no longer there, how do you feel that will affect people that live in Scott Projects?
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D.N.: Well, I think for anyone who has a strong attachment to their neighborhood and [has] have a strong attachment to the people in their neighborhood, because I saw my neighborhood in Overtown, as I said, as an extended family. I remember who lived where and who did what and that sort of thing. If you have that kind of attachment, then I think it tears at the roots of your sense of self to have that physical structure destroyed. Obviously you get over it, but it does, as you can see, it is the first thing I thought about; because having been away, when I came back in 1970, although I had probably read or heard people talk about the changes, one of the things that I did was get in the car and drive around and see some of the old sights, and that’s when it hit me: I drove up and down trying to find 5th place, which is where I used to live, and the street no longer exists. There was no other street named 5th place; they didn’t name another street that until much later. So here, I can’t find, I saw the school and I saw what came next, and I said, “I know I am not crazy, I know that there is supposed to be something in here between.” I think that, that same thing might happen to young people, too. I think that the older people will adjust more easily; the young people who are growing up there, if they have that sense of attachment, and I don’t know that they have that, then there is going to be a time, especially if they leave for awhile and that’s what they remember when they left. So while you are away you’re thinking of home and you’re thinking of home the way you left it, and so I think that would feel a wrenching. But, beyond that, it may be a blessing because sometimes we don’t move forward because we don’t have to. When something picks us up and puts us down some place else it’s a time to grow, to stretch and discover new horizons, to do a lot of things. So although those things happened as I was growing up and as I was moving, as I look back there were no negative consequences to me or my family that I am aware of; other than the fact, it just seemed unfair. I am not aware of the details, economic details, of what kind of settlement we got out of being, having us vacated, I doubt very seriously that it was anything that approached equity for our home, but that’s history, and we got new property, we had new homes, and went on with our lives rather successfully, I feel, from the point of view of what we were able to do considering the different things that happened, and so that’s all a part of life. Change is a part of life and while it may feel negative when it is happening to us sometimes, or as we look at it sometimes, it’s not necessarily negative, so that is the way I would look at Scott [Projects]. Ten years from now I know I can’t drive over to 62nd avenue and 12th parkway and see the Doretha Nichson
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structure that I used to live in. I know in my mind the same I know in my mind about Overtown, what that was for me, and I assume and really believe that whatever comes after that will be a positive experience for whatever generation comes next, and people who leave it, if they don’t return, move on to something that represents growth for them.
A.S. Do you feel that the people that are being displaced from Scott Projects will be accepted in the other areas they will have them living in while they’re rebuilding?
D.N.: If they want to be I think they will; and not, I would not term it as displacement, because they’re living in housing subsidies. Housing project, I think, is intended to give a person a leg up so that they can move on to be more. () And so, that should happen at some point, anyway, it’s just happening now, not by the person’s choice of timing, but by circumstances. But if all the systems are in place—and I am not suggesting that they are, they almost never are—but if all the systems are in place and the individual has the drive and the confidence, too--because it’s not happening overnight, there is some warning, there is a period of time to get ready for it. If I were that person or that family, I would insist on those systems responding to me in whatever I needed so that I could take the, so I could take and raise the family to this family change, making the best use of it and go on to something that… I am happy that there are programs for people to move into home ownership, which I serve on one of those boards, so I know that there are people in place, people in the Hope VI project in Scott. We ‘re looking at that as a population to serve and move them into home ownership at some point and try the programs. All kinds of things may be possible, but we have to look at it as an opportunity, not, rather than feeling like a victim; and I hesitate to say this because I don’t want people to… I’m not criticizing people; I am simply saying that that is what it takes. When you have reached a wall, then it is to decide—what’s going to give me a leg up to get over the wall, or around it, or look behind and find resources that I didn’t know I had before, and using it or whatever, rather than standing and crying and beating on the wall, that’s just not a way of dealing with problems; to the degree that people can do that, they will be fine.
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A.S.: You mentioned that you work on a committee that is interested in helping or is helping people to find homeownership. What are some practical ways that you are doing that on the committee?
D.N.: Well, the Neighborhood Housing Services; I am member of the board of directors and we are, our revitalization area is the North Central Dade Area. So, the staff there [has] have loan programs and home education buyer programs and we have systems in place to help people know what’s available, see how they qualify, and take advantage of it. I used to be the chair of that board of directors; I am not now, but our, the resident’s role has always been to help publicize the program, make sure that people get the services that are available, and to attract other resources that are needed for increasing homeownership or giving aid to revitalization projects on the way. And that was what attracted me to that organization and what I tried to keep the focus on, and not to lose sight of the fact that a lot of these government programs—(speaker breaks off because a pager is sounding) would not… so I was just talking about the work of the neighborhood housing centers, and that was primarily the focus from my perspective, was making sure that people knew about this effort. And the second thing we did quite a lot of, we do quite a lot of, is creating and organizing home owner associations and block-clubs and things of that kind so that the residents of an area get involved in planning and maintaining the standards of the neighborhood; that is probably the most challenging.
A.S.: Why would you say it is so challenging?
D.N.: Well, the revitalization area of the neighborhood area that we are looking at is primarily unincorporated Miami Dade, and it’s hard to get people to take responsibility for an area when they feel they don’t have any power or leverage with government. Because so much of what it takes to keep a neighborhood attractive and keep up the standards relates to what municipal government services, and unincorporated Dade in this area, it’s been a continual passing, so people lose, they either lose interest because it takes too much time and effort and they don’t see the results that they think they should get, or they don’t care to start with. They don’t feel a sense of responsibility; it’s somebody else’s responsibility to keep the Doretha Nichson
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yards clean because they are tenants, not homeowners. And there has been a lot of turnover in this particular area of homeownership, so it’s just, you don’t have an amount of people that have been living here for a long time you don’t see progress, or they don’t feel an investment in community. People have so, especially young families, have so many demands on their time and energy, they don’t want to go to homeowners’ meetings and PTA meetings, and so it has just been a constant challenge to keep the neighborhoods fulfilling that responsibility, not just as a homeowner but as a resident, because no matter who owns the house it is your yard, so that, we do have special efforts to do that for them.
A.S.: So is your organization responsible for the upkeep of these people’s yards or is it like when you lived in Liberty City, you were required to keep your yard clean?
D.N.: You know that was one of the conditions of living there—somebody from Liberty Square project staff, maintenance staff, would drive around and see that the yard wasn’t cut and if the grass wasn’t cut, then I don’t know if you got a fine or whatever, but people paid attention to it so there must have been some consequence, and you couldn’t have an excuse, that well, I don’t have a lawnmower, because you could, you could borrow one from down in the main office. But also people loved to have beautiful yards, shrubbery and flowers, and because the places all looked alike, one of the ways you personalize was by what you did, what you did with your yard, and I have noticed that there are some people now who do that same thing. As I drive around I see there are some yards that have just beautiful shrubbery and flowers and plants and so forth and somebody is obviously taking taken care of them, and then there others where the grass is cut, and that’s all, the grass is cut, but that is typical; even if you are living in a regular neighborhood, you know, you are going see people having different ways of maintaining their property, and, but it is always the responsibility of the person who lives there. Where we get involved is where there are vacant lots; it’s always a problem keeping them clear because most of them are owned by people who don’t live here and you have to find them, you…but no, we don’t take responsibility for maintaining, but what we try to do is--peer pressure is always helpful. So if you have a neighborhood association and they meet and they talk about standards and they talk about the people who don’t live up to them, then you are more likely to get a sense of responsibility out of that than Doretha Nichson
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if the neighbors argue and you talk to them. And so having a neighborhood organization is a real plus, then, making sure if there, if there are resources that are needed or from other places, then we try to place groups into those resources, and that’s what it’s all about.
A.S.: So how successful have you been in achieving homeownership for people that live in the projects?
D.N.: Well, rather successful. We have, I believe, in the last executive directors’ report, I think they maybe did over fifty this year, plus another number of people who are in the pipeline; meaning that they have been thinking of this as an option, they have taken this class, but they have to do some other things before they can qualify, like get their credit cleaned up so that they…but over the years, this is an organization that is twenty- two years old, so over the years, I’m sure that there are a lot of people who have benefited from this program. There are even areas of West Little River that this organization has placed, been responsible for building new housing, as well as helping people get loans for buying housing, so I think that it’s made a significant impact upon homeownership in this area and in some of the neighborhoods in the southwest as well.
A.S.: What partnerships do you have with banks or with other companies that help you to provide this homeownership?
D.N.: The structure of the NHS is a partnership between financial institutions and the residents of the revitalization area and government. We have representatives from all those groups on the board so, and so, they, the reason they are there is that it takes that combination of resources to make it happen. If it were just a resident group than we would have to keep trying to get cooperation and support from the financial institutions and governments; by setting the organization up, and it’s a national network, it makes it real easy by setting the organization with that collaborative structure. It’s built into the process, so we have banking partners that are prepared to be a part of the deal, where this combination of some subsidies, some private money, some of the residents’ down payments, when the loan officers put the whole package together they’re able to, especially with the special interest rates that we get, Doretha Nichson
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the government subsidy tax credit… I don’t understand all of the legalities of it, but when they get through putting the bid together that’s what makes it affordable. The term that they use now is affordable housing, that’s what makes it affordable, because otherwise this person, if they just went into the bank on their own, than they don’t need it, if they can go into the bank on their own and buy the house, they don’t need a program like this. It is for the people [for whom] who there is a gap between how far they can go financially and what the financial requirements of the financial institutions [are] is, and this program helps close that gap, and also the training to the prospective homeowner helps them not only to acquire the house, but to be more successful in managing their finances so they can keep it, and also maintain managing the property. I think it is a very positive program.
A.S.: Did the fact that you always lived in your own home, was that one of the motivating factors for you to be involved in this program?
D.N.: Actually, I was, I came into awareness of this program and started working with it in a collaborative effort when I was working at the community college for a community organization, and because the neighborhood organization was one of the things NHS does, and serving the same community that I was trying to work in. We had a collaboration between the college, the church that had an outreach program, and NHS, because we were trying to do some general community improvement, an improvement moving toward incorporation, so that is how I first came in contact with it, and subsequently, we had a grant for outreach specifically geared toward forming more homeowners’ associations, neighborhood block clubs, various kinds of organizations, so that was my primary interest. The fact that they were into homeownership was kind of secondary and it just kind of factored together.
A.S.: What other community activities do you participate in?
D.N.: Well, I’m involved in a senior citizens’ ministries and we have a weekly fellowship program that is here on Wednesdays, and also we take meals to … we are building a larger program shortly; we will be moving down to Arcola Park so that I can’t expand it here. Doretha Nichson
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“END OF SIDE A”
“START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B”
A.S.: We were talking about your community activities; what do you feel encouraged you to become so active in the community?
D.N.: Well, community service has always been a part of my approach to life generally, so when I get involved in church or my neighborhood that generally leads me to looking for an area of service so [cough]… that’s why I get involved in community activities, to find a place to make a contribution to making things better for us, all of us, and it generally works off of something that I am already involved in like this business, because my mother is an elderly person, I am an elderly person for that matter, but because I am involved with older people I become aware of their needs and things that I think could be done better and so that leads me to getting involved in activities.
A.S.: Do you feel that parks and other forms of recreation are important in community?
D.N.: Definitely parks are places where people can connect, and I think that when people connect they begin to care about their common interest more, and so a park, a neighborhood park, is a place where children and adults can find common interest and common activities and get to know each other, so I think having neighborhood parks is very important to any community. You tend now more to see in this area more development of regional parks which brings people from all over into that park. It doesn’t accomplish the same thing, I think, that the community park is, what in the old days in the forties, maybe the corner drug store or the local movie house used to be someplace safe where young people can hang out and do the things that young people do as a part of there childhood and adolescent experience.
A.S.: How do you feel the tearing down of Scott’s Projects will affect people that live there?
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D.N.: Generally I think the people who live there will see it as a, many of them will see it, as being negative because it will be disruptive to their lives, but I am hoping that they will be helped to see that it can be positive and that it could be a change that will take them some place that they want to go in life, such as owning their home or moving to different neighborhoods or whatever can happen. I think it is important to the people who are working in that process to make sure that resources and the information and motivational experiences and so forth are available so that people can find a way to make it a positive experience. I think it will be good for the people who move back into that location and for the ones who have to move somewhere else; I don’t think they will have less of a positive experience but just a different experience.
A.S.: You mentioned earlier that you worked in a job in New York after you graduated from Hampton University, at that time Hampton Institute, and later went on to work with the model city program. Can you give me a little more information on that?
D.N.: Right when I moved back to Miami,1970, my first job, the job that I got that allowed me to move back, was with the model city program that was in its first year, I believe, and that was the first time that I began to be involved in community organization. It was a good way to come back to Miami because it required me to get informed real quick about what was going on, and I had been away for twenty years and I saw it as a way of, positive way of, community development in that it looked at all of the aspects of municipal activities, physical environment, housing, economic development, parks and recreation, health and social services; all of those aspects that make for a positive community development, and approached them from a comprehensive planning point of view and simultaneously. Various programs in the past dealt with one or the other, at one time or the other, and therefore it was hard to see an end result that we were looking for, so there were some positive things that came out of the model city program, although generally the program project did not result in the proposed end result for a number of reasons, but like anything else if you look for it you can find some good in it. The community got organized to take responsibility for itself and, not that we weren’t, that program required community participation, and we have seen that continue in a number of governmental agencies, so I think that the model city concept, Doretha Nichson
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without necessarily coming from government, would be an idea that the local community should continue to use, and should look at the total community rather than just dealing with one aspect or one target group or one economic group, but look at the community and the people as a whole.
A.S.: How has your work with the north central Dade area been similar to other incorporation efforts in Miami?
D.N.: Well, it’s similar to the, I think it was around 1984, that there was an attempt to incorporate the new city that only came north to 103rd Street, and I said similar because it was a comparable socioeconomic community in the same general part of the county, it, and that didn’t, it failed as an effort, but it laid the ground work, and they started that effort again in 1990 and moved the boundaries to 135th street, so I think that we have more in common with that effort and with the destiny effort than we have with any other of the municipal incorporation efforts in the county, which have otherwise been affluent communities whose obstacles have been primarily getting around metropolitan Dade county, where as in our area we have other kinds of considerations to deal with, such as the tax base and tapping the leadership and finances to mount a campaign to get around Dade county, which destiny was not successful in doing for a number of reasons, but generally I think the incorporation movement county-wide is going to gain momentum, if we could ever get past the, get the front page of the Herald back, that’s been captured now for months and months between the "Elian business" and the "campaign business;" it’s hard to get local governments’ attention on anything else, but I am projecting that next year that is going to be a major issue.
A.S.: What do you feel is the legacy you will leave?
D.N.: Well, I’d like to leave a legacy that affirms that we can do anything, that anything is possible, and we’re not defined or limited by other peoples’ definition of black people or African Americans, and that our ultimate destiny is not in anybody else’s hands and that we will not accept the limitations that may be projected for us by race or income or any other limitation, but that we acknowledge that we do have personal power and cultural power and Doretha Nichson
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that we will know that all things are possible. And to the degree that I can help infuse that consciousness in young people and young adults and act from that consciousness as we deal with government and other institutions; that’s what I would like to blaze a trail for in terms of things that I have gone through.
A.S.: What books have you read that have increased this consciousness?
Pause
D.N.: I like reading Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angleou, Oprah, because I think these writers have that consciousness and they build their writings in a way to get that message to their readers. In the group of spiritual authors, I read Eric Butterworth early on; I read an Autobiography of Ayogi that really put me on this path and the Norman Peale Think as Though You Are Rich that was re-authored by Dennis Kimbro with more of a black perspective. I think it is just a powerful book of ideas and strategies so I tend to look for the kind of authors and books that keep me properly motivated along those lines and that I can use to encourage other people to get the message across.
A.S.: How do you feel Miami has changed in terms of diversity; what are your memories of diversity in Miami?
D.N.: My early memories in Miami…the diversity that I was aware of was within the black community, and that there were people who came from Georgia, South Carolina, and places like that, and there were Bahamians and that was it, and that was the diversity, and of course then there were the white people, so that was when what I grew up, but now the diversity in south Florida is just beautiful experience. I can remember times when I walked in areas, say over on Miami Beach, for example, or some other places where there was shopping and heard three or four different languages and I love language and I love traveling, so I am very cultural, world cultural-oriented, and I think that’s beautiful, and to the degree that our young people can realize that, they realize in that kind of environment and capitalize on it, would just be a tremendous experience. Unfortunately, that’s not where the focus is; the diversity Doretha Nichson
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that I hear focused on a lot has to do with having people overcome something negative. I don’t think of it that way, I think of it as being in the middle of something positive and just having to be aware, it… I don’t see anything negative about having a lot of different cultures in the same place because I don’t think that it takes away from any of them; I think that together they make something better.
A.S.: Do you feel that segregation has helped or hindered; integration has helped or hindered African-Americans?
D.N.: Integration has helped because integration, well, desegregation has helped because that is the removal of the legal participation in the unjust act of segregation, and so tearing down the walls of discrimination by removing the legal parts of it, the “civil movement” is very positive, because that is supposed to be the inalienable rights of all Americans to live in a free and just society, and so the first step to do that was to take the legal barriers. Desegregation, I think, has pretty much been accomplished; integration has not. We do not live in an integrated society, racially, culturally or socially or in some part economically; but you can make laws about segregation, we have not effectively legislated integration, and I don’t think we will. And so, the attempt to continue the civil rights movement along the same lines as it was in the sixties, I don’t think can be successful because civil legal obstacles are not our primary obstacles to deal with right now, so I think it is important to make a distinction between integration and desegregation and accept that we are, really, are not in a segregated society; there is no law that keeps black people from doing whatever it is they want to do, and using those same tactics is not going to win us any new battles in my opinion
A.S.: What if any other [Recorder is turned off and then back on].
A.S.: Earlier we discussed your parent’s involvement as entrepreneurs in Overtown and Coconut Grove; do you know what their motivations for coming to Miami were?
D.N.: I think in those days, and we are talking about the earlier thirties because I was born in 33, so late twenties, early thirties, I think, on my father’s side, my grandparents came from a Doretha Nichson
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farming community in Georgia, and I think as I spoke before, my family was just kind of built around the idea of economic independence and self sufficiency and for whatever reason, they saw their future being brighter in a city rather than if they continued in a rural area, and I believe that my grandfather came down to work on the railroad they were building in those days… I am not sure, but I could ask my mother, but I think I remember, and that’s what brought them to Miami. Some of our relatives went to Jacksonville, and so on my mother’s side, the reason she was here, I think her family had lived in that same area in Georgia, the Thomasville area, but she had an aunt who was a teacher at Mays and so when her father died, her mother came to live with us. My aunt was living down here and that [is] how my mother first came to Miami, and my mother and father met in Miami; they didn’t meet in Georgia, although they are both from there. I think, maybe, because they had common interest from coming from the same place and moving to the same church they eventually got married, but that’s how they got to Miami, as far as I know.
A.S.: Why do you feel that black entrepreneurship is lacking in the Liberty City area now?
D.N.: Well, this, I think, is one of the offshoots of integration. Businesses started to fail because the people had the freedom to shop and get services beyond the segregated business community, segregated community… they went elsewhere, that they used to get within the neighborhood, so a number of businesses started to fail and people were less motivated to start new business because the marketplace wasn’t there, as strong. Unfortunately, we didn’t re-invent a new economy and therefore it takes a lot more aggressiveness to start a business in a place like Liberty City. One of the things created by segregation was that you had a mixed economic community; you had blacks who were low-income, blacks who were low and moderate-income, and blacks who were affluent, and so you wouldn’t just have to have businesses that just catered to one economic group. Now Liberty City is for the most part, not totally, but for the most a low-income community, and most of the businesses there tend to cater to low and moderate-income customers, and I think that has been one of the negative things, is that therefore the other people have to go someplace else to find what they need, and the other reason, I think, has been because of the crime that was so rampant, not as Doretha Nichson
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much now, but for a period of time, of businesses were just getting stolen blind, day after day, and you couldn’t make any money. You couldn’t succeed in a business if its customers couldn’t be safe or if they were afraid to come because they thought they couldn’t be safe, and you couldn’t keep your stock on the counters because people were stealing you blind, and those are the things that probably had the most negative effect on black-owned businesses in Liberty City.
A.S.: Do you feel that the fact that you had once lived in Liberty City was one of the reasons you remained active with trying to allow people to get homeownership?
D.N.: Because, no, I don’t think so, I think I was interested in homeownership because I think we live in a kind of society where that is one of the notches on the belt of success and as long as you renting… and also because I think that building assets is a positive way to create an estate, so as long as you’re renting and you are not in a condo, or you’re not renting someplace where you are doing it out of choice, as long as you renting you’re not building that estate, so what do your children have, they also have rent receipts, so it’s called, I think heard someone call it once, real estate, the only real estate is a poor man’s way of creating an estate for future generations and their family, so you get a home that is worth 45,000 dollars and your children get one that is worth 100,000 dollars because of, they have that equity to build on, and some of those ideas, I think, are why… and also people tend to take better care of their property when they own it, they have more of a vested interest and in looking at community improvement, we could see that a lot of the problems had to do with people with transient tenants, and people waiting for the landlord to pickup the trash in front of their apartment building and stuff like that, so I think those are the things that led me to feeling that community improvement goals could best be achieved by improving home ownership.
A.S.: What does the home or house mean to you?
D.N.: A house is a physical structure; a home is an environment, an emotional and social environment, related to who is in the structure. That is the distinction that I make.
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A.S.: Thank you, you have been very informative.
D.N.: My pleasure.
“END OF INTERVIEW”