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Oral history recorded for the Bronx African American History Project on September 15, 2020 with Thomas Warner, who spent much of his childhood and young adulthood in the United Workers Cooperative Colony, or the Allerton Coops, during the 1940s and 1950s. His mother was Audley Moore, better known as Queen Mother Moore, a lifelong fighter for African liberation in the U.S. and abroad and a well-known activist in Harlem, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and around the country. His father owned a store in Harlem. The family moved up to the Coops in the early 1940s, and they kept the apartment there for the better part of three decades. In his oral history, Thomas shares memories of his parents, especially his mother, as well as what it was like to grow up in the Coops and his own efforts around starting the Carmen Jones Club there, the only club in the building at the time for African American teenagers and young adults.

The interviewer is Steven Payne, director of The Bronx County Historical Society. The Bronx African American History Project is a community-based oral history project of Fordham University and The Bronx County Historical Society.

LINK TO AUDIO RECORDING: https://cdm17265.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/baahp/id/113

Disciplines

African American Studies | Public History

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