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Paul Robeson
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Interview: Byrd, Arnold Norris, 2022 This interview was recorded as part of the Black Camden Oral History Project. Arnold Norris Byrd was born to Laura Bertha and Ralph Herman Byrd in Camden, New Jersey, in 1939. Byrd attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick from 1957 to 1961 and earned his Bachelor’s in Psychology while participating in athletics. At Rutgers he was part of the Black Student Union and the ROTC. In 1976, he graduated from Antioch College with a Master’s in Community Education. During the interview, Byrd discusses his family’s decision to move from Virginia as part of the Great Migration and his positive experiences growing up in Camden. He touches on the issue of school integration in the city. The interview includes information about his experiences in the ROTC and his military service in Korea. He ended his service as a captain in the reserves. He describes race relations in the military. He talks about his life-long participation in athletics, especially during his time at Rutgers University and while serving in the military. Byrd returned to Camden and spent most of his life residing in his hometown. The interview highlights his civil service and economic development work in the city, including work for the Welfare Board and his decades as the Executive Director of the Camden County Council on Economic Opportunity (OEO). He describes his relationship with Camden leader Poppy Sharp and the Black People’s Unity Movement. He also discusses his perspectives on Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. -
Interview: Grimsley, Harvey, 2019 Harvey Grimsley was born in Haleburg, Alabama, in 1922. His family fled the racial oppression and violence of the Jim Crow-era South and moved to New Jersey during his childhood. Grimsley attended schools in Bloomfield and then Orange, where his relative Monte Irvin also grew up. Irvin went on to play professional baseball and became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Grimsley graduated from Orange High School in 1942. During World War II, Grimsley was drafted. He served overseas in Europe in the segregated U.S. Army in an all-Black transportation unit. He and his unit partook in D-Day, the Allied invasion of German-occupied Normandy on June 6, 1944, and landed on Utah Beach. In 1945-'46, Grimsley attended Biarritz American University in Europe and played on the university's integrated basketball team. After being discharged from the Army, Grimsley was recruited to play football at Rutgers, which he attended on the GI Bill. Between '46 and '49, Grimsley distinguished himself as the Scarlet Knight's leading scorer, despite never starting a game under coach Harvey Harman. After graduating in the Rutgers College Class of 1950, Grimsley spent his career working as a coach, including being a high school coach in Newark and Piscataway and working as a recruiter for Governors State University in Chicago. He was inducted into the Rutgers Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. -
Interview: Venable, Bernice, 2015 Bernice Proctor Venable grew up in Somerville, New Jersey. In the interview, she discusses being raised by a foster parent after the age of thirteen and the support she received from her community in Somerville. She went to Douglass College, where she sang in the Rutgers University Choir and worked as a reporter for The Caellian. She majored in Spanish. Later, she earned her M.A. in Spanish Language and Literature from Rutgers, M.A. in Guidance and Counseling from Rider, and doctorate in Educational Administration from Rutgers. She went on to a career in education as a teacher, guidance counselor and administrator in Franklin, Somerville, Elizabeth, Irvington and Trenton. She served as Superintendent in Trenton for six years and in Irvington for two years. She testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in Abbott v. Burke, the landmark decision in which the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the state must ensure parity in educational funding between poorer urban school districts and affluent suburban districts. In 1992, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey). She and her spouse funded a computer lab at the Hale Center that is dedicated to Paul Robeson. After retiring as an educator, she joined AlphaGraphics, working in sales and marketing.