2. The Great Migrants

Ardelle Vivienne Robinson

“I know my grandfather’s family was from Abbeyville [South Carolina]. And they knew of a gentlemen that lived in Abbeyville who was a very influential black man. Who was in the process of—he was tryna do business with some white people in the community who he thought respected him, I guess. And they kept insisting that he was trying to cheat them. One thing led to another, this man ended up dead, [and] my family said we gotta get outta here. And they packed up and came straight to Pittsburgh. I think they settled on Junilla St actually, where we have people in our family who still live in that very same house. But the house that they lived in that we all grew up in, including my mother and all her kids, was on Anaheim St, which is in Schenley Heights. But he had that house built for her. And it still stands today.

My grandfather Douglas Robinson was a Pullman Porter. That’s all he ever did his whole adult life. He loved his job as best he could under the circumstances. I hear…it was a good job, for black men at the time. But of course, it was the times. And he did well, financially. The Pullman Porters did well. They did better than most. My grandmother like I said, she was born in Red House, VA, she came to Pittsburgh when she was a young woman. She belonged to a lot of different ladies clubs, she went to teas, bridge clubs, card parties, all that kind of stuff. And she was very active in the community with other lady groups.

I used to get in the middle of the bed in the morning and just wait for them to wake up. I was in the middle of the bed one morning and she said to him, ‘Douglas put the light on.’ And he put the light on. And she said, ‘I said put the light on!’ And she woke up blind. She didn’t go to bed blind, but she woke up blind. After that she couldn’t be helped, she couldn’t regain her sight. When the light went out that morning, that’s the same switch that made everyone stay away from her. I just know he was very attentive to her. Anything she needed. She never wanted much but it didn’t matter. Anything she mighta asked for he made sure she had it…I thought he was a great guy.”

Elizabeth Ann Sharpe Haley

“I was actually born in Alabama. A place called Leedahachie (sp?), which is about 30 miles from Montgomery. My parents were there, both were uh, grew up in Alabama. At six months of age they moved to Pittsburgh. My mother’s sister and her family lived here, the Moncrief’s, and of course my dad was young with two young children, so the job opportunities were to be better here in Pittsburgh. So that’s when they moved here. So I actually grew up here on Morgan Street first, I remember that. And then my family purchased a house on Francis, which was up the street from the Centre Avenue Y.

[There is] just so much history in the Hill of people who’ve done well, and mainly because of the neighborhood. All the houses were [kept] with pride. And people were homeowners. Which doesn’t mean that if you weren’t a homeowner that you couldn’t prosper. But that Francis St and Centre Avenue, those were all homeowners so they took the leadership and pride into the Hill. So you know when people say, “Where are you from?” I say, “Oh I grew up in the Hill.”- So you know when people say, ‘Where are you from?’ I say, ‘Oh I grew up in the Hill.’”

Charlene Foggie-Barnett

“I guess my basic connection is my mother (Madeline Sharpe-Foggie) was married to my father in the Hill, and they produced me (laughs). But my mother was raised in the Hill on Junilla St. And her family was raised in the Hill, her extended family, cousins and what not. They had come from Abbeyville, SC, and eventually ended up as a family in the Hill District. My father was actually born in Sumpter, South Carolina, but he had to go north because his father was almost lynched. So he was born in South Carolina, raised in Boston, MA, and he became a minister and a Civil Rights leader here in the Pittsburgh area. But I was raised on Ewart Dr. It’s in the “Sugartop” area, which in some circles can get you into kind of a sticky mess because at one time it was considered an elitist area. It was and it was not—but there were some people that had made some advantages economically and socially and politically and educationally and what not—and they seemed to congregate in this area. Attorneys, physicians, business owners, ministers, educators lived in Sugartop, as did other people.

My dad was close with Thurgood Marshall and a lot of the national civil rights people. And I remember them being in the house different times, even Dr. King before his death. These people were sitting in each other’s living rooms, planning things. As we do now. But their outcomes were very much chronicled and pinnacled because big things were happening. But it was like a neighborhood and it felt so…if you fell down and got hurt, your neighbor would take you in and clean up your cut. It just seemed like—it was really like Cheers almost. Everyone really knew your name. Or they knew where you were supposed to be. And um, and it didn’t matter if you lived in the Lower Hill or Upper Hill or Middle Hill or whatever, people got along. [We] would play with friends. I know I’m making it seem like a utopia but it felt like that. And I’ve never had that feeling again.”