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Green, Pamela, 2008 February 5, inclusive

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Pamela Green, executive director of the Weeksville Heritage Center, provides a history of Weeksville, a post-enslavement community of free, land-owning African Americans founded circa 1838 in Brooklyn, New York. She tells of the discovery of Weeksville, the campaign for its conservation and preservation, and the establishment of the Heritage Center. She outlines Weeksville Heritage Center's plans for the development and expansion of public programming to provide a contemporary learning experience that emphasizes early post-enslavement African American culture and achievements. She names connections between the WHC and Restoration, outlays her idea of the proper role of community development corporations, and discusses the matriarchy of female Black community leaders in Brooklyn's recent history. Interview conducted by Sady Sullivan with Bahati Williams.

Biographical / Historical

Pamela Green was born in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1948. Green has a bachelor's degree in mathematics and began her career in 1968. She has worked for International Business Machines (IBM) and First National Bank of Chicago. She was a commissioner with city government in New York until becoming an executive with the Children's Television Workshop, the production company of Sesame Street. After being laid off in 2001, she became Executive Director of what was then the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Green oversaw the restoration of historic homes on the site and a name change to the Weeksville Heritage Center in 2005. Three years later, plans for a new Education and Cultural Arts Building were implemented and building began. She retired from the center in summer of 2013. Green was a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn for decades, and also has a master's degree in finance from the University of Chicago.

Conditions Governing Access and Use

Access to the interview is available onsite at the Brooklyn Historical Society's Othmer Library and online on the Oral History Portal. Use of the oral histories other than for private study, scholarship, or research requires permission from BHS by contacting library@brooklynhistory.org.

Center for Brooklyn History
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201