Diana Bason

Diana Bason, longtime Greenburgh resident, recounts to Tina Harper of the Dept. of Community Resources, how she was the only black student in her school for most of her years growing up in White Plains. 

Diana’s grandmother and siblings had moved to White Plains from South Carolina. Since the siblings grew up working on a farm, they were all illiterate. Diana recalls trying to teach her grandmother to write and write when she was 8. “It was difficult. But she could count!” At 8, Diana also started babysitting a Jewish family in the neighborhood so she could send $1 or $2 a month to family remaining down south who picked cotton. Despite being raised on a street that had a few long blocks of mostly black people, Diana found herself to be the only black student in her schools most of her way through. She was used to Southern food – leftovers of fish and chicken for breakfast, hominy grits – so she had never tried the tomato juice and spinach her nursery school introduced her to, and she was forced to miss outdoor recess on Wednesdays for not liking the spinach. For a few years her family moved and she attended school in Greenburgh where “it was culture shock, everyone was black!” Diana was very industrious and always earned her own money. Soon with her sewing skills, she had a job in a White Plains factory making belts.

Here's the full interview: