Basic Black; 2925; Relations Between Boston's Black and Irish

Up next on Basic Black, bridging the cultural and racial gaps between African Americans and Irish Americans. The lack of affinity between the black and the Irish community was principally because of religion and because of position. That's coming up next on Basic Black. Good evening, I'm Darren Duarte and welcome to Basic Black. Tonight, we explore a subject that's not talked about much, at least not in mainstream conversation anyway. We're exploring the relationship between black and Irish Americans in the greater Boston area. Now ever since the days of busing, the rap was that

black people and Irish people just don't get along. Hatred and prejudice toward one another was the attitude that described the two. But what's the perception today? Tonight we're going to spend the next half hour meeting people in the Irish community and talking about what we have in common while learning about each other's cultures. From the days of slavery to present day, the black community in Boston has known many relationships with its neighbors. No one more tumultuous than the one with the Irish -American community in Boston. Although both cultures share a number of similarities, black -Irish relations has been a touchy subject in Boston for many years. Since the first days of busing here, the images of hatred from Irish residents of Southie have been well documented and have tarnished the city's image as a racist place to live. In this documentary, we'll explore the long -term relationship between African

Americans and the Irish in Boston and find out if we're still foes or misunderstood friends. Both the African Americans and the Irish are oppressed by the same people in British. The Irish much longer than we had been at this point. And they had learned one valuable lesson, I do believe, from the British, and that's how to organize. What happened was their priests began to come over, because they knew their population was here and they had these starving masses of Irish that they wanted to save and preserve and certainly wanted to preserve their religion. And they came over and they started organizing enclaves of Irish in various streets and neighborhoods, first and foremost, to try and get an idea of who was here, secondly, to try and find some way to preserve life in them, thirdly, trying to get them to consider how to make a living here in this country. I think it would be fair to say that the Irish women made

the first incursions, the first significant incursions, in the employment field. Does this sound familiar? In the African community, the black women made the first significant incursions in the employment field. And that is because when the Irish women, you know, when the priests began to get people coming to mass on a regular basis and you've got to clean up and passing out clothes and watching how things are going, trying to retrieve the children who were dying by like flies all over the place because their parents had died or their families had died and they were left orphans and nobody had any resources to deal with them, all of that, the women when they applied then, you know, now are clean, now they're deferential, and they know the game because they've been impressed by the English. They begin to get the jobs and they begin to push black people out of those jobs. So the black people get pushed out because it becomes a fashion to have Irish servants and the Irish are still busy trying to survive. They're not, I mean, they looked around when they came here for help. Nobody helped them. The blacks still are not helping them because

although they are an established group, they never did get, you know, a large piece of the economic pie because there wasn't a great deal of economic pie in Boston to get. So although some of them are very well off, the vast majority of them as it is today, we're living hand to mouth, you know, and the loss of these jobs, you'll begin to have a detrimental, serious detrimental economic effect upon the community. But the Irish are now organizing by parish. It's very important to remember that the lack of affinity between the black and the Irish community was principally because of religion to start with and because of position. Because the blacks were in a favorite position when the Irish got here and the blacks were Protestant and the Irish were Catholic, that there is this enormous chasm between the two communities instead of them being able to

recognize their affinity. They actually only could see their differences. They could only see their differences. And then by the time you get into the mass migration, you know, the starvation migration, the numbers of Irish are so overwhelming that the black community is impacted in all levels. And then the resistance, the blocking of any close relationship with the black community is inevitable because the black community can bring nothing to the Irish community then to make it possible for them to survive. But the result is that people live in certain sections, you know, and the Irish, what is now South Boston was really one of the poorest and most destitute areas of Boston at the time, that was left to them. Black folks went from Nigga Hill, which was behind the state house, first from the Wharf, the north end, to Nigga Hill, which was behind the state house, to the south end, and then

up into Roxbury. They moved right along Washington Street, almost, you know, and they got sort of trapped in Roxbury, and then as the population expanded, they moved into Dorchester. It isn't that the people in the neighborhoods wouldn't have moved other places, it's that the financial industry, which is influenced by the Irish, and the economic sectors, all have vested interests in keeping their communities intact as they are, because that's where they make their money. By the 1930s, the Irish are well -established in Boston and are now being elected to public office. With their new political clout, they begin to secure public, functionary jobs, such as police, firemen, and street cleaners. A number of women go into the teaching profession. In the 1970s, many of these teachers are retiring, leaving Boston's school system as one of the best in the country. South Boston High, however, is one of the worst. At this time, most of the Irish elite have left the

South Boston community, and the poorer, working class are now the majority. And although they go to the polls often, they're not getting the kind of consideration from their political leaders they'd come to expect. You have discussions amongst the power groups, you know, the elites of all. There's something wrong with the public schools. South Boston has got this wonderful political power, but yet their high school is the second worst high school in the country. You got in Roxbury, all of the teachers that were maintaining these terrible buildings, the buildings were never repaired, but the teachers were good, they were retiring. There's nobody with this drive, you know, to maintain this excellence anymore, because there's all these black kids coming into the system. So what do you have? Now, what do you have as a fight here? You have a poor group of people in South Boston, and a poor group of people in Roxbury. And so what did they choose to do? They choose to go into South Boston. Why did they choose to go into South Boston? Because South Boston's the most racist place in the world. No. No.

no more racist at that period of time than was Roxbury. No more racist. They could exercise their power more than we could, because they had more power. But basically we had two groups of extremely poor people whose voices were not being paid any attention to, who were used as in a social experiment. I think what you have is a cessation of hostilities. You know, that's about the best you have right now. I think also you have more and more Irish people who recognize somehow or other that wasn't the—it wasn't quite—it wasn't all that. It wasn't quite the way we thought it was. They're still angry about having their community schools taken away from them. And black folks are still angry about it, because after all, where did they close all the schools in the black community? You know, I mean, they turned them into housing projects, you know, or something. We don't have any schools here. Even if they go

back to community schools, where are we going to go? You know? So there's a lot of resentment on both sides, but I think everybody realizes they've been had. But there's a recognition upon it, a recognition of it in both communities. I think in the Irish community about what their oppression was about and what that meant, you know, making it in America has meant to them and has done to them, because that needs to be looked at. We are doing that about ourselves, and I think that—well, I always believe that ignorance is the most dangerous thing in the world. So I think that we need to spend less time talking, stoking our pain, and more time looking at ways in which to bridge the gaps, you know, and I think you can. I think you can just talk to people. My grandfather opened the biv and 1933 wrote out, right after Prohibition, and the business has been going since then. We went from one side of the street the other over 20 years ago, and we went from a small place to a larger place about 10 years ago, and I've been there over 40 years. I

went over at 17 to work for two days, and I've been there since. They met a lot of nice people, and I really felt that the community needed a good place to go to. So I looked around at a lot of different places with money they were asking, and I had owned the building across the street for quite a while, and I said, I'm going to take a shot. Everyone said to me, you're crazy. No bus stops, no people, no stores. I said, all I have to do is keep it clean, price is reasonable, I'll do a big business. And it came just like I said it would. Most of the neighborhood was Irish, and the neighborhood started to change in that the big companies were moving out, but Packy decided that he was going to stay, and he said, I'm going to go across the street, because I was worried sick, I had two children, that we were raising, and he said,

no, it's going to work out just fine, and it has ever since. In the bar is like the United Nations, you never find a bar like that, usually if you're in a Spanish neighborhood, it's all Spanish, all black, you don't find islanders, you don't find whites, you don't find, it's like the United Nations over there, it's really special, it's unbelievable, never had a racial problem, all these years, no one. We come from work because I'm comfortable, because I can relax, I'm around good people, chicken wings are fabulous, and it's a nice place to hang out. He gets along with the church, the neighbors, you know, do famous forms and stuff like that, everybody gets along good, it's a good area right here. I don't think a black owned bar would be this good, you know what I'm saying, but he makes it work though, I don't think it would work without Packy, but everybody gets along good. He does a lot of things

for the community, he has a song bar team, a basketball team, know, he give up scholarships and stuff like that, that's what makes it, that's what makes it when you hand out to the community and try to work with the community. You gotta be trusting, I mean, know, I make all my money there, you know, if somebody needs a little help, give it to them, there's no big deal to that, you know, like cash and checks and stuff, you know, I get burned once in while, but as a rule I don't, there's no big deal if I do get burned, you know, I don't get excited about it. Well I've always treated people the way I want them to treat me, and I run the bar the same way, people come in little bar, it's like them coming into my house, you act like a gentleman, get treated like one, you act like a fool, you gotta go, and that's basically the whole thing, if you're bad, you're bad permanently, you have to come in, you gotta act like a lady or a gentleman, and that's the end of it. A school teacher used to come in there, in

fact she lives in Brockton now, the name was Joanie Snead, and she brought the principal of her school in her, her name was Robinson, Robinson was the lady's name, and she was friendly with that Peter Glenettis, whatever his name is from the Herald, and she was hard by the place when she'd come in, she couldn't believe it, and she told Peter about it, and he dropped in one day, and what a great article, just super, was really quite impressive. It's amazing how far they come, like on a Friday night they come from everywhere, and there's no dancing, because it causes trouble, it's just a unique place that's off, I enjoy going there, my wife did, my mother treated her like a queen over there, they used to have a party once a year for me over there with black Elks over in Cambridge, they even made me an honorary black Elk, but the 40 years have been enjoyable every day,

I really get sick a few years ago, and I thought I was going, the doctors thought I was going, everything turned out well, but I tell you it was unbelievable being in that hospital, and the switchboard was going crazy, see everyone thinks my name is Paci Carnas, well my grandfather's name was Paci Carnas, but that was my mother's side, so my name isn't even near that, it's James Kahn's, so the people in the hospital went crazy, the phone, they put a sign up, I was in Beth Israel, the reception office was going crazy, flowers were coming, they just didn't know what to do with them, or who I was, or where I was, it was just great, I was getting phone calls from down south, I was getting phone calls from Jamaica, it was just unbelievable. And when I go to visit them in the hospital, it was like he had to take a ticket, all these people were there, they'd just be coming and going,

it was wonderful, it was wonderful because may you never be sick, but when you are, it's always nice, always nice to have people care about you, and they did. I'd be sitting over the bar, probably lost about 70 pounds maybe or something, and a girl I wouldn't even know walked by, give me a kiss and say I'm praying for you, guys that, you know, shaking your hands, it was just unbelievable. In fact, can you see this watch I got on? They had a large collection over there that I didn't know anything about, and they collected so much money that they didn't want to give it all to the cancer society, so they actually bought me this watch out of the money that they collected, I it was just unbelievable. Because they wanted him to have something personal. Well over the years, know, people would say to me, how can you go to rock for every day? I'd say, come on with me, and the ones that have taken love it, and keep coming back. There's some friends that line over there that come, and come over there every week for 40 years, and enjoy every minute of it.

They never had a problem. It's how you carry yourself too. If you go look over trouble, you're going to find it. If you mind your business, you're going to be alright. I have a lot of friends over in South Boston, and South Boston, those people over there always look down on the blacks. But if you look, they're in a very similar situation. The three family houses, the closeness, you know, the three generations of welfare, you know, they were very close. A white person could go to Roxbury without having a headache. A black person couldn't go to South Boston without getting a headache. I couldn't understand it myself. And we'll never understand it. And like I say, if you look, situations are almost identical. You know? But it's changing, hopefully. aren't so afraid of

areas they don't know anymore. That's all it is. People don't go there they don't know. I mean, like years ago, they used to have trouble when the buses started. know, now you look at South Boston High, full of blacks. They get along fine. know, so time does heal all the wounds. And I think now there's a new breed of Irish. These kids are coming in from Ireland itself. All they want to do is work and be left alone. There's none of this racial stuff anymore, I don't think. People are people. They're either nicer, they're not. Drumming is something that's easy to learn. It's something that crosses a lot of cultures. And it's something that we could put on a program. And in doing the drumming, we could look at issues around ethnicity and race and issues that are important to look at. The Irish Immigration Centre in Boston recently sponsored this cross -cultural drumming workshop.

The Centre is a non -profit self -help social change organization dedicated to empowering Irish immigrants and others on becoming socially aware through education and related activities. The goal is to promote greater understanding between the black and Irish communities. Lena Deavey is Executive Director. We've been working on ways, fine creative ways, that we can look at issues of culture, how we can look at racism, how we can look at different issues and how we can confront some of those issues in ourselves and how we can develop, you know, a healthier approach and a better way of approaching issues. And one of the things we've found is that the arts is a good way to help us to look at what are sometimes very difficult issues and issues that we don't always want to look at. So we have used pottery and we've used music and drumming in different ways, look at films to create opportunities for discussion around issues of race, around issues of class and around issues that are not easily looked at. We really have

to get it together like arrangement. So our present program, which was the drumming project, where we had a person from West African and a person from the Caribbean and an Irish person teaching a drumming course to an integrated group. I was very surprised with the Irish, the baron drum, how similar it was to some of the African drumming and in fact this particular show we're putting on is demonstrating how it can put all of us together, it can connect or how similar all the different drums are and how they communicate and how they work together, even though they're of different cultures, which is something that people need to see because they can identify with it and say, hey, well, there is something we have in common. It's just wonderful because I think what we do have in common is not only the love from music but also really I think the desire to get to know each other and to say that it's okay to be me with you, it's okay for you to be you with me. You didn't have to

learn anything, I think the people coming here wanted to break down those walls and just enjoy the music and enjoy getting to know each other for who we are. My role with the Irish Immigration Center started out as an educational tour, trying to figure out what was going on with the Irish community and the black community in Boston. I grew up here, I'm a Boston native and I knew there was a time when I could go to Carson's Beach and everything was okay or it seemed okay as a kid. When I got older and busing hit and people throwing rocks at buses, it was like, what's with that? On top of that, I knew that somewhere in the shadowy past of my own personal history, there was some Irish ancestry. So how do you reconcile these two things in a city that clearly demonstrates all kinds of racial hatred? So one of the ways to get to the bottom of that stuff is to

face it head on. So what better place to begin than the Irish Immigration Center where I thought I could get some answers? I think the center has evolved over the years depending on what the needs were of our community and the people involved in it and I think when we started originally in the late 80s, there was estimates that it was probably on 30 ,000 undocumented Irish from Boston and most of them didn't have the possibility of getting a visa or living as I said, a non -documented or a living on the edge. So we started to help them get their visas and when the new visa program was passed, we helped people for many years through the visa program, through getting their visas sorted out, through getting jobs, housing, getting their situation regularized, having to pay taxes and get into this society. And then we also started, alongside that program, started a program to help people to integrate here into this society in a way that understands the culture of this society. Part of the class

is something we've been doing for a few years and it was bringing immigrant women together and so that through pottery, they would express what the experience of being an immigrant was like and they would express it in a piece of pottery or whatever they were going to make and then they would talk about that and would put on a display and it's a way of expressing what the experience was like of coming to this country as an immigrant and looking at what that was like, whether you're from Tibet, whether you're from Ireland, whether you're from Haiti, whether you're from Africa, so it was that experience. Looking at the Irish Migration Centre, and I see it as a unique organization in terms of the work that they do and people they also incorporate in their staff. I have been dealing with many organizations from other

ethnic communities and when you go to those organizations primarily what you see is people form that particular community and this one, you know, I'm saying it's unique because you find, you know, more diverse staff over there. We have an annual celebration, we have every year during Black History Month and we call it the Black and the Green, coming together in Boston. We felt as an Irish community, certainly we were very aware of our part in the history here in Boston and aware of our part in the racism and what some Black people had suffered here in Boston. were part of that and feeling a responsibility to, if you like, address that problem ourselves because I think to do something about it. So we felt one way of doing that was that each year, as new immigrants, we would begin to understand maybe a piece of that history because I think it's understanding that history that we can then begin to address it and we can begin

to redress some of the, if you like, the wrongs. So each year we put on some kind of an event during Black History Month. So it's our way of beginning to understand a little piece of the history and of celebrating and honoring the huge contributions that we feel that African Americans have made towards civil rights in this country and the huge contributions that they continue to still make and it's our way of, if you like, being in solidarity or celebrating with the African American community and for us learning something so that we can be more respectful and we can honor more what that tradition is and honor more and be grateful for the huge contribution that the African American community has made. The beauty of the outreach of the Irish Immigration Center is that it's the Irish who are reaching out. Usually, historically, you know, Black people in America have had something to prove and we're always reaching, oh, please love me, I'm good.

The Irish Immigration Center decided, yeah, you are and it's us who have the problem and so therefore we're going to reach out as gingerly as it might be as dangerous as some people might think it is, we're going to do the reaching and we're hoping that you will have enough faith in us and our ability to be sincere to reach back and so when you have it coming from where the problem originated then you've got the foundation for making it better. For questions and comments, please visit our website at www .wgbh .org. Thank you.

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