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Interviewee: Cheryl Simmons Oliver

Interviewer: Steve Payne

Summary by Oscar Sanchez

June 21, 2022

Disciplines

African American Studies | Public History

Abstract

Cheryl Simmons Oliver’s family roots trace back to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, where her ancestors, descendants of the Simmons and Snipes families, joined the Great Migration in search of freedom and opportunity beyond the reach of Jim Crow. Born in the Morrisania neighborhood of the South Bronx, Simmons Oliver continues that story of Black resilience, perseverance, and care that shaped mid-twentieth-century New York. Her grandparents and parents first lived on Manhattan’s West Side, but it was in the Bronx where they planted deeper roots.

Schools, churches, and multigenerational households fostered a tight-knit Black community bound by accountability, perseverance, and love. Simmons Oliver grew up surrounded by family within a few city blocks, where care, shared responsibility, and open arms defined neighborhood life. Her father, Arthur Simmons, a man of precision and intellect, encouraged rigorous thinking, often posing the question that stayed with her: “Have you thought it through and rethought it through?” Her mother, Ethel Snipe, embodied quiet strength and compassion, instilling in her daughter a sense of worth and empathy. Together, they modeled discipline and care that shaped her lifelong commitment to service.

Simmons-Oliver’s education reflected those same values. Attending Catholic institutions—St. Anthony of Padua School, Cathedral High School, and Marymount Manhattan College—she encountered racial and ethnic diversity that deepened her awareness of inequality and strengthened her commitment to inclusion and justice. Her studies continued beyond college: she earned a Master of Science, a Juris Doctor, and an M.B.A. from various institutions throughout her career, a rare feat for any woman of her generation, and especially for a Black woman in mid-century Americas. For Simmons-Oliver, education was more than achievement; it was a means of self-definition and a way to honor her family’s belief that no obstacle was insurmountable. That conviction guided her professional life.

Simmons-Oliver began her career at the Northside Center for Child Development, founded by Mamie and Kenneth Clark, whose research helped dismantle segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. As a reading therapist working with adolescents in Harlem, she witnessed the systemic neglect that shaped Black children’s lives. One moment stood out to her: a student told her, “You’re the first person who ever took time to listen.” From that point on, she understood listening as a form of liberation, an ethic of care that became central to her leadership.

As the founder of the Bronx Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc., affectionately known as The Family Chapter, Simmons-Oliver created spaces for community gatherings, cultural programs, and intergenerational mentorship, where Black families could share knowledge, support one another, and assert their presence in public life. Married for more than five decades to her childhood classmate, Edward Oliver, Simmons-Oliver raised three sons; all are college-educated and embody the family values passed down through generations. She challenges deficit narratives about the South Bronx, insisting its true story lives in networks of kinship, corner stores, churches, and codes of dignity.

Simmons-Oliver’s life work is a testament to how memory becomes history and how community, when nurtured, becomes a lasting force.

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