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Transcript
My full name is Brenda Jean Gurley, and I was born in Pittsburgh at Magee Women’s Hospital. I was the fifth child of 6. My two sisters didn’t live in the house because they were grown. But it was me, my brother William, my sister Pat, and my sister Verna, and my mom. We all stayed together in the projects on Warren Court. My relationship with my family was really close. We did a lot of stuff together. But I was like the middle child so…. We all went to church every Sunday. Sometimes we were in church all week long. She used to take us to the drive in every Saturday, see movies. I remember a lot of funny things with my brothers and sisters. I lived in the projects, in Warren Court and the Hill District. And back then, everybody knew everybody. People were more close back then. My-my girlfriends, we used to do cheerleading down at Kennard field. We used to play down Kennard field a lot. There was a corner store we used to go to, get candy all the time. That was fun. We used to play outside. We had to go in the house when the street lights came on. Nobody was outside when the street lights came out. We would get in trouble and never forget that. That means everybody would have to be in the house by 8:30 in the evening. It’s different now. I truly believe that they dismembered it. Not thinking about the people who live here and the people who used to live here. I went to take some pictures and do a Pitt project, and I went down to Kennard Field and I just started crying because those steps we used to use to walk up and down to get to Kennard field, the bridge you used to use to get from Kennard field into the Milliones school, is not even operable. So I’m very hurt behind the way the people who rebuilt the houses here, they were so inhumane to the community. It was- It’s disheartening. It’s not a good thing to see. It’s really not. I would like to see them make more housing that’s truly affordable for the people in the community. I stay here now, and the rent is so expensive, it’s inhumane. It’s inhumane what these people did to the Hill District. They build these houses and then they charge so much money to live here and then it was real inhumane. They took the property where I used to live at and then they just dismembered the rest of the community by not fixing up the field. I could see them young people down there, and they’re African American people. They have football games just like 3 different groups. I went down there one day to check it out and like it gets wet, it gets puddles. They need to go and fix Kennard Field up. They need to fix the pool. They need to fix the field back up. They need to fix Milliones School bridge. Yeah, they need to go finish that. One thing I’ll say, the Hill is a wonderful place to live. They just need to really listen to the people in the community. Marimba Milliones from the Hill District, CDC president, CEO, she’s really been fighting a lot to get them to honor the request of the people when they finish fixing it up, and I suggest that the young people might want to get involved in the Hill District CDC. She said “I found out that they have some Friday night meeting in the Fossey building.” And I want to get- I wanna find out what that is, and I’ll probably start attending that. But I think it’s important if you would get in on that level, even if you can’t make all the meetings, please get involved.