Green, Pamela: Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History collection: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids

Language of Materials

English.

Scope and Contents

Pamela Green is interviewed in her professional role as Executive Director of the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood. Green covers the history of the site as well as the institution, describes the historic houses, the educational mission, the programs and events, the planned expansion, funding, other goals, and the approach to exhibitions. She discusses the beginning of her involvement and her contributions as executive. Green returns to the topic of Weeksville's founding and addresses the boundaries of the site in reference to the neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. She closes with advice on education for young people. Interview conducted by Ansie Montilus, Monica Parfait, Treverlyn Dehaarte and Alex Kelly.

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. Use of the oral histories other than for private study, scholarship, or research requires the permission of BHS. For assistance, contact library@brooklynhistory.org.

Subjects

Organizations

Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History

People

Green, Pamela

Topics

African American neighborhoods -- New York (State) -- Kings County; African Americans -- Civil rights -- New York (State) -- New York; African Americans |x Colonization; Education -- New York (State) -- Kings County; Historic buildings |z New York (State) |z Kings County; Historical museums |z New York (State) |z Kings County; Museums |z New York (State) |z Kings County; Race identity; Race relations -- United States; Slavery |z United States |x History

Places

Bedford-Stuyvesant (New York, N.Y.); Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) |x History; Crown Heights (New York, N.Y.); Weeksville (New York, N.Y.)

Green, Pamela, 2010 May 26, inclusive