Audio excerpts of Dorothea Mockabee recalling life in the Twin Cities. Mockabee grew up in Saint Paul. Her father owned a barbershop on Rondo Avenue in the section of the city where most black people lived.
As part of The Minnesota History Center exhibit called "Our Gathering Places: African-Americans in Minnesota,” the Historical Society recorded a number of interviews with black Minnesotans.
DOROTHEA MOCKABEE: This is the days when Black people couldn't use the hotel facilities downtown and everything. And so when the Black stars would come to town, Bill Bojangles, they would stay at Miss Viola Wilson's house across the street from Maxfield School. So he cut many head of hair of Black actors and whatever he called.
Bojangles was one of his good friends because they used to call my dad "Horse Collar" because he had a big neck. He wore a 17 collar, so that was a horse collar. [LAUGHS] He'd come and tell me, where's the horse collar?
I think a lot of our people here in Minnesota, we were just oriented with the Caucasians because we were still very few of us here. There were so very few of us. You could go down town, you could throw a rock all the way through downtown, you wouldn't see another Black person.
You see, there wasn't much prejudice here, but I never noticed it because I was, a kid. And you don't. My mother read the Black newspapers, and she would explain that stuff to whatever is in the papers because we didn't know anything about-- we didn't learn anything about Black history.
Schools here in St. Paul, the kids-- when I was coming along, same thing about Black. We thought-- they'd always tell us about the bone and the nose, and all this kind of stuff in our history class. And I'd go under the seat like this when they start talking that stuff. And we didn't know anything. All we knew was Booker T Washington and the Carver. That's all we knew.
In 2008, Minnesota's voters passed the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution: to protect drinking water sources; to protect, enhance, and restore wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve arts and cultural heritage; to support parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater.
Efforts to digitize this initial assortment of thousands of historical audio material was made possible through the Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. A wide range of Minnesota subject matter is represented within this collection.
Views and opinions expressed in the content do not represent the opinions of APMG. APMG is not responsible for objectionable content and language represented on the site. Please use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report a piece of content. Thank you.
Transcriptions provided are machine generated, and while APMG makes the best effort for accuracy, mistakes will happen. Please excuse these errors and use the "Contact Us" button if you'd like to report an error. Thank you.