Audio File
Transcript
So my name is Rhonda Hall. I was born at Magee Hospital in Oakland, Pittsburgh, and I’ve lived in the Hill District my entire life. So I grew up in Pittsburgh after the 1960s when Doctor King was assassinated. And so the Hill district had transitioned a lot, so I didn’t get the privilege of enjoying a lot of the amenities, stores, shops and things like that. So I grew up in the early 70s, late 70s, and so there was some remnants of what the Hill used to be, stores and things like that. There were still neighborhood schools, so I went to- I was able to walk to school. The Hill House was still in operation, so there were a lot of enrichment activities, YMCA, things like that, and I was able to play outside, so it was still like a tight knit community where there were a lot of families, and we, you know, just normal kids’ stuff, played outside, went to school, so it was a pretty enjoyable life for a child. So I grew up in public housing. My mom and dad divorced when I was probably, I don’t know, maybe 2. So I grew up, you know, with a single mom. But I had a really cool childhood. Didn’t know I was poor. My mom, she would stay at home for a while while we went to school. So there was always somebody, you know, she was always home when we got home from school, she walked us to school, things like that, played outside. She had us in a lot of activities. I know my brother was in the Boy Scouts. I did dance classes. She was very active in our education, so we went on a lot of, like, trips with the school. So I don’t like the term strong woman because it puts a lot of pressure on women, right, particularly black women, that we have to be strong, and that’s nothing against your question. But I just want to answer it honestly, and we can’t always be strong, like, we’re human beings. I feel like it’s OK to not be strong and to be vulnerable and to show that, you know, we have vulnerabilities. But I think that when you know our strength comes from picking ourselves back up when we make mistakes and when we fall, I think that makes us resilient when we’re able to bounce back from adversity because we’re human beings, we were born not perfect. We were born to learn and to grow. I think that we just keep doing what we’ve always done is… We continue to, you know, fight for the right to live, to take care of our families, to have good lives. This, you know, society was built on patriarchy. It’s very difficult because the people who have the power are not going to let that power go. More young ladies should take advantage of opportunities when they get the opportunity that weren’t necessarily meant for women. So if you want to be electrician, you should be electrician. You shouldn’t shy away from those things. I think just by living a good life and being a role model for people. I’ve tried to use my mom’s example of, you know, she was divorced, so the life that she had wasn’t the life that she set out to have, right? So, you know, she made the best of what you know, she had left in her family. And so I think for me, you know, using her example and just being a good human being, taking advantage of whatever opportunities are out there, being kind, being good to people, I think that you know, just being a good role model for people, you know, being the example of what a stand up human being should be.