STORIES FROM JEFFERSON STREET
Growing up on Jefferson A Wonderful Childhood Beth Madison Howse Fisk University Librarian, Special Collections
I grew up on the “short 17th"— in between Meharry and Jefferson. Our world went from 14th at the bakery to Hadley Park. We walked to school every day - Pearl Elementary, Washington Junior High, and Pearl High.
Beth Madison Howse
We walked to the Ritz a lot. We loved the movies. A movie cost maybe a dime or a quarter back then. And on the last day of school, before summer vacation, if you had a good report card you got in at a discount price. We loved the double features. My brother, my sister and I were laughing the other night about how the Werewolf movie scared us. The worst punishment in the world was to be told “you can’t go to the movies.” When we were old enough to “court” we would meet the boys at the Ritz and sit in the balcony. The boys’ parents would pick them up after the movie and we would walk home.
During the summer we would walk to Hadley Park Pool and take swimming lessons and on the way back stop at the Jet Burger. They were like the Krystal burgers.
Everybody met at my house and we just strolled Jefferson Street. You could find anything you needed on Jefferson.
Our grandmother would send us to Otey’s and we would cut across Jubilee Hall and climb the rock fence. She would always check the receipt when we got home to make sure her change was correct.
We went to the Dairy Dip at 16th for the world’s best milkshakes. To Mr. Perkins for penny candy and down to the laundry mat at 14th.
I remember my mother bought tickets at the Brown Hotel for a big concert at Sulphur Dell with Little Anthony and the Imperials and the Drifters.
We often caught the bus on Jefferson and went to town. We had a friend whose parents were white. So we would go downtown and play around and Alice would drink out of the "colored" fountain and we would drink out of the "white."
When I think of my childhood I think of FUN. I had the advantage of being brought up on the Fisk campus. My grandmother was director of Jubilee Hall. And our great-grandmother was one of the original Jubilee Singers. We grew up around some very accomplished people – John W. Work, the composer of spirituals, Aaron Douglas, painter and head of the art department Fisk, and Ana Bontemkps, librarian and author. Charles S. Johnson, president of Fisk, lived across the street.
My brother and sister rebelled and went to college at Tennessee State but I graduated from FISK in 1965 and started working here in 1970.
