Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Nellie Hill Trapp
Born in 1922, Nellie Harrell grew up in Richmond, Virginia. She began dancing at age 14, and moved to New York City a few years. During the height of her career as a noted singer, dancer, and entertainer, she went by her married name Nellie Hill. Hill performed in early music videos called “soundies,” appeared on the cover of Jet Magazine, and frequented Black clubs such as New York’s Kelly’s Stables and Detroit’s Flame Show Bar and 20 Grand. In the 1950s she married James Trapp and had three children. After retiring, she volunteered at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Nellie Trapp was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Nancy Taylor
Nancy Emmons Taylor was born in 1941 and grew up in Luxmanor, Maryland. She attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. She married Thomas Taylor soon after graduating, and they had two children. She received her Masters from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. When their children had graduated from high school, the Tayors moved to London for 12 years. Thomas was the administrator of an international Quaker program and Nancy was the warden of the Quaker meeting house and ran a program for international diplomats.
Nancy Taylor was interviewed by students from Skyline High School in Ann Arbor in 2014 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Mary Martin
Mary Dyson Martin was born in 1914 in Dallas, Texas. Her grandmother had been enslaved in Tennessee, and she grew up conscious of that legacy. Martin graduated from Fisk University and got her masters in library science at the University of Illinois. She taught swimming lessons for the YWCA Girl Reserves during the summers. She was a high school librarian in Gary, Indiana and Detroit, Michigan for over thirty years. Her husband was a doctor and a World War II veteran. They were married for 47 years and had two children.
Mary Martin was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Mary Frazier
Mary Frazier was born in 1910 in Marion, Arkansas, where her father owned a 140-acre cotton farm. She describes sharecropping, Black land-ownership, and the devastating effects of the boll weevil infestation on the cotton industry in the early twentieth century. When her father’s farm went under, she moved to Detroit to live with her aunt in the Black Bottom neighborhood. Over the course of her career, Frazier worked as a domestic laborer, hospital worker, and U.S. Postal Service employee. She completed her high school education at age 83.
Mary Frazier was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Marlene Laws
Marlene Laws grew up in Detroit and graduated from Sidney D. Miller High School in 1958. She served in the military at Fort Sam in Houston, Texas from 1960 to 1962. Upon returning to Michigan, she was a nurse at Pontiac State Hospital for two years. Laws dedicated 43 years of her career to the United States Postal Service as a clerk and then as a Human Resources specialist. She and her former husband Kenneth had one daughter, Dr. Dawn N. Laws. Marlene Laws passed away on February, 4, 2017.
Marlene Laws was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Louise Adams
Louise Adams was born in 1928 and grew up in Ecorse, Michigan. She was the first Black student to graduate second highest in her class at Ecorse High School in 1946. She studied art education at Wayne State University and taught in public schools from 1951 until her retirement in 1983. She married Chuck Adams in 1951 and they had two children, Marcus Adams and Sylvia Adams Burns. They lived in Detroit and then Inskter, where the family built their own home. Louise Adams passed away on June 12, 2014.
Louise Adams was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Lomas Shaw
Lomas Shaw was born in 1915 in Laurens County, South Carolina. He attended Sterling High School in Greenville, SC, where he played football and baseball. He sang in a quartet at Friendship College in Rock Hill, South Carolina. After moving to Detroit in 1943, Shaw was a streetcar and bus driver for many years. He was married to his wife for over 70 years, and they had seven children. He was a dedicated member of Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church. He passed away on Saturday, February 18, 2017.
Lomas Shaw was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Larry Millben
Lt. Col. Larry Millben was born in 1936 in Detroit. His parents immigrated from Chatham and Windsor, Canada. Fascinated by airplanes from an early age, he was one of only a few Black students to attend Aero Mechanics High School (now Davis Aerospace Technical High School) in Detroit in the early 1950s. Millben went on to become an aircraft mechanic, a military avionics officer, and base commander of Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Prior to his military career, he also worked in research and development in the private sector. He married his wife Jeannie in 1959, and they have three children.
Larry Millben was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: Katherine Dawkins
Katherine Dawkins was born in 1932 in the Black Bottom neighborhood in Detroit. She had two children as a teenager, and recalls how that impacted her relationships with friends and family. She married her second husband, James Dawkins, in 1963. She has held various jobs, including switchboard operator at the Gotham Hotel and customer service representative at Harper Recreation Bowling Alley and Henry Ford Hospital. Late in life, Dawkins was inspired to return to school and she received her GED at age 79.
Katherine Dawkins was interviewed in partnership with the Museum of African American History of Detroit and Y Arts Detroit in 2010 as part of the Legacies Project.
Media
Legacies Project Oral History: June Bennett
Mary June Bennett was born in 1922 in Evanston, Illinois. She grew up in Ann Arbor and Birmingham, Michigan during the Prohibition Era. After attending the University of Michigan, she joined the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and graduated from midshipman’s school at Smith College in 1944. She was photo editor of the U.S. Navy’s All Hands Magazine. She had three children with her first husband, Maxwell Matthews, and after their divorce she married Clyde “Buck” Bennett in 1967. She was a family therapist for 25 years. She passed away in 2016.
June Bennett was interviewed as part of an internship at Applied Safety and Ergonomics in Ann Arbor in 2008 as part of the Legacies Project.