Tyletha Samuels
The interview was conducted by Lynn Lewis, in her apartment in East Harlem on April 16, 2019, for the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project. Tyletha Samuels is a former PTH organizer staffing the EAU [Emergency Assistance Unit], shelter campaign, the Women and Families committee and did early organizing around the rental subsidy programs rolled out in 2004/2005. Tyletha worked with Picture the Homeless from 2003 through 2006 and was later contracted to do work around the Section 8 voucher program in 2010.
Tyletha Samuels was born and raised in Harlem, New York. Her family is from Savannah, Georgia. She is the oldest of three children, one of whom is her twin. Her mother was very religious, and her childhood was spent in church, in school and working after school with her mother. “My mom used to sell dinners, okay so… I had to help her peel the potatoes for the potato salad… Besides being churchy, my mother was a business woman, a hustler, OG. She used to sell food okay—and a lot of it. If we wasn’t cooking for big amounts of people, she used to give these—back in the days they was called ‘waistline parties,’ where you would come in and however big your waistline was, that’s how much you paid.” (Samuels, pp. 4) There was a lot of mental illness in her family, and she’s been the backbone. Her father was a good breadwinner but did not attend church. Her parents were opposites, but they stayed together for fifty years.
Her memories of Harlem include childhood games of Hopscotch, Double Dutch, LODI”s Kick the Ball, in the summer playing in the water hydrants, and afterschool going to community centers that children could attend. Every summer they went to Savannah until once, at an aunt’s funeral, her mother had a nervous breakdown. It was only as an adult that she returned to Savannah for a women’s conference and connected with relatives. Born in 1957, growing up in Harlem she recalls how upset her mother and others were when Dr. Martin Luther King and President Kennedy were killed, and until she became involved with Community Voices Heard and Picture the Homeless she didn’t vote and wasn’t involved in politics.
Her parents were very old fashioned, and she didn’t get to go out as much as her brothers and at age eighteen she ran away to her boyfriends. Because it was close to her parents apartment, she went to Philadelphia to a cousins, but came home after two days. Later she moved with in with her boyfriend in the Bronx and became pregnant with her daughter LaShawn. There were a lot of drugs in the Bronx then, during the early seventies. The house parties were fun. Buildings in the Bronx and Harlem were burning, but she was mostly in the house and still sheltered. Moving back home with her mother, she then got an apartment around the corner with her baby daughter LaShawn. Her mother was close to LaShawn and Tyletha described some of the ways that she mothered LaShawn daughter differently than how her mother raised her. She also reflects on the ways that she’s like her mother, and hopes to be like her mom. Tyletha is now a chaplain and goes to nursing homes and prisons, and thinks of her mother, knowing she would be proud.
LaShawn went to college in New Jersey, was very smart. She became pregnant in college and quit. At the same time, Tyletha became pregnant with her second child, Charles, and moved in with his father. She had gotten wild partying and having Charles calmed her down.
Some of the differences in her area of Harlem [West 112th, 113th Streets] between then and now are that there were less abandoned buildings and more bars. Now buildings are getting fixed up and the neighborhood gentrifying. When you got off the train at 110th Street there were no white faces. She’s glad there are stores in Harlem now, “We don’t have to go all the way to downtown because white people moved in. Okay? But why did they have to move in for us to get it? That’s what I don’t understand. They had to move us out, to move them in—to get it.” (Samuels, pp. 15)
Her son Charles’ father was physically abusive. His friend Henry fell in love with her and when her son’s father beat her, she would go to Henry’s. Her son’s father was on probation and one night, he broke a broomstick over her back. She took Charles and went to Henry’s. She and Henry have been married for fifteen years and he is the only father Charles has known.
Tyletha became politically active while in a relocation shelter after a fire in her building. There were mandatory meetings in the shelter. At the time she was in the Work Experience Program [WEP] working at a Medicaid office. Seeing a flyer that said “Know Your Rights” she attended the meeting because one of her co-workers, a Spanish speaking woman was abused by the staff, and she wanted to see if they could help her. The meeting was organized by CVH, and they asked her for help getting into the Medicaid office to hold a meeting. The meeting only lasted five minutes but she began attending meetings at the CVH office. They sent her to San Francisco to speak, and supported her to tell her story about her experience with WEP. She had initially thought WEP was good, because she wanted work experience but realized there was no real training.
Lynn Lewis was also working at CVH and PTH co-founders, Anthony Williams and Lewis Haggins would come there. Tyletha wanted to work on housing because of her own experience with homelessness. She joined the staff of PTH in 2003, as an organizer with the Emergency Assistance Unit [EAU] campaign. She describes the conditions in the EAU, including parents having their children with them all day, sometimes being taken to shelter late at night, being placed in shelters far from where their children’s schools were located, mistreatment by staff, rats, and dirty conditions. She was holding meetings in the park with families every Thursday.
She started the When Women Gather meetings at PTH to support women and mothers. She describes the PTH office where people worked hard and played hard, were passionate and it wasn’t just a job, but it was mostly men. She did outreach at shelters, bus stops and subways, because homeless folks are everywhere. During this time, PTH did their first sidewalk sleep-outs, including in the rain. It let her know that people were serious. Her favorite action was the heart transplant one, because “anytime you make children stay awake and wake them up two and three o’clock in the morning to move them to a shelter is heartless.” (Samuels, pp. 29)
Being an organizer, it’s powerful to support someone to speak their truth, especially when they’ve never spoken to anyone and then they’re speaking with politicians, and they’re scared but they want to make a difference and just needed encouragement. She had to leave PTH for knee replacements, and was getting burned out. She describes some of the challenges with organizing and at PTH there were only had two or three staff for many years, but there were members who volunteered and who cared and wanted to change the situation. We acknowledged them and helped as much as we could. What’s important about PTH is the passion, will, drive and strength to keep going from nothing to something.
The Longest Night, Potter’s Field and Canner’s campaign were also important to her. Taking folks to Hart Island/Potter’s Field was meaningful, and she recalls the Canners campaign actions as fun. PTH had powerful members and they stayed because they knew that people cared.
PTH Organizing Methodology
Being Welcoming
Representation
Education
Leadership
Resistance Relationships
Collective Resistance
Justice
External Context
Individual Resistance
Race
The System
Church
Family
Work Experience Program [WEP]
Shelter
Welfare
Rights
Section 8
Fun
Women
Gentrification
Abandoned
Abuse
Cops
Outreach
Housing
Displaced
Sleep-outs
Power
Love
Savannah, Georgia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Albany, New York
New Jersey
San Francisco, California
Baltimore, Maryland
New York City boroughs and neighborhoods:
Harlem, Manhattan
East Harlem, Manhattan
Bronx
South Bronx
Manhattan
Queens
Hart Island, Bronx
City Island, Bronx
Civil Rights
Emergency Assistance Unit [EAU]
Shelter
Housing
Potter’s Field
Canners
[00:00:00] Greetings and introductions, family is from Savannah basically, but I was born and raised in Harlem, on 113th Street.
[00:01:05] Childhood memories revolve around church, mother was very religious, it was all about church, school then work. They owned a business, after school we had to work in the store, mother sang in the choir, very active, I always wanted to be like my mom, she was a giving person.
[00:02:53] Learned to good for large numbers of people, mom used to sell dinners, mother was a business woman, she used to give “waistline” parties, she was always cooking big pots of food, as the only girl I had to help, and she also owned a frankfurter stand. I’m the only girl and the oldest, have a twin brother and a younger brother. I’ve always been the backbone of the family, family has mental illness, always been a caregiver.
[00:05:44] Memories of Harlem, in the summer playing in the water hydrants, Hopscotch, Double Dutch, LODI’s, Kick the Ball. After school there were centers to go to with activities. There’s none of that new, kids now is gangs and drugs and whatnot. School was in the neighborhood.
[00:08:18] Growing up, every summer we would go down South to Savannah until mother had a nervous breakdown, she messed up aunt’s funeral and they were ashamed to go back. Recently, two years ago, went to a women’s conference in Savannah and was able to dig up some of my cousins. Mother never recovered completely. Father and mother were opposites, he did got to church, they were together over fifty years.
[00:12:55] Born in 1957, grew up in Harlem during the sixties, no memories of political activism except when Dr. Martin Luther King passed away, my mother was really crying, people were upset, when Kennedy got shot, I remember that, people were very upset. Until I became involved with Community Voices Heard and Picture the Homeless I didn’t vote, not involved in politics.
[00:14:31] As the only girl I didn’t get to go out as much as my brothers, parents very old-fashioned, I didn’t go to the movies, when I was eighteen I ran away, took mothers church money went to my daughter’s fathers house but it was around the corner so went to Philadelphia to my favorite cousin but stayed for two days and went back home.
[00:17:29] Mother found out I had a boyfriend, I moved out, he had moved to the Bronx, it was the early seventies, got pregnant with my daughter. He was living with a roommate, his grandmother lived on the second floor, she would fix out food. He was my first love, but he was a player.
[00:19:36] There was a lot of drugs in the Bronx then, I smoked weed but didn’t have much resistance, there was good hash, house parties, that was fun. The Bronx and Harlem was burning, I remember the blackouts but as far a being in the streets, or knowing politically what anybody was doing, no. I was sheltered, lived in the Bronx when daughter LaShawn was born, her father was kicked at an early age.
[00:23:00] I had left the Bronx before he died, couldn’t take his playing ways, went back to moms’ on 113th Street, she loved her grandchild, then I move out to an apartment on 112th Street, around the corner, lived there with LaShawn for about six, seven years, mothered her differently, gave her things my mother didn’t give me.
[00:25:31] I’m a giving person, helpful, a good cook like my mom, not as religious as my mom, I really want to be like my mom, the day I became a chaplain, she would be proud of me, our chaplaincy goes to nursing homes and prisons and I think of her.
[00:27:36] When LaShawn grew up and went to college she got pregnant, and I got pregnant again at the same time, she had her son and I had Charles. She quit college; I wanted her to finish because she’s smart, but you can’t pick their life.
[00:29:01] I didn’t want another child, his father’s deceased, I had gotten a little wild, partying, having Charles calmed me down. I had moved in with him, down the block.
[00:31:12] Differences between her area of Harlem then and now, there were more bars, buildings were more occupied, they’re getting fixed up now, you’re talking gentrification at the highest power. When you got off the train at 110th Street you didn’t see one white face, there were no co-ops on 113th Street.
[00:33:12] One thing I like is now we’ve got Victoria’s Secret, other stores we didn’t have back then. We had to go downtown to shop, now we don’t have to because white people moved in. That’s what I don’t understand. Rent in Manhattan is ridiculous now.
[00:34:51] Henry helped raise LaShawn and is the only father that Charles know. He was Charles’s father’s friend, we would go to Henry’s house and drink and party, but Charles’ father was abusive. Henry loved me, told me I didn’t have to take that. Whenever he would beat me I would run and stay with Henry.
[00:37:04] I got tired of him hitting me, he was on probation, I had slowed down on the drinking, he came in one day and hit me, I waiting until he was asleep and was going to cut his throat, but said it ain’t worth it, I took Charles and called the cops, and they took him to jail. I never went back to him; I went to Henry, and we stayed married for over fifteen years.
[00:39:50] Became politically active in the shelter, when LaShawn came back from Jersey, I gave her my room and I went to say with my mom. That Easter weekend our building had a fire. My mother was in the hospital and was supposed to come home but couldn’t and went to a nursing home. We had to go to a relocation shelter.
[00:43:06] In the shelter I became involved, they used to have shelter meetings and you had to go to workshops, I would send LaShawn, we had to do WEP at a Medicaid office, and I saw a paper about “knowing your rights.” I had no problem with WEP except you never got real work experience.
[00:44:17] One lady, spoke Spanish, she only had jeans, welfare didn’t give you enough money, she didn’t look like the supervisors, but she knew more than them, she had been asking for a transfer because they would make fun of her. When I saw the flyer I went to see if they could help Sylvia and I met an organizer named Elaine Kim. She asked me to get her into the office and to hand out flyers.
[00:45:43] I was becoming an organizer, I gave out flyers and snuck Elaine into the office, the meeting lasted five minutes, I didn’t care if they got mad, but Sylvia was scared. Elaine invited everyone to CVH’s office on 116th Street, nobody would go, they were scared. I went to the meeting and liked what they were saying. We should be getting paid for WEP work. Gail [Aska] told me to speak up.
[00:47:48] They [CVH] bought me my first plane ticket to San Francisco, I was only getting sixty-eight fifty every two weeks doing WEP. CVH did leadership development, they made you feel important, and trained you on how you was the expert of your story.
[00:48:49] I had already threw a credenza at one welfare worker because she called my mother the “B” word. She called the ambulance, but I think she got fired, they took me to the precinct, welfare was a hot mess. I hadn’t finished high school because I had to help with our family business. That was when Clinton first came out with the Work Experience Program.
[00:50:26] I thought it was good, the only thing I knew was welfare, I thought I was going to get marketable skills to put on a resume, until we got involved with CVH you couldn’t put it on a resume. Elaine Kim was an organizer at CVH, Gail Aska the co-founder, other folks that were there are still in the social justice movement.
[00:51:52] At that time Picture the Homeless didn’t have any funding. I [Lynn Lewis] was volunteering with Picture the Homeless and working at CVH, Anthony and Lewis would come to the CVH office. I loved Picture the Homeless, what they were doing resonated with me since I was in a shelter.
[00:52:35] I had become homeless and wanted to do something around housing, I was fighting for Section 8 to get out of shelter and for my daughter to get housing. I told you, to hire me if you get money, I always thought that Picture the Homeless did excellent work.
[00:53:37] An early memory of Anthony [Williams] being fun, passionate when he talked about homelessness, remembers the Longest Night when he cried and spoke about members that had passed. Not sure about meeting other co-founder Lewis [Haggins], I used to come to the basement office at Judson.
[00:56:55] Joined the staff with Picture the Homeless, office space was now across the hall from Community Voices Heard on 116, it was a dream come true, I was in charge of the shelter campaign, worked on the EAU, the intake center for families waiting to go to shelter.
[00:57:57] Having meetings with them in the park was awesome, sad, and also good because they were strong, they wanted to do something but were scared. To be able to help, give them a place to talk about what was going on, somebody snuck in and took a picture of a rat, the actions around the EAU, to be able to identify with those families because I was one of them.
[00:50:03] The issues they raised were the conditions in the EAU, having their children with them all day, not eating much, going to shelter for one or two days then back and forth, it wasn’t nice, their kids in schools in one borough but they’re in shelter in a different one, displaced.
[01:01:06] It was horrible, going to shelter late at night with your child, being treated like they’re dirty or diseased, they dehumanized you.
[01:01:06] Had regular meetings with people in the park, I would post flyers around a fence, we tried to keep it consistent, word of mouth. I would tell families to tell anybody in shelter that we meet here on Thursdays. Disappointment in any organizing is that it’s hard for people having difficulty to want come to a meeting, but the ones that I did talk to felt it was worth it, that somebody cares and wants to do something.
[01:02:54] All the families were going through a lot, the ones that came were motivated because I told them we wanted to stop what was happening, but the only way is with you. You’re the one that has to stop it. I can’t do it for you.
[01:03:42] That was before cell phones, we kept in touch by being consistent, meeting every Thursday, or I had to trust that they could have somebody call me.
[01:04:20] Picture the Homeless always had more men than women, started women’s group When Women Gather because women were going through a lot, were mothers, I wanted women to know that they are strong and could make a difference, strength in numbers, that’s power.
[01:06:27] The office was mad cool, laid back, love, you knew what you had to do, work hard, play hard, everybody in campaigns was passionate, it wasn’t just a job.
[01:08:08] The different ways to meet people besides the EAU, I would do outreach in different places, in front of shelters, bus stops, met Marcus Moore getting on the bus to go to Wards Island. On the train with Leroy and Rogers, having a conversation and met William Burnett, he jumped in and wanted to know where we was from, we invited him, and he’s been there ever since. So many places to do outreach, homeless is everywhere.
[01:11:11] Joined Picture the Homeless staff in 2003, did the first [PTH] sidewalk sleep-out in midtown Manhattan, it was cold, my thoughts were these people are crazy, we did one in the rain, y’all didn’t budge, everybody had raingear. My thoughts were I’m in the right place because these people are dead serious. I made my son do a sleep-out so he would know what homelessness is.
[01:13:43] For members it was powerful and proved how far you can go. I didn’t enjoy sleeping in the rain, I had a chair, and it was very uncomfortable to be out there all night, but it put me in the place where the homeless person is who does it every night, it was powerful.
[01:15:27] EAU actions, I loved the picture with the rat, the one before me when they literally closed the EAU and walked out, the one where Jean is in their face, the heart transplant was one of my favorites, anytime you make children stay awake and wake them up two and three o’clock in the morning to move them to a shelter is heartless, the conditions, that is heartless.
[01:16:46] As an organizer it’s powerful to support someone to speak their truth, if you’ve never spoke to nobody and her you’re talking to a politician and you’re scared but you want to make a difference, that’s powerful and that makes me feel really good. It’s me paying it forward, to help another not only think about theirself but to think about the whole system means a lot to me.
[01:19:03] That’s the kind of work you want to do, that’s meaningful, it was a matter of letting them know that they could do it, they wanted to but were scared they weren’t good enough. I wasn’t convincing, just making them believe they are the experts, giving them encouragement.
[01:21:37] The only thing that got me upset with organizing is that life happens, some people you can’t keep involved, others you can like DeBoRah, Marcus or Jean, whose still in the system but want’s to fight the system.
[01:22:32] I had to leave Picture the Homeless, I had knee replacements, I was getting burnt out, it was hard to bring people in, you have to have a certain amount of numbers, you want to do more for people, I wish I could have done more. It’s hard when you tell people that we’re trying to change the system and the only thing they want to change is their life.
[01:24:55] Talk to one hundred people doing outreach, five come, one might stay, if that many. That’s the numbers, it’s disheartening, that’s why we work so hard. Picture the Homeless had two or three staff for many years, but had good volunteers who cared, people wanted to change their situation.
[01:27:29] We acknowledged them, they were important, not us. There are still good people out there, you’ve just got to find people and organizers who want to talk to people.
[01:29:15] What’s important about Picture the Homeless, the passion, the will, the drive, the strength to keep going from nothing to something. I learned that there’s no stopping me, I learned humility, I was in a shelter that was nicer than some, it could be me, I learned empathy, Picture the Homeless will always be a part of me.
[01:31:37] Although hasn’t worked at Picture the Homeless is still close with Nikita, DeBoRah, you [Lynn Lewis], calls Mo to see how she’s doing, tries to attend evens to help out, I feel a part of Picture the Homeless, and it’s a part of me. I’m one paycheck away from homelessness, I’m in subsidy housing, they hired me to do a campaign around Section 8.
[01:33:21] I wish I could go back and work for Picture the Homeless if they had a receptionist’s job or something, is now co-chair of the board at Community Voices Heard, a journey from being a member to co-chair of the board, a 360, it’s nice to come full circle in an organization.
[01:36:00] The Longest Night, the Potter’s Field campaign and Canner’s campaign, I loved the Potter’s Field campaign, I loved to take members over to Hart Island, all you would see was dirt and land, you didn’t know whether you were going to be there or not.
[01:38:48] That campaign meant a lot. When we found our co-founder and we could take him out of Potter’s Field and his family can have him. That was one campaign I really missed. We learned so many things and taught faith leaders because they didn’t know.
[01:41:24] Coordinating refreshment hours with a pastor on City Island, everybody was moved, you came out there with some reflections, like who’s over there? Who are those eight hundred thousand people?
[01:42:21] It was intense, we went to Albany, Charley used to call it the prison of the dead. We had really powerful members, they stayed because they knew that people cared. When you came to Picture the Homeless you didn’t feel like you was homeless, when you walked through the doors and when you left, you felt empowered.
[01:43:50] It takes treating them like they’re not homeless, they’re individuals, just like you, you got to have people that wants to make a difference. People had to come through that door knowing that this is a place where people want change, where people care that they’re not just here to use me. Anybody who wants to start an organization better start out with some compassion.
[01:45:38] The Canners campaign, we had a fundraiser and had to collect cans, we had a fundraiser, that was a very fun campaign, the tailgate party at Yankee Stadium.
[01:46:45] Jean is awesome with his cans, the action at the supermarket, where we took all the cans, it was fun to see all that. You have all these cans and here’s a supermarket only going to take two dollars’ worth? Come on with that. It’s fun to challenge these places and scare them half to death. They were being bullies and breaking the law, it’s fun to make them sweat.
[01:48:40] Meeting with Melissa Mark Viverito in the Bronx, our councilwoman, she flip-flopped on everything.
Lewis: [00:00:00] Good Afternoon.
Samuels: Good Afternoon.
Lewis: I’m Lynn Lewis with the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project, interviewing Tyletha Samuels. Hi Tyletha.
Samuels: Hi Lynn.
Lewis: And it is Good Friday, April 19th.
Samuels: What a blessed day! [Laughs]
Lewis: [Smiles] Yes! For me it’s a blessed day to have you here! I’m very happy we’re doing this. Your name has popped up in a lot of the other interviews and so it will be good to hear the Tyletha Samuels version. And so first, we’ll start with some questions—who you are, so that people will get to know you a little bit. Tyletha can you tell me where you’re from?
Samuels: [00:00:48] I’m from here, New York. My family is from Savannah but basically, I was born and raised right here in New York.
Lewis: And where in New York?
Samuels: Harlem. Harlem, right on 113th Street.
Lewis: [00:01:05] And so, tell me a little bit about your childhood. What are some memories that you have that you’d like to share?
Samuels: Church. [Laughs] Church—stayed in church from Monday to Saturday. Seven days a week. Church. That was my childhood. That was how I remember it. My mother was very religious, so she kept us in church activities growing up. It was all about church, church, school and then work. They owned their own little business, so after school we had to go work in the store. So, when we wasn’t working in the store we was in church.
Lewis: [00:01:45] And I remember your mom’s funeral service. That was her church?
Samuels: Yeah, Southern Baptist Church. Yeah, that was her church.
Lewis: It was a beautiful church. Tell me about the church because I… It made a big impression on me, just going one time.
Samuels: [Laughs] Southern Baptist Church—it’s a big church… She did a lot; she was very churchy… She sung in the choir and everything… That’s the only difference between me and my mom—you—to me, you get lost in big churches, but my mother… She was some of everything in the church—she sung in the choir, she helped with the food, she was on the usher board… And every time I went in that church I used to like playing on the stairs and playing in stuff. But as I grew up, and when I came to go to church I liked little churches. So… [Laughs] I think you get lost in big churches, but… Yeah... I take my… I always wanted to be like my mom though. She was a giving person.
Lewis: [00:02:53] Something else I remember… Is that you are really good—at a lot of things, but one of the things is cooking for large numbers of people. And you told me… How did you learn how to do that?
Samuels: My Mom! [Laughs] She had the… Okay, when we didn’t… My mom used to sell dinners, okay so… I had to help her peel the potatoes for the potato salad… Besides being churchy, my mother was a business woman, a hustler, OG. She used to sell food okay—and a lot of it. If we wasn’t cooking for big amounts of people, she used to give these—back in the days they was called “waistline parties,” where you would come in and however big your waistline was, [smiles] that’s how much you paid. [Laughs]
Lewis: Oh, my God. [Smiles]
Samuels: [00:03:46] Of course we had a whole bunch of fat people in our house. [Laughs] But… And she would sell dinners, and then she would cook for the church. So she was always cooking these big, big, big, big pots of food. And I—being the only girl, had to help out. And then she owned a frankfurter stand, and she didn’t like Sabreth onions, so she had to make her own onions. So, I had to peel onions and cook onions, and yeah… My mom.
Lewis: [00:04:19] Well, we just ate lunch, but now I’m getting hungry again. [Laughter] What were some of the favorite foods that you liked to eat that your mom cooked?
Samuels: I loved her potato salad, and thank God now I can make good potato salad. I loved her red rice. I can’t master her red rice yet, but yeah—she made really, really good red rice and I loved her potato salad.
Lewis: [00:04:45] And you have a twin brother, and you have another—had another brother?
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: Tell me about them. Are the … You’re the only girl, but are you the oldest?
Samuels: I’m the—excuse me—only girl. I’m the oldest—yes, by five minutes, and that is time… To hear my twin brother tell it, that don’t mean nothing. But yeah, I’m older than him. And to hear my mother tell it, I acted like it, too. I used to beat him up in the crib, [smiles] so yeah… [Laughs] I’m definitely the oldest. And I’ve always been, like—the backbone of the family, the rock of the family. My family have had like, mental illness, so—ever since I could call 911, I’ve been calling the cops for putting them in mental institution, being payees, and whatnot. So, yeah. I’m the oldest.
Lewis: [00:05:44] And so… Do you have like a… Could you describe—because Harlem has changed quite a bit from then, could you tell me a, like a—what’s a—what’s like a memory of yours, of your block? What was it like?
Samuels: Oh, wow… Growing up in my block—used to go outside, and the water hydrants used to be on. I used to love the summer—when you go out and the water hydrants on, and you go play in the water hydrants. Or when you had your girlfriends… Where you don’t see kids drawing on the ground no more, playing Hopscotch, or Double Dutch, or LODI’s, where you would buy these chips—you know, the gambling chips, where you would chuck them on the ground—don’t play LODI’s no more, they don’t play Hopscotch, they don’t play Kick the Ball. They don’t play none of that. I mean, growing up—that’s what we had.
Samuels: [00:06:39] Growing up back there—you had after school, you had a bunch of after school places you can go to, centers where you can go to. You don’t have none of that now. Young kids now is gangs and drugs and whatnot. But growing up, you had all these things for—and activities for us to do, children to do, teenagers to do and now all you’re doing is seeing them in bunches and cliques and...
Lewis: [00:07:09] And your school was in the neighborhood?
Samuels: Yeah, my school was two blocks from where I lived, two blocks—every school from elementary to junior high, until I got to high school. Then I had to travel, until I transferred from Brandeis [High School] to… I transferred from Brandeis to Benjamin Franklin [High School] and then they—that—which was on here, over the East Side where I live now... But then they closed Benjamin Franklin.
Lewis: And, since you’re a local—a local woman, do you have friends that you kept in touch with from back then?
Samuels: Yes! As a matter of fact I do. I do. I have one that—no matter if we don’t talk every day… Every year on my birthday, I don’t even have to talk to her none during the year. But on my birthday, Kelly will call me. We grew up together. We grew up from childhood. She will call me every year on my birthday. Yeah, I do. [Laughs]
Lewis: [00:08:18] And did you all go back down South to visit family when you were growing up?
Samuels: Yeah, as I was growing up, I used to think I was from down South, because every summer we would go down South, so… Yeah, Savannah was—there… until my aunt passed away and my mother had a nervous breakdown. So, then we was ashamed to go down South, because my mother really messed up their funeral. So… I mean, like—it was really bad.
Samuels: [00:08:48] But, recently—thanks to… I’m not sure whether it was Picture the Homeless—no, it was CVH. Picture the Homeless did go. Picture the Homeless was there as well. They have—what was it called? With, oh my God, what is her name? It’s… They would have a women’s… They would have a conference every year. It will come to me, because Picture the Homeless and Community Voices would go every… Her name, is Ja, Jab, Jab—it start with a J. Jabora? What was her name? Not Jabora, oh my… Juba! You know her name. You would know her if I called her. Anyway, they had this conference in Savannah, and I hadn’t been. This year the conference—this particular year, two years ago, the conference was in Savannah and CVH let me go and I was able to dig up some of my cousins, and I hadn’t been in years. So, it was really nice.
Lewis: [00:10:06] Your mom recovered from her nervous breakdown, that she had?
Samuels: She never recovered, ‘til she died, she... Well, I can’t say that. When she died, she hadn’t had a nervous breakdown in years. I—as an adult, had the nerve to speak up to her and say, “Mom, when was the last time you had a nervous breakdown because you was worried about something you did? You always have a nervous breakdown because of something Daddy did, or because of something we did. You always blamed it on us. Stop worrying about us. We’re grown, [smiles] you know? I mean, if you’re going to break down, make it be because of you, stop with us.” Ever since I had told her that, she said, “I’m not going to let you all run me crazy.” [Laughs] So she didn’t... When she passed away, she hadn’t had a nervous breakdown in like, three or four years, yeah… But she passed away at age eighty-eight.
Lewis: Well, I remember her funeral. There were other missionaries from the church all in a line. It was very beautiful.
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: And what was her name?
Samuels: Mary Samuels. Missionary Mary Samuels.
Samuels: [00:11:25] And I’m about to be ordained… I have a date and I hope that you’ll be able to attend, May 19th.
Lewis: I wouldn’t miss it.
Samuels: I’m going to be ordained a missionary as well.
Lewis: Congratulations!
Samuels: Thank you.
Lewis: [00:11:39] And, you mentioned your daddy. So tell me a little bit about him.
Samuels: Oh my God.
Lewis: Oh!
Samuels: You talk about opposites attract? Now that was a pair. My father was a Gemini, and he was a good man and a mean man. He did not go to church. Not one day did that man ever, ever, ever go to church. I don’t know how they stayed together for those amount of years. They was together for over fifty years, and that was just—I don’t know how.
Samuels: [00:12:12] He would drink and come home… But he was a good breadwinner, because I never heard them argue over money. They never argued over money. My mother used to say, “I’m the best independent poor woman you want to see. When you met me, I was—I had mine, I’m going to still have mine.” They never argued over money. They argued about her going to church so much, because after she came from work, she still did her church thing, and... But he never did. But he would drink and come home, curse her out… And she still would serve him dinner in bed. I never understood that, but… He was okay, I guess. [Laughs]
Lewis: What was his name?
Samuels: His name was Doc Wellington Samuels.
Lewis: [00:12:55] And if you don’t mind sharing, what year were you born?
Samuels: Fifty-seven. I’m sixty-two now.
Lewis: So, you were growing up in the sixties in Harlem.
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: Do you have any memories of any kind of political activism, or outside…
Samuels: No. I do remember when… What year did Dr. Martin Luther King pass away?
Lewis: I think it was [nineteen] sixty-five.
Samuels: Yeah. I do remember,
Lewis: No. No, no... It was [nineteen] sixty-seven, because okay...
Samuels: Whenever he passed away,
Lewis: We’re terrible social justice activists. [Laughs]
Samuels: [00:13:35] Yes. Yes. Whenever he passed away, that was sad. I remember my mother really crying. I didn’t understand it because I really didn’t know who he was and only thing I knew was God. God was my social justice. I didn’t know anything about social justice. But, when he passed away… I do remember, I remember that. Then people was upset, I remember something about people was liking Kennedy… When he got shot. I remember that. People was very upset about that.
Samuels: [00:14:14] Me and politics? Nah... Until I became involved with Community Voices Heard and Picture the Homeless, I didn’t vote. So no.
Lewis: And now you work for the Board of Elections, which we’ll get to. [Laughter] We will get to that. [Smiles]
Lewis: [00:14:31] And what were your teenage years like? Was that challenging with your… Was there any conflict with your church life, and just being a regular teenager who might…
Samuels: Yeah, because I was the only girl. So, I didn’t get to go out as much as my brothers. They sheltered me more. And then when boys would like me, they had to look up at the window to see if my father was looking out the window... They were scared to come talk to me. And I always had to play in front of the stoop, it was very old-fashioned. Then I had church clothes, play clothes, school clothes, so I—my parents wasn’t like, keeping up with the Joneses, so I didn’t have, you know—stuff that other people had, and stuff like that. And so, yeah it was challenging. My parents was very old-fashioned. I didn’t go to the movies. I didn’t do nothing until I was eighteen. I didn’t have none of the—none of the stuff until I was, when I did—when I got eighteen, I did everything. [Laughs]
Lewis: Were you—so, were you living in your parents’ house? [Smiles]
Samuels: [00:15:38] When I got eighteen? No, I ran away.
Lewis: Oh—so
Samuels: I ran away.
Lewis: What’s that story?
Samuels: Oh, I took her church… She was selling candy or whatever, I don’t know where this money came from, but I took the money... I think I was seventeen, going on eighteen and I took her church money. She was selling candy or something, I don’t know what it was—and bought a one-way ticket to Philadelphia.
Samuels: [00:16:00] Yeah, I didn’t run right around the corner. [Laughs] I first went to—God bless the dead—my daughter’s father, who wasn’t my daughter’s father, but I went to his house, and he told me I couldn’t stay there because it was right around the corner. That’ll be the first place they’d come look. And so I said, okay—I had a cousin live in Philadelphia and so I said, “Okay, tell me how to get to Philadelphia.” So, he told me how to get to Philadelphia, and I went to Philadelphia… Which—she was my favorite cousin, until I went to Philadelphia. Then she wasn’t my favorite cousin anymore.
Lewis: What happened?
Samuels: [00:16:41] “Come see” ain’t like “Come stay”. She was taking care—she had these people that she was taking care of. They was elderly people, and she didn’t take care of them. They would be wet, in their bed… They would be crying, they would be hungry, and she would be downstairs entertaining and gambling and drinking, and she would leave these people and not take care of them. They wasn’t taken care of. I lost all respect for her. All respect for her. So yeah, I didn’t want to stay with her. I’d rather went back home. I lost all respect for her. I stayed two days—three days I think it was, and I went back home. [Pauses] So… Yeah.
Samuels: [00:17:29] I went back home and then when my mother found out that I had a boyfriend and he bought me a pair of pants, she said, “Okay, you want to be grown, you got a boyfriend… He want to buy you clothes? He can continue to buy you clothes.” And so, I moved out, and he had moved to the Bronx, so then I left home and moved with him and that’s when I got pregnant with my daughter.
Lewis: And so, this would have been in the—in the seven—like mid-seventies?
Samuels: Yes—no, it was early seventies. My daughter was born in seventy-three.
Lewis: Okay.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: And so, what part of the Bronx? Do you remember the address?
Samuels: The Concourse. Right off the Concourse.
Lewis: And do you remember like, what part?
Samuels: A hundred and seventieth street, right off the Concourse, yes.
Lewis: Oh! Near the EAU [Emergency Assistance Unit]?
Samuels: Huh?
Lewis: Near the EAU?
Samuels: It was close to the EAU, yes.
Lewis: [00:18:21] Mmmm. And he was living by himself?
Samuels: Yeah. He lived by his—no, he was living with a roommate. He had a roommate, he had his room, it was an apartment, he shared with his roommate. The roommate had a room, he had his room. His grandmother lived on the second floor, and so his grandmother would fix our food. [Laughs] She would feed us.
Lewis: How was that like for you?
Samuels: It was—cool. It was exciting, it was different, because he was my first love. So, it was good, but he was a player. I didn’t know no better. He was my first love, I didn’t care. I didn’t know no better. I didn’t know no better. I was pregnant, it was my daughter. His grandmother took care of me. It was all young love. I didn’t know no better.
Lewis: And you were eighteen?
Samuels: I was eighteen, yep. First movie—he took me to my first movie…
Lewis: What was that?
Samuels: Everything… I can’t remember what it was. [Laughs] I really don’t remember what it was, but I know he took me to my first movie because my mother didn’t… We couldn’t even watch certain things on TV. Yeah.
Lewis: [00:19:36] What was that part of the Bronx like then, in the early seventies?
Samuels: Hmmmm. [Pause] It was a lot of drugs. I smoked a lot of weed. [Laughs] It was a lot of drugs. Yeah. Yeah... It was—yeah. I didn’t hang out in the Bronx. I always came to Manhattan. [Long pause] So…
Lewis: [00:19:59] So smoking a lot of weed is really different from the life you had with your mom.
Samuels: Yeah, well, I never really smoked a lot-lot. I mean like, I’d take two or three pulls, and I was there. [Laughs] So, I wasn’t, like, really, really into it like that. I mean my, what would you say, intolerance or resistance, wasn’t very high, so it didn’t take much for me. But he smoked a lot of weed. It was every… I just—you know, when you’re forbidden, the forbidden fruit, when you’re forbidden everything, you want to try everything, you want to do everything. So, that was more or less what it was.
Lewis: Yeah. And those were the times too, right?
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: Like, a lot of people were doing this
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: and we’re
Samuels: Yeah, that’s when hash was out—
Lewis: all doing the same things.
Samuels: good hash and everything, all the good stuff was out then. Back then, when you go to house parties… And yeah, people don’t know nothing about that now. That was fun. Yeah.
Lewis: [00:21:05] You know, people talk about the—during those times, the Bronx was burning—you know, Harlem was burning… Buildings were being set on fire and stuff.
Samuels: I remember the blackouts. [Laughs]
Lewis: Do you have any memories of those things during roughly that time?
Samuels: No, because basically even when I was out of my mother’s house, or in my mother’s house, I was still in the house. I was never really, really, really a street person, you know what I’m saying? Even when I was with—when I ran away and I was with him, all I wanted to do was be with him. So, when he came home, I wanted to be right there, you know? So, as far as being in the streets, as far as knowing what the streets was doing, or knowing politically what anybody was doing, no.
Lewis: Sheltered Tyletha?
Samuels: Yes, I was sheltered Tyletha. [Laughs]
Lewis: And LaShawn, your daughter… So you were living in the Bronx when she was born?
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: And how long… How did it go with your—with her dad, with your boyfriend?
Samuels: Well… He died when she was—he got killed. Got shot up like Swiss cheese when she was seven years old. Yeah, so she lost her father at a very early age, when she was like, seven years old. And thank God for Henry—you know, Henry is what she considered her father. But yeah… He was into drugs and selling drugs and whatnot, that fast life. So, they say “So you live, so you die.” And, yes...
Lewis: [00:23:00] Did you stay in the Bronx after that?
Samuels: No. No, I had been left the Bronx before he had did that. I couldn’t take it no more with his playing ways, or whatever. So, I left. I went back to my mom’s.
Lewis: And how did that go?
Samuels: It was good. She loved her grandchild. She raised LaShawn. LaShawn started being the one going to church twenty-four/seven. [Laughs]
Lewis: And so, you went back to 113th Street?
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: And stayed there for?
Samuels: Stayed there until I moved out and got me an apartment—112th Street.
Lewis: Mm-Hmmm.
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: One block over?
Samuels: One block, right around the corner. My father never, to this day, came to my house.
Lewis: Why?
Samuels: For some reason, I don’t know. He just never came to my house. My father never stepped foot in my house. I don’t know what was the reason why he never came to my house, but he never did. I—I don’t know. I don’t know… I still can’t remember why he never came to my house. My mother helped me furnish it, but my father never came to my house.
Lewis: You wanted him to come?
Samuels: Yeah, I wanted him to see it. I was happy I finally got my own. I wasn’t living with no man. I really wanted him to… But he never did.
Lewis: [00:24:32] And then… So it was you and LaShawn?
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: And how long did you live there?
Samuels: I lived in 112th Street… I don’t know, for about six, seven years.
Lewis: What was the apartment like?
Samuels: It was cool. It was two bedrooms. It was cute. It was two bedrooms. LaShawn was very happy. I was able to give her stuff that my mother didn’t give me, and raise her differently, I guess, than my mother raised me. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, but she stayed with my mother, but for Christmastime like, I gave her all the Barbies you can get. Whatever Barbie had, I gave her, because I’ve always wanted Barbie, but my mother never gave me Barbie. So I made sure she had all the Barbie outfits. Everything Barbie. [Laughs]
Lewis: [00:25:31] And what are some of the things that you kept that are like your mom? So, you mentioned some things that you did as a mother differently, but what are some of the things as a mother that you carried?
Samuels: I think I’m a giving person, I think I’m a helpful person. I do try and help... If I can’t help you, I’m not going to hurt you—and that was my mom. I think I’m a good cook like my mom.
Lewis: You are. [Smiles]
Samuels: [Laughs] Yeah. I’m not as religious as my mom, but I have a lot of religious aspects as my mom. Her values, I think—I got a lot of… Yeah, I’m getting there. [Laughs]
Lewis: Is that your goal, to be more like your mom?
Samuels: Yeah—I really do. I really do. I really do want to be like my mom. She was such a giving person.
Lewis: Yeah, well, I’m sure if she can hear you right now, she’d be really proud to hear you say that, right?
Samuels: [Laughs] Yeah.
Lewis: She’s already proud of you,
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: you’ve accomplished so many things.
Samuels: [00:26:45] Yeah, yeah… If she… Boy, the day I became a chaplain, she just—yeah. She—yeah, she would be real proud of me. She’d be happy. Especially when—when I’m sitting in the nursing home, because our chaplaincy goes to the nursing home and we pray and read the bible to—you know, the people in the nursing home, or we go to the prisons and we go to the one up there, where they were just having the difficulty up there, and we—you know, have service with them. She would be… With New Horizon, the prison. She… When I do that, I think of her.
Lewis: That’s nice.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmmm.
Lewis: [00:27:36] And so, you and LaShawn are at your own place, and then what—what happened next?
Samuels: Life. What happened next… Me and LaShawn, we had a place. LaShawn grew up, she went to school, she went away to college—then she gets pregnant. [Laughs] LaShawn gets pregnant. [Long pause] Then I get pregnant again, [smiles] and we got pregnant at the same time! But she was in Jersey, so we wasn’t pregnant here in New York together. So she had her little boy, and I had me Charles. [Smiles]
Lewis: And did LaShawn—LaShawn was staying in New Jersey then?
Samuels: Yeah. Well, she got pregnant away in college. She was away in college, and she got pregnant, and then she quit college and she moved in with him and his family in Jersey.
Lewis: Mm-Hmmm.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmmm.
Lewis: How did you feel about that?
Samuels: Not good. I wanted her to finish college because she’s so smart. So smart. But, she was in love, and you can’t pick who your children love, and you can’t pick their life. You’ve got to let them live it, so that’s what she wanted to do.
Lewis: [00:29:01] And how old were you when you got pregnant with Charles?
Samuels: Well, Charles is twenty-six now. So, I’m sixty-two. [Smiles]
Lewis: Oh my God, you’re going to make me do math! [Smiles]
Samuels: You want to do the math? [Laughter]
Lewis: So, what’s that story?
Samuels: I didn’t want another one. That story is just me—his father’s deceased as well. Both my children’s fathers is deceased. Just, it’s me finding somebody that… Here I go, I was in love again. His name is Charles, too. Charles is a junior, yeah. And I just didn’t know, and “Oh, you got to have it. You got to have it. I want it.” So, yeah. And… I wanted it too, because at that time I had been—I had gotten a little wild. I had been running the streets, and… I had gotten a little wild. So, I thought that would probably calm me down, and it did.
Lewis: What’s “a little wild” mean?
Samuels: [00:30:11] “A little wild” means I had been partying, yeah. I had been drinking a little more, you know, just staying out more. LaShawn was where she was, and I just wanted to stop. So, having Charles, that did it for me.
Lewis: And so, you were still in the apartment on 112th?
Samuels: No. I had moved out of there because… Why did I move out of there? I moved out of there—I don’t know, I wasn’t there. When I got pregnant with Ch—oh, I moved in with him. Yeah.
Lewis: Where was that?
Samuels: 112th—[laughs] It was down the block. It was—I was… The apartment I had was between Saint Nicholas and Lenox.
Lewis: Mm-Hmmm.
Samuels: And I moved out of there and moved to 112th, between Seventh and Eighth [avenues] with him.
Lewis: [00:31:12] And, what are some of the main differences between those blocks now? Then and now, I mean.
Samuels: Back then, people lived in them. Now they’re abandoned. [Laughs] And you don’t… They had more bars. It was a lot more bars. It was a lot more bars on 112th Street and 113th Street and 115th Street, it was a lot more bars and the buildings was more occupied. That’s a big difference.
Lewis: [00:31:59] And I—some of them are probably getting fixed up now.
Samuels: Oh, yeah! You should see them now. You should see them now. You’re talking gentrification at the highest power, okay? Back then, when you got on the train, excuse me—I’m sorry, when you said it, [laughs] sorry my voice just elevated, because back then, when you got off the train at 110th Street, you did not see not one white face, no disrespect meant, okay? Now they get off when we get off. That wasn’t happening. Now, 112th, 113th Street, you see white people. We didn’t have white people back then. No white people lived on 113th Street, huh-uh. No co-op was on 113th Street. The buildings that you see, 113th Street now, you should see how they look. I bet you not one rat is running in that building. It was back then.
Lewis: Yeah.
Samuels: Yeah. So, it’s a big difference. The way it looked, the way it is, yes, big, big, big difference.
Lewis: And what are your thoughts about that?
Samuels: [00:33:12] The one thing I like about it is now we’ve got Victoria’s Secret, [laughs] we got Starbucks, we got Whole Foods. We got all these stores that we didn’t have back then, okay? That we had to go downtown and shop, right? We don’t have to do that. We can go right on 125th Street now, okay? We don’t have to go all the way to downtown because white people moved in. Okay? But my—why did they have to move in for us to get it? That’s what I don’t understand. They had to move us out, to move them in—to get it. Okay?
Samuels: [00:33:52] I’m scared to—I’m going to hold on to my apartment in Manhattan, because I don’t want to move to the Bronx. I don’t want to move to Queens. And the rent in Manhattan now is just ridiculous and I’m scared to death that if I lose, I can’t go like I was when I was young. I can move from here and I can move from there and think I could get an apartment in Manhattan. That ain’t going to work now.
Lewis: No.
Samuels: That ain’t going to work now. Unless I hit the lottery, I’m staying put—glued—crazy glued to my apartment. [Laughs]
Lewis: Yeah. I was just walking to the West Side, through that area the other day. And it looks, it just looks like money.
Samuels: Yes! It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. You can’t... You can’t—I got people looking for, “Tyletha, do you know of any apartments?” No! Where?
Lewis: No.
Samuels: Not in Manhattan!
Lewis: [00:34:51] And you mentioned Henry—Henry helping to raise LaShawn, and…
Samuels: Charles—it’s the only father he knows.
Lewis: Tell me how you met Henry.
Samuels: Oh, my God. Henry was Charles’ father’s friend. That’s how I met Henry, through Charles’ father’s friend, living in twelfth Street, and Henry traveled. When I met Henry, Henry was working for this movie company who put up… He did the movie theaters, he did the chairs, he did the screens, he did the drapes and all of that. He did hotels… And—but he would never hardly be in town. Then when he would come back in town, he lived in the building across. So, we would go to Henry’s house and drink and just party.
Samuels: [00:35:46] So, Henry used to be my party friend. He just used to be my party friend. We would stay up for days playing cards. We would play cards, and we would just drink and have fun, and play cards. So, Henry was a friend for a while. That wasn’t even, Henry wasn’t even my type. He’s a skinny little man. “No, you’re not my type.” [Laughs] No. So we became the best of friends. He was just my friend. He was Charles’ godfather… He would babysit, yes, we was the best of friends.
Samuels: [00:36:23] But then, Charles father was abusive, and Henry knew that, and Henry was saying, “You don’t have to take that from him. I love you.” And I was saying, “Yeah, but I’m with him. I can’t be with you.” He’s saying, “Well, one day you will.” This man would tell me all the time, “You’re going to be with me.” And whenever I would get into an argument or he would beat me, or we would get into fights, I would run and stay with Henry and there wasn’t no sex, no nothing… But I would run and stay with Henry. Henry was really, really good. Henry was a very good friend to me.
Samuels: [00:37:04] And then, I got tired of Charles. I got tired of him hitting me. So, one day he hit me, and I packed Charles up and said, “Okay, he’s going to go to jail.” Because he was already on probation, and his probation officer told him, “If you spit or jaywalk, you’re going back to jail.” So, one day, I had Charles, and I came in late or something and he was drinking, and he was high, and I had stopped all that. “Okay, like you could do what you want to do.” But I had slowed down on the drinking, and didn’t want to do that anymore. And I would like wait until he would be in bed or whatever, and I came in...
Samuels: [00:37:53] And I put Charles in his crib—I’ll never forget it, and I went to lay down. And this man came and took one of them industrial broomsticks and broke it across my back. And when he did that… I waited ’til he went to sleep… I grabbed the knife—first I got Charles dressed... I was going to cut his throat, and leave. And when I went to do it, Charles started crying and I said, “You know what? It ain’t even worth it, because I know I’ma go to jail.” I just took Charles, and I took the broomstick and went across the street and called the cops and the cops took him to jail. He went to jail.
Samuels: [00:38:41] And Charles never seen him. Charles hadn’t seen him then for five more years. He did five more years. He didn’t never come home. He did five more years—no, seven. He did more than five years. But in that time, I still sent him commissary. All them five years I sent him his commissary. I kept his income going, I sent him commissary, or whatever because he was Charles’ father. But I never went back to him. I went to Henry!
Samuels: [00:39:17] I let Henry kiss me [laughs] and when he kissed me, I said, “Huh-uh,” this man is working with something. All that time I had been missing that. Yeah.
Lewis: The skinny man? [Smiles]
Samuels: The skinny man was working with something, yeah. And so, we stayed married for over fifteen years.
Lewis: And Henry could dance too. I remember many…
Samuels: [Laughs]
Lewis: sometimes you never know.
Samuels: You never know! All that time… Yep. He pushed my buttons.
Lewis: [00:39:50] And so, you had mentioned earlier that—before we started recording, that you became politically active when you were in the shelter, and somebody came there during outreach.
Samuels: Oh, yeah.
Lewis: So, how did you get from—how did you get to the shelter?
Samuels: Oh, well…
Lewis: What happened?
Samuels: When he went… When LaShawn came back, when LaShawn came from Jersey, right, she had broke up with her boyfriend. She came from Jersey. I was living—I was living 112th Street, in this one-room apartment. And LaShawn came, so she didn’t have no place to go. She didn’t want to stay with my mom. So what I did is I gave LaShawn the room at 112th Street, and my mother was sick. So I went to stay with my mom. Me and Charles went to stay with my mom, and I gave LaShawn the room, for the baby.
Samuels: [00:40:48] And, that—it was… I’ll never forget. It was coming up on Easter. That Easter weekend… That the week before Easter, that weekend, it was a carnival down the block in Foster. I’ll never forget… Foster is a projects down the block from 113th Street. And we’re coming back—I took them to the carnival, and we’re coming back and we’re walking down… And a block away, I’m seeing all these fire trucks and I’m saying, “Oh God, please don’t let it be our block.” And sure enough, I—we get to the block, and it’s the fire truck. It’s the fire truck…. And [pause] yeah... It was our building.
Samuels: [00:41:41] My mother was supposed to come home. She was in the hospital, and she was supposed to come home in two days. She couldn’t come home. We had to put her in a nursing home, and we had to go in a shelter. And thank God it was a relocation shelter, but it—yet and still, it was a shelter. Thank God that the money that I had in there—and to this day, I don’t know why I always keep money in the house. [Laughs] But I learned... I got a fire-proof safe for now, I don’t just keep it… Which I’m trying to talk Charles out of doing that. He won’t get one. He keeps his money in the closet and—which I’m trying to get him to put it in a bank, or put it in… But he still doesn’t want to, I don’t know why.
Samuels: [00:42:36] But anyway, thank God that the money and the checks—because I hadn’t even cashed it. So, I was my mother’s payee. I was my brother’s payee, and I hadn’t even cashed the social security checks. I had money up in there, and I had just bought the Easter outfits… And thank God, the only thing I had to do was take it to the cleaner’s and get the smoke out of it, they still had Easter clothes.
Samuels: [00:43:06] But… I was able to get that, and they put us in a shelter. And how I became involved was, LaShawn would go to all of the—they used to have shelter meetings—you had to go to these workshops. So, I would send LaShawn to the workshops. So one day, I’m coming home. We had—I had to do WEP, the Work Experience Program, and I’m coming home, and I seen this paper that said, “If you want to know your rights, come to a workshop.”
Samuels: [00:43:45] And I’m saying, “okay...” And the reason why, I had no problem with the WEP Experience Program, except the E was missing—really, you never got no experience. But they would—it was something for me to do. And due to the fact that I was walking with a cane at that time, they only gave me four hours, and I was working at the Medicaid office, and I was working with supervisors. I didn’t have to do nothing but sit there and answer the phone. I ain’t really had to do no hard work. So…
Samuels: [00:44:17] But, it was a lady—she was Puerto Rican, or Spanish… I’m going to say Spanish, because I can’t tell whether she was Puerto Rican or not, but she only had jeans. And you know, once you get this welfare check, they don’t give you enough to buy toilet paper. And she only had jeans to wear. So, she didn’t look like the supervisors, you know? And she didn’t look like me. I had clothes. But she didn’t look like a supervisor. She looked like a WEP worker, or whatever… But she knew that Medicaid office better than the people making forty and fifty thousand dollars. She knew her work. But, she had been asking them to transfer her, because they would talk about her, they would talk about how she was dressed, and they would make fun of her—but they wouldn’t transfer her. She didn’t want to not do the program, she just wanted to be transferred.
Samuels: [00:45:09] So when I came in the shelter and I seen that flyer, I said, “LaShawn, I’m going to this meeting and I’m going to see what it’s about, maybe they can help Sylvia.” Right? that was her name. So okay, I go, and I met an organizer named Elaine Kim. And so Elaine said, “Well, do you think that she would come to a meeting? Or better yet, do you think you could get me up into the Medicaid office?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “Well, here—here goes some flyers. Can you give them out?” I said, “Yeah.”
Samuels: [00:45:43] Little did I know, I was becoming an organizer. Child! I gave out them flyers. I got fifteen people up in the lunchroom at twelve o’clock. I snuck Elaine up in the office where she wasn’t supposed to be—up on the fourth floor. I snuck her up at the lunchroom. The meeting lasted five minutes. [Laughs] They caught us. They caught us. The caught us, right?
Samuels: [00:46:09] And so then, they’re going to say, “Oh, who organized this? You ain’t supposed to be up there. Who organized this?” “I did.” I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to make friends. I didn’t care about them people. These people needed to know their rights. I didn’t care if they got mad. I didn’t care what… What you going to do? Fire me? You ain’t paying me! [Laughs] So what you was going to do? I didn’t care. But, because of the way they broke it up, Sylvia was scared.
Samuels: [00:46:33] But, I came to a meeting, because before Elaine left, she said, “Well, our office is right here 116th Street.” That’s when CVH was across the street in this one little hole in the wall. It wasn’t even a big office—you had to walk up these stairs. It wasn’t big. And so they—she told us where the meeting was, and said, “Come to this meeting.” And so, “Bring her to this meeting, come.”
Samuels: [00:47:04] But nobody wouldn’t come. They were scared because of the way… They might get in trouble, because of the way they broke them up, and because of the way the supervisor threatened them, “Oh, you all can’t be doing this. You all can’t be organizing.” Or whatever—and no matter how much I talked, you could lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make them drink.
Samuels: [00:47:22] So, she didn’t come or anything, but I went to the meeting, and I liked what they were saying. We should be getting paid to be working. We shouldn’t be doing no WEP work, we should be getting paid for that work! I liked what they were saying. So, but—I wasn’t going to talk, but I liked what they were saying, [smiles] so I kept going back to the meeting and then Gail was saying, “Well, Tyletha, you’re a WEP worker. If you like what we’re saying, you should speak up.”
Samuels: [00:47:48] So, they bought me my first airplane ticket to San Francisco, where they wanted me to tell how I was only getting sixty-eight fifty every two weeks, but I had to do this WEP program. And like, they didn’t like, make no speech for me. They just wanted me to tell my story. So, I was saying, how am I going to get in front of these people?
Samuels: [00:48:10] And so, they was saying, “Well come on. I’ma be with you.” The only time I would speak—if Gail would come with me or if Elaine would come with me. But what I liked about CVH was they did leadership development. They did public speaking. They did—you know, they helped you on how to… They trained you on how to talk. But when they trained you, they didn’t train you on, “Oh, you should speak like this. Oh, you should speak like this.” They trained you on how you was the expert of your story, you know? Like, you know, “Nobody can tell you what you’re living.” You know what I’m saying?
Samuels: [00:48:49] They made you feel important. Like here—I’m coming home, cursing my mother… Like I had already threw a credenza at one welfare worker, because she called my mother the “B” word, okay? We up in this welfare office for day after day after day, and the supervisor said that, “When you come tomorrow, you’ll be next.” That case—that supervisor sat us there… That case worker sat us there and refused to call us, because we went and told the supervisor she had to call us... When she calls up, she gonna call my mother a “B.”
Samuels: [00:49:23] I took the credenza and tried to throw it and knock her head off, but it missed. But yet and still, she’s going to call the ambulance, or whatever, like I hit her. Well, we never seen her. I think she got fired. I really did think she got fired. But, they didn’t put me in jail. They just took me to the precinct, bought me some Burger King, let me go. She never showed up. But welfare was a hot mess! And they just wanted me to tell my story and that’s how I got involved.
Lewis: [00:49:56] So this was in the nineties—like, the mid-nineties?
Samuels: Yeah! That was when Clinton first came out with the Work Experience Program—which I thought it was good, because the only thing I had been doing… Like, I had only had high school... I had to stop going. I didn’t finish going to high school because my mother had gotten sick and we had the business, so I was helping them with their business and trying to keep a roof over our head and bread on the table, so I didn’t really have no experience.
Samuels: [00:50:26] So when they came out with this, I thought it was good because the only thing I knew was welfare. So, I thought it was good. I thought I was going to get some experience. I didn’t know that E was missing. I ain’t know that you really wasn’t going to get no marketable skills that you really could put on a resume.
Samuels: [00:50:42] And then… At that time, until we got involved with CVH, you couldn’t even put this experience on a resume, until CVH said, “Well look, they’re doing the work. Why can’t this go on a resume?” When I first started, they were saying this can’t even go on a resume.
Samuels: [00:50:58] But I thought that Clinton had came up with a good thing—that people was gonna go… They was gonna work, they was going to get some marketable skills, this was going to lead to employment, you know what I’m saying? All this was sounding good to me!
Lewis: [00:51:12] So Elaine Kim was an organizer at CVH,
Samuels” Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: and Gail Aska,
Samuels: Yes. [Smiles]
Lewis: the co-founder.
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: And who were some of the other folks that were in those…
Samuels: Joan V, Joan
Lewis: Minieri?
Samuels: Joan Minieri, LaDon James… Paul Getsos.
Lewis: All of those folks, except Gail, who’s passed
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: are still in the social justice movement.
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: [00:51:39] And that’s where we met, at CVH.
Samuels: Yes! That’s where I met you! And my neighbor, when I came in... Yep.
Lewis: And we became next door neighbors at the same time.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmmm. Yep.
Lewis: [00:51:52] Do you—at that time… I was volunteering with Picture the Homeless, because we didn’t have any funding.
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: And Anthony and Lewis sometimes would come to the CVH office. Do you—did you meet them then?
Samuels: Who, Anthony?
Lewis: Uh-huh.
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: What are—what did you think about him—or that?
Samuels: [00:52:15] I loved Picture the Homeless! I was wishing all the time, when I was over at CVH—that CVH was doing some of the work that Picture the Homeless was doing, because what Picture the Homeless was doing resonated with me, since I was in a shelter, and I was around homeless people, you know what I’m saying?
Samuels: [00:52:35] And I had become homeless—that I wanted to do something around housing, you know? And then I had—was fighting for Section 8 and fighting to get housing, and fighting to get out of the shelter, and fighting for my daughter to get housing, and whatnot. I wanted CVH to do something like Picture the Homeless. That’s how come it had gravitated to me. And then when I found out that, even though you were working at CVH, you still was doing work around Picture the Homeless, and still trying to raise money to help Picture the Homeless.
Samuels: [00:53:13] And I’ll never forget—when I told you, “Yeah, if you raise enough money and you get it, you got to hire me.” [Laughs] I’ll never forget that. “I want to work with Picture the Homeless.” Yeah.” I thought that Picture the Homeless was doing—always thought from the beginning to now—that Picture the Homeless does excellent work.
Lewis: [00:53:37] Do you remember when you… Like, do you have an Anthony story? Do you have an Anthony memory—of meeting him?
Samuels: An Anthony memory, oh my God. What’s an Anthony memory, besides him being fun? [Smiles] Besides him being passionate when he talked about homelessness, when he’s fun and giddy, and then when he’d talk about Picture the Homeless, the bass that comes in his voice. [Laughs, long pause]
Samuels: [00:54:13] The—I think the most memorable one is The Longest Night. The Longest Night, when he really, really cried and when he got up to speak about his members that had passed away and how passionate he was about—you know, the people that he had worked with, and how they died fighting and wanting to see change, and how he was going to fight until he died to keep they memory and to keep the legacy and what they wanted, alive. I think seeing how strong he felt about something that he had started. Yeah.
Lewis: [00:55:08] So, Anthony in his apartment in Baltimore… When I went—I went and interviewed him in January of 2018. And Anthony is very artistic—and he has paintings, small paintings in his apartment, and each one has the name of somebody who was homeless who has died, hanging on his walls.
Samuels: Yeah, he really, really, really is passionate about that. I would love to see that. He’s really passionate about that and I think the first time I really got like—I knew he was, like, strong, and I knew he was passionate. But you could really see and feel, not only see, you could like feel—feel his passion.
Lewis: [00:56:00] And, did you ever meet Lewis?
Samuels: No, I…
Lewis: He came a couple times.
Samuels: I think I did! I think I did.
Lewis: Yeah.
Samuels: I think I did.
Lewis: Yeah, he came but he had already been kind of transitioning out.
Samuels: I think I did. Yes.
Lewis: [00:56:14] And I’m asking you that because, Picture the Homeless at the time, the—we didn’t have an office, and then we got the basement office at Judson.
Samuels: Yeah. That’s when I used to come.
Lewis: Yeah. So a lot of people that have been with Picture the Homeless, even for a long time... That was almost twenty years ago, so there aren’t tons of people that we still—and many have passed away that were around during that time, so… It’s nice to get—to hear the memory from you, about that.
Samuels: Yeah... Judson… Yeah.
Lewis: [00:56:55] And so… When you joined the staff of Picture the Homeless, we had gotten office space across the hall from Community Voices Heard, on 116 and you shared that you had wanted to work at Picture the Homeless, but what was it like working at Picture the Homeless?
Samuels: [00:57:18] Oh my God, it was a dream come true. When I got to work at Picture the Homeless and then—I was in charge of the shelter campaign, and then getting the chance to be—work around the EAU, the Emergency Assistance Unit—and working with those families, even though they couldn’t come down to Picture the Homeless, because the Emergency Assistance Unit was where there was an intake, where they was just there to wait to go to a shelter.
Samuels: [00:57:57] So, getting to meet with those people, and then having meetings with them in the park, that was just awesome. It was sad in one place and then it was sad… It was good in another—because they was—they were strong! And they wanted to do something. They was just scared, and they—they couldn’t.
Samuels: [00:58:20] And to be able to help, and to do something, or just to give them a place where they could just talk about what was going on—what was the issue, what was the circumstances, what was the conditions… To have somebody to sneak in there for me and take a picture of a rat running around—that was just awesome! To have somebody willing to do that... I mean like, it was really cool to be able to do the actions around the EAU, to be able to be with those families, to—since you was one of them… I mean, you can identify homelessness.
Lewis: [00:59:03] What were some of the issues that they raised?
Samuels: The conditions… and coming to the EAU, having their children with them, and having to stay in there all day… Eating—like, a sandwich maybe and then at twelve or one o’clock, [A.M.] waking up to go to a shelter to stay just for one day, and then—or two days, and then have to come right back to the EAU. It was just ridiculous bouncing back and forth, back, and forth, back, and forth.
Samuels: [00:59:38] It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t nice. The system itself—the way they did it… I mean like, if a family came from Queens, and they had to go to—now, a school… Or had to be put in a shelter in Manhattan, and they was already going to a school in Queens… That was very unfair. Or, how were they going to do that, you know? Or they lived in the Bronx and was going to school, and—or be put in a shelter in Queens. They was displaced.
Samuels: [01:00:10] It was—it was bad. It was horrible. It was so many different things—to have to sit with your child for so many hours—to have to go to a shelter, I mean, late at night… And then the medical part of it, you know? The way they would tell me how you had to go in there, and then you had to submit your child to being… Okay, I understand. People want their children to be safe, you know? When you go into a place, you want your children to be safe and not bring in germs and stuff. But the way they told me how they used to do it, like if I’m dirty or I’m diseased, or something like that. The way the system was, they felt like they was—they dehumanized you.
Lewis: [01:01:06] And—and so you would have meetings with people in the park?
Samuels: Yeah. I would go up there and it would be regular, so that people who would come up there… Or I would give a flyer, and I would have it posted maybe up around a fence or something. It would be like every Thursday—we tried to keep it consistent, so that it would be word of mouth.
Samuels: [01:02:28] Like, okay—if you go up there, “Look, next Thursday, I might not be here.” But they have a family… Because I would tell them, “Look, tell anybody—you going to a shelter—that we meet here on Thursdays in the park.” Or whateverhave you. So, I would go up there on the weekdays and you know, give out flyers, “If you’re here on Thursday. If you’re not here on Thursday, tell the family…” Or whatever… And it would be families that meet me in the park. It was a park around two blocks around the corner from the EAU and I would have a—I would have a good little turnout.
Samuels: [01:02:01] My only disappointment—and my disappointment with this and any organizing that I did, was that when you organize around people who’s having difficulty… It’s hard for them when you’re not solving their problems right then and there. When they’re going through stuff… If I’m homeless and I’m trying to get a bed at night—to want to come to a meeting, you know what I’m saying? And—I mean, like, “I ain’t got time to talk about coming to a meeting if you ain’t going to feed me.” Or like, if I’m in a Welfare Center and I’m trying to get some food on my table, I’m about to be evicted, and here you come talking to me… That’s the only difficult thing.
Samuels: [01:02:41] But the families and the people that I did talk to—did talk to me. They did say, “Well look, this is worth it. We’re glad to hear that there’s somebody out there who cares… Somebody out there that wants to do something.”
Lewis: [01:02:54] So, what do you think—what’s the difference between the families… Because they were all going through a lot.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: The ones that would come. What do you think was—motivated them? What did they… What did you do? What did you say so that they came to that park, to that meeting?
Samuels: That we want to stop what’s being done to you. We want to stop and the only way we could stop it, is with you. We can’t stop it unless you want it to be stopped. You’re the one have to stop it. I’m not going through it, you are. You know? You have to be the one to do it, I can’t do it for you, you know? And if you don’t want other people… Do you care about other people? This could be your daughter one day, doing this. Okay—do you want her to go through this, you know?
Lewis: [01:03:42] Now that was before cell phones, really… Much
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: A lot of people didn’t have them. How did you… And people didn’t have smart phones.
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: How did you keep in touch with people?
Samuels: That’s what I’m saying, to have it consistently.
Lewis: Okay.
Samuels: To have it consistently—every Thursday. To have it consistently, and if they could have somebody to call me, you know? I had to trust that they could have somebody to call me. Or, “Do you have someplace I could call you?” But to have something consistently where, “This is where I’ll be.”
Lewis: [01:04:20] The other thing that you were doing while you worked at Picture the Homeless was… There were always more men than women. But the women that were there were strong, were, you know—outspoken often and you started a women’s group, When Women Gather
Samuels: [Laughs] Mm-Hmmm. Oh, yes, like the…
Lewis: I think the flyer said. What—what motivated you to do that? Why did you do that?
Samuels: Because—like you said, it was a lot of men there. But women was going through a lot! Women was the mothers. I mean, women had children and I was part of the shelter system and most of the shelters that I was going to… It wasn’t men’s shelters, it was family shelters—and in family shelters, women were the head of the household.
Samuels: [01:05:14] And When Women Gather, it was strong… There was strength and there was strength in numbers. And I wanted women to know that they are strong, and you could make a difference and it was awesome… I liked my When Women Gather meetings. I mean, women felt powerful. I wanted women to know that when you gather—and there’s strength in numbers—that you can do something. And just being a mom… You know, and going through all of that, that in itself alone… If your problem don’t get solved tomorrow—just you waking up and still going through it and—and being strong enough to still handle it… That’s power.
Lewis: [01:06:03] So, of other people that we’ve interviewed that were around Picture the Homeless during the time you worked there, people mention you with a lot of love. [Smiles] And, also… I mentioned to a couple of people, “Oh, I’m interviewing Tyletha.” “Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to hear that!” [Laughter] And… What are your memories of that time? Like, what was the office like?
Samuels: [01:06:27] The office was mad cool. I—that… One thing I loved about Picture the Homeless was that it was… I can’t—I… Laid back is—is not… It doesn’t fit it. But it was love. It was—it was… Like, okay—you know what you had to do, okay… Because we had a director who would kick your behind if you wasn’t doing [smiles] what you were supposed to do.
Lewis: Oh! [Smiles] They sound terrible.
Samuels: [01:07:01] Okay… [Laughter] They would kick your behind, okay? You had to work as hard as you played hard—and that was the thing, Okay? She played as hard as she worked, okay? And that [laughs] that was mad, mad good. It was like everybody in their campaigns was passionate. That was the key to a strong, and I think a healthy organization, and an organization that I wanted to be a part of, that people was passionate about what they’re doing. They just weren’t going out there and reading a script and saying, “Okay, I got a job, I got to go do this.” You know what I’m saying? Like, the job I have now. Okay, you was passionate about what you did. You wanted to go do this. You wanted to help these people. You wanted to make a difference. And it was awesome to work with Picture the Homeless and I… If I was young and can do it all over again, I wouldn’t want to work for no other organization.
Lewis: [01:08:08] William Burnett says that he met you on the train, because you and Leroy and Rogers were on the train.
Samuels: Oh, yes. [Laughs] Yeah, I remember.
Lewis: [01:08:17] And he wasn’t homeless at the time. And so, you know—talk to me about how you met people, besides the EAU.
Samuels: Oh, okay… Yeah, well, I met… Okay, like Marcus—I could talk about Marcus. Marcus lived—he lived in the shelter—Wards, Wards Island and I would do outreach—different places, and that was one. Doing outreach where people had to go back to their shelters, or in front of their shelters, and I would be on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue.
Samuels: [01:08:55] And that’s where I met Marcus—getting on the bus to go to Wards Island. And I had seen him before, and I hadn’t seen him in a minute, and I said, “Didn’t I see you come to Picture the Homeless before one time?” “Oh yeah! I came, but I’ve been so busy.” “But no… You need to come back, Marcus. We need people like you. Without people like you, we can’t do anything! I mean like—come on. You gotta come back, Marcus. We need people like you.” And then we started talking and talking, and I said, “Look, come on.” And he came! He came. He promised me that he would come, and he came, and he’s been coming ever since. He’s been coming ever since.
Samuels: [01:09:52] William Burnett—we was talking, me…
Lewis: Leroy and Rogers.
Samuels: Leroy, Rogers… We was holding a conversation. And to this day, William Burnett—he will talk you until the cows come home. But we didn’t know him then. And he just joined in our conversation—he liked what we were saying. And William Burnett, will—do have an opinion about everything, and don’t let it be political! Because yeah, he will jump in—and he jumped in and wanted to know where we was from and whatnot… And we started talking, and we told him—invited him. He’s been there ever since.
Samuels: [01:10:40] It’s so many places that you can do outreach, because homeless is just everywhere—on the train, in front of a bus, in front of a shelter. I’ve been to shelters, done trainings in shelters, done public speaking… I mean, like—to tell people about Picture the Homeless, in the shelters—met people in the shelters, to try and get them to come to Picture the Homeless.
Lewis: [01:11:11] So, you joined the staff in 2003. That’s when we moved up to East Harlem—so 2003, 2004… And, we earlier were looking at some photos of sleep-outs. That’s
Samuels: Oh…
Lewis: when we first started sleeping out on the sidewalk.
Samuels: [Laughs]
Lewis: And you were at—the first one we did was in midtown in March, and it got cold.
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: What were you thinking? What were you thinking at the time? Had you ever done anything like that?
Samuels: No!
Lewis: So…
Samuels: Uh-uh.
Lewis: What were your thoughts?
Samuels: My thoughts was, “These people are crazy. They are dead serious. They are so serious.” Oh my God. The first one—I couldn’t believe y’all did it all night. You all are so serious. And I do have a picture of me in my chair that… I’m going to look and send you. [Laughs] And, yeah—you all were serious. When y’all… When that happened and I had to do that sleep-out, I knew you all was serious—but yeah… To sleep-out like that.
Samuels: [01:12:25] And then when we did the one in the rain! Where you literally—we literally… When it started raining, I thought we was going to go home. No! Y’all didn’t budge. Y’all didn’t budge. You all didn’t budge. But everybody had raingear, everybody had brought raingear, and to sleep out and to stay out in that rain… Yeah. That was—that right there was something.
Samuels: [01:12:49] My thoughts was, “Okay. I’m in the right place because these people are dead serious. They are serious about what they talking about. They’re serious about making a change and they want the people who are going to make the change know that they are serious.”
Samuels: They were so serious, I wanted my son to know that if he don’t straighten out, right? I literally took my son [laugher] and told him that, “If he didn’t straighten up and fly right, that this is how homelessness was going to do for him.” So, I made him do a sleep-out with us. He was so good ever since then, and took out the garbage… [Laughs] He did not want to be homeless. So, sleeping out—it works not only for the politicians, it worked for a parent—because Charles was good after that sleep-out.
Lewis: [01:13:43] What do you think those sleep-outs did for members?
Samuels: I think like Charles, it did—it made… It was powerful! It proved that what… How far you can go, how much you can go and how much that you want to prove to—or show the person that you’re doing it for—the Assemblymen, the Congressmen, the politician, or the person that’s willing to make that change… How it is. I mean, it really shows like, what you’re going through, and it shows what another person, even if you ain’t homeless, what they have to go through.
Samuels: [01:14:33] I didn’t enjoy sleeping in the rain. I didn’t enjoy staying—even though I wasn’t on… Because I can’t get on the ground, so I had a chair, but I can’t sleep sitting in a chair. So, for me it was very uncomfortable to be out there all night. And for me to go through that? It put me in the place where the homeless person is—who have to do it every night, and who don’t have a choice. So yeah, it was real powerful for me. I had a choice. I could go home. I could have left two o’clock in the morning. I could have left three o’clock in the morning. But the homeless person who have to stay there could not leave. To put myself in that place—just like my son… He went home, and he made sure that that garbage and everything… He didn’t want to be homeless. Neither do I.
Lewis: [01:15:27] What are some of the EAU actions that you organized?
Samuels: Oh, I loved the picture with the rat. I hope we can find that one.
Lewis: We have that. We have that little book we made.
Samuels: Yeah… That one—where I got the girl to go and get those pics for me—with the conditions of the EAU before I was there… The one where they literally closed the EAU and walked out of the EAU… That was really, really powerful.
Samuels: [01:16:00] The one where Jean is all up in their face… [Laughs]
Lewis: The heart transplant? [Smiles]
Samuels: Yeah, the heart transplant.
Lewis: Because the director was heartless. [Laughs]
Samuels: Yes. That’s one of my favorites. I was glad I was a part of that. That was really, really good. They didn’t like that. They didn’t like us saying that they was heartless. But, I think that anytime that you make children stay awake and wake them up two and three o’clock in the morning to move them to a shelter, is heartless. Anytime you treat them the way you treat them and make them sleep and stay on hard benches with rats, and the conditions that you put them through, I think that is heartless.
Lewis: [01:16:46] So, a lot of… In the interviews with Picture the Homeless—members and leaders, they talked about how important it was to see other homeless people speaking to the press—being the ones to speak in public. Ans as an organizer, what—what was that like to support someone who was homeless to actually be the one to do that?
Samuels: It was powerful! Look, like I said earlier in my—in this interview, when I first got to CVH, I didn’t want to speak. You know, to see somebody that’s a part of—that’s living it… Be able to get up there and speak their truth and speak their life and speak what they’re going through—is… You feel something! You feel something… Like, if I’m the organizer, and here—I brought you in and I’m telling you, “Look, I need you to make a difference. I need you to speak. I need you to tell these people what you’re going through.”
Samuels: [01:17:55] And here you ain’t never spoke to nobody in your life other than me, or your parent or your friend or something… And here you going—talking to a politician that can literally change your life, and you’re scared to death, but you’re saying, “Yeah, okay, I want to make a difference, I’m going to do it.” That’s really powerful. And that makes me feel really, really good—and I’ve been there, and I know. I know.
Samuels: [01:18:24] So, it’s me paying it forward—to know that I didn’t speak, I didn’t want to speak… But to know that I can help somebody else, to help somebody else—and not only help my situation, but to help the whole systematic as a whole... And to know that to help another person, to not only not think about theirself, but to think about the whole system and the whole picture and the bigger picture where their children might not have to go through this, and that they had a part in knowing that their children might not have to go through this—that is just awesome, and it means a lot to me.
Samuels: [01:19:03] And that’s—that’s… That’s the kind of work you want to do! That’s the kind of work that’s meaningful, you know? That—that yeah, going into organizations and nonprofits that want to make a change from people not sleeping on the sidewalks, to get a roof over their head, or low-income people not doing handouts, and want to get a job, and they’re fighting for it, so their children won’t have to do it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lewis: [01:19:35] Were there—do you have any stories or memories of when—at Picture the Homeless, you had to really convince somebody? And you had to really go the extra mile?
Samuels: [Long pause] Not really convince… Not really convince. It’s like, you know how they say the spirit is willing, but the mind not?
Lewis: Mm-hmm.
Samuels: So, it wasn’t a matter of convincing. It was a matter of… I guess convincing is the right word, I guess… Of—just letting them know that they could do it. They wanted to do it! They was just scared that they weren’t good enough… That they wasn’t the right person, or the words wouldn’t come out, and they couldn’t do it, and, “No… I don’t want to do this, I’m afraid. No, I ain’t never did this… No… Just not this…”
Samuels: [01:20:46] And for you to just tell them that, “I’m not writing your story. You are your story. You’re the expert. Nobody can’t tell you... Them experts can’t tell you you’re wrong. There’s no wrong in this…” You know? So, it wasn’t convincing, as making them believe that they are the experts, you know what I’m saying? They—they… Just, just, just making them believe that they could do it, you know? I didn’t have to convince them. They wanted to do it. They was just afraid… Just giving them more encouragement. I think it was more encouraging them to just go forth, rather than convincing them. Because once I had you, I was one of them organizers that once I had you, I wasn’t letting you go. [Laughs] Not if I can help it.
Samuels: [01:21:37] The only thing that got me upset, until this day, with organizers—organizing… Is that life happen. I got to let you go if your life happen—you know what I’m saying? I couldn’t keep you if the shelter system or the system took you this way, and your mind says, “I can’t do Picture the Homeless.” You know what I’m saying? But then, the ones that—like, DeBoRah, or like Marcus, or like Jean—who’s in the system, but still want to fight the system, you know? Those minds you can keep, you know? The ones who come to you that says, “Well okay, once I get my problem solved, then I don’t need to help nobody else.” You can’t keep those.
Lewis: [01:22:32] Do you—do you have any recollection of a time that you were disappointed, or felt like… You could have done more, or that the organization could have done more?
Samuels: Yeah, towards the end. Well, I really had to leave Picture the Homeless because I had knee replacements in 2007. I really had to leave and… But, I really felt like towards the end with—before I left, and I really was getting kind of burnt out, because of that exact thing. I was like, trying really, really, really, really, really, really hard—like, to bring the people in. Like, with organizing and… It’s like a thing with the funders. You got to have that certain amount of numbers. You got to have that certain amount of “bring-in”. And, at the time—people—they got their life… And you feel like you want to do more for people.
Samuels: [01:23:43] Like… I want to give you a bed. I want to give you my home, you know what I’m saying? Like, my boss Lynn Lewis—I don’t know how in the world that your house wasn’t reeking of bedbugs, the way you used to bring Charles home. [Laughs]
Lewis: Oh, Charles?
Samuels: Charlie, yes.
Lewis: Oh, Charlie. [Note: for the record, I never brough Charlie home because he couldn’t walk up four flights of stairs]
Samuels: Yeah. The way you used to bring him home, the way you used to go to his home, the way you—the way you would let Jean sleep here and stay here. You just opened up your house. You just opened up your house. I wish I could have did more. You know what I’m saying? And maybe those people would have stayed around that I tried to develop more. But yeah—I wish I could have did more for them, but I didn’t. And it’s hard when you go out and you organize, and you try and tell people that we’re trying to change the system—and the only thing they want to change is their life.
Lewis: [01:24:55] As an organizer—say, with Picture the Homeless… And I know this is a very general question, but—you know, if you talk to a hundred people during outreach, how many people would come?
Samuels: Five. [Laughs]
Lewis: And how many people would stay?
Samuels: One, if you get that many. [Laughs] Yeah, you got to talk to a hundred probably, to get one. Yeah. That’s the numbers, and that’s the sad, disheartening thing, and that’s why we work so hard and get paid. Yeah... Because of how many you got to talk to, to get that one.
Lewis: [01:25:32] Now, Picture the Homeless at the time, as we were mentioning earlier… When you were hired, there were only two staff. And you replaced the other organizer, so there was—you and I were the only staff, for a while. [Smiles] And then we hired Sam, and it was you and me and Sam for a couple years. And then you left, and Nikita had graduated from the organizer trainee program, and we hired Nikita—and you recommended that, and of course we all agreed.
Lewis: [01:26:12] So, what would you say to folks… Because sometimes I say to people, you know, “Picture the Homeless, we only had three staff for many, many, many years when we were doing the sleep-outs and all the stuff—and all those actions.” And we each had a campaign, and we didn’t have paid staff answering phones, or administrative people. We didn’t have any of that. What would you—how, you know… What would you say to people that would sound surprised at that? Or, you know—would ask, “What were your working conditions like as a worker?”
Samuels: [01:26:50] To me, I mean like… It’s like we had more than three people because we had good volunteers. We had good people who cared. We had passionate people who didn’t care about money, okay? If they had a place to come—where they know that people cared about their situation… Where people wanted to change their situation—and we helped them as much as we could help them. We could give them something to eat while they were there to volunteer, and we could give them car fare back to where they came from. We helped them as much as we could help them, okay?
Samuels: [01:27:29] And we acknowledged them. We made sure that they were important. They were important, not us. And their situation was important. Their circumstances was important. They were important, and they made it important, to them and by us making them important and knowing what they was going through was important—that’s what it is. All you had to do was find people who cared, who wanted to help, and who wanted to do something.
Lewis: [01:28:05] So, do you think that’s still—that’s still possible in this world?
Samuels: That is still possible in this world, because as long as I’m good, there’s still good people out there. I still think that there is still good people out there, there’s still people who care. There is. You’ve just got to find it, and you’ve just got to find people and organizers who want to go out there and who want to talk to people. And—but the way society is now, you can’t even go up… It’s hard. I sympathize with organizers, and I just wish and hope and look at fundraisers and directors—where they’ll be a little more lenient on—on organizers… Where appreciate if you get one that will stay, rather than a hundred on paper. I’d rather one that stay, then I done talk to a hundred. That one that stay is going to do way more than the hundred I called on the piece of paper.
Lewis: [01:29:15] What do you think—what do you think is important about Picture the Homeless?
Samuels: The passion. The passion. The will, the drive... The strength it has to keep going from where it came from—from nothing to something. To keep on going. It has its bricks, [laughs] it has its walls that it has to climb over… And it still keep going through. And I think the passionate and like—homeless ain’t getting no better. Homeless ain’t getting no better. I don’t see it getting no better, okay? And we still got that passion about it, and we’re going to fight it! And, I think it’s the will that we want it to end. Our willpower.
Lewis: [01:30:12] Are there things you learned at Picture the Homeless as a—as an organizer, or as a human being that you would share?
Samuels: Yeah—ain’t no stopping me. [Smiles] You can’t stop. You can’t stop. I think, as an organizer with Picture the Homeless, I’ve learned humility. I’ve learned to be humble. I’ve learned that it could be me. I’ve learned that it was me, and it could have been me, worse. I was homeless and I was in a relocation shelter—which didn’t have as many rules. I was in a shelter that was nicer than some. And it could have been me in the shelter that was so bad. The shelters I’ve been in have been so bad. The case workers I’ve talked to—been so bad. The people that I’ve seen—and how… I have seen on the streets—out of the streets… It could be me. And so, yeah... I’ve learned humility… I’ve learned empathy. I’ve learned so much from Picture the Homeless and Picture the Homeless will always be a part of me.
Lewis: [01:31:37] So, DeBoRah called earlier, before we started recording, and you had mentioned that you know… You haven’t worked at Picture the Homeless in like twelve years—but you still have relationships, and members still call you.
Samuels: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Lewis: So, tell me about that. What does that mean to you? What does that say?
Samuels: Like I said… I’m—I’m still close with Nikita… I’m still close with DeBoRah. I think about… I’m still close with you... I think about Picture the Homeless… I ask about Picture the Homeless… I call Mo, I ask how she’s doing. When Picture the Homeless have events, I try to attend their events. I would help out and do anything that I can. I’m a part—I feel like I’m a part of Picture the Homeless. Picture the Homeless is a part of me, is a part of me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.
Samuels: [01:32:36] I feel I could be one paycheck away from homelessness, okay? I’m right now in subsidy housing. Picture the Homeless had—when I had stopped, when I had got my knee replacements and I stopped, they had rehired me to do a small—they had got some funding, and they had hired me to do a campaign around the Section 8… And around Section 8—and I got Section 8! And I could be one paycheck away from homelessness. I’m always going to be a part of Picture the Homeless.
Lewis: Do you have any final thoughts or things that you want to share?
Samuels: [01:33:21] Yeah. I hate my job. I wish I could go back and work [laughs] for Picture the Homeless. I wish I could. Just the other day, I was sitting here in Lynn Lewis’s kitchen, and they was talking about… A organizing opportunity came up. I would have jumped at that organizing opportunity in a minute, but I know after two years that I’m not going to be able to do it—you know, because of my age, or whateverhave you. But yeah, I would jump in a minute to go back. Now, if they had a receptionist’s job, [smiles] or something… Administrative job, or something like that, with Picture the Homeless, or any other job, I would definitely go back to Picture the Homeless. I love Picture the Homeless. I love organizing and helping people and that’s going to always be a part of me.
Lewis: [01:34:24] And you’re the co-chair of the Board at Community Voices Heard.
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: That’s a journey,
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: right, from coming in as a member? [Smiles]
Samuels: Yeah. [Smiles]
Lewis: And now you’re co-chair of the Board. What is that like for you?
Samuels: Yeah well, I really like that because I came in as a member, then I came in as staff, and now I’m Board co-chair and to do a three-sixty to have all parts of the organization, that’s—that’s really cool. That’s really cool.
Samuels: [01:34:59] It’s a journey… I mean, like, when you chair then I’m… You know—you chair personnel… To be the really inside of seeing how the organization really works, it’s different when you’re a member, then it’s different when you were staff. Then when you get to be the Board, you get to see everything. [Smiles] So your eyes are opened differently. And so, I like it—some parts and then some parts I don’t. I don’t like when I have to have a decision in letting somebody go. I don’t like that but what have to be done have to be done. So—but it’s nice. It’s nice to come full circle in an organization.
Lewis: And to build up all those skills!
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: To build up lots of skills.
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: [01:36:00] You know—I want to go back a little bit to… You had mentioned The Longest Night, and because we were small, we were—every time there was an action, we all would participate. And one of the other campaigns—the other campaigns that happened during the time that you worked there, was that the Potter’s Field campaign started...
Samuels: Oh, yeah.
Lewis: And the Canner’s campaign. They both grew out of the Civil Rights campaign. And so, what are your—what are your recollections about the Potter’s Field campaign, and why was that important?
Samuels: [01:36:39] I loved the Potter’s Field campaign. I liked to take the members over to Hart Island. The—I can’t remember the lady’s name that was the point person over there. She was so hospitable. She would—I would take the members over. She would have coffee and breakfast for us before we caught the ferry. And then when we caught the ferry… We would go over to the ferry, and we would… They had built a little credenza, that’s what—that’s the only thing I could call it, because it was just a little, like—porch, that they would let us do a service.
Samuels: [01:37:29] So, we would take turns doing a service, and just bless and pray for the people that was over there and talk about… If any family member came that was buried over there in Potter’s Field, we would—they would say a few words, and we would just look out at the dirt, and we would still wonder where they were.
Lewis: Yeah.
Samuels: [01:37:58] Because all you would see was dirt and just land. But it was just dirt! And it was sad, because you didn’t know whether you were going to be there or not. I mean like, or somebody you know, going to be there or not. I hate to say, but most people don’t buy insurance. Most people don’t have insurance, you know? They don’t care about insurance.
Samuels: [01:38:27] And at one point—I used to always tell my brother, “Oh, you’re going to the Potter’s Field. You don’t want… My mother set us against insurance, you don’t want to get insurance, your behind’s going to go to the Potter’s Field.” The day before he died, I told him [laughs] he was going to go to Potter’s Field, as a matter of fact. But, you never know. You never know.
Samuels: [01:38:48] And that campaign meant a lot—that when we found our co-founder, and we could take him out of Potter’s Field and his family can have him… To know that one person that we knew wasn’t there. But then to know that one person we knew was there, and not knowing if your family knows you’re there… That campaign meant a lot, and I just asked Lynn how that campaign was going, so she’s going to tell me about that.
Samuels: [01:39:22] But yeah, I—when I missed… Stopped at Picture the Homeless, that was one campaign I really missed, because I really did like going, and when I left… I built up a lot of people that had started wanting to go to Potter’s Field! We had had so much people wanting to go, that they couldn’t go every time we went.
Lewis: [01:39:47] Yeah. You—even though you were the shelter organizer… And William—for a while, we had gotten funding so we could hire William as a member to do faith outreach. And a lot of members really—really cared about that
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: Potter’s Field campaign, and when it—it started kind of taking over the Civil Rights meetings,
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm!
Lewis: And I would say… I remember saying, “We‘re fighting for people that are alive. They’re dead.” [Laughter] And it’s not that I didn’t care!
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: But we had so much to do.
Samuels: Right.
Lewis: [01:40:25] And there were only… Even though there were only three staff, like you said, members held a lot of roles, even full-time
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: jobs as volunteers, like John Jones at the—answering phones and stuff.
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: So, the amount of work, I think, that we got done was because people cared so deeply.
Samuels: Yeah!
Lewis: [01:40:46] And I’ll never forget—I think Mohammed [Singha] said, “Listen, you know—if someone dies next to me in the shelter, they just disappear, and I don’t even know where they go.” And people started telling stories about—about like, the dignity
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: of somebody who dies, and they don’t even check their fingerprints in the morgue, they just throw them
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: in a mass grave
Samuels: Mm-Hmmm.
Lewis: and we learned so many things
Samuels: Yep.
Lewis: that most people don’t know. And then we taught faith leaders—because even they—you’d think they knew, and then they didn’t know.
Samuels: Yep.
Lewis: [01:41:24] And so, you ended up coordinating those refreshment hours at that—with that pastor on Hart Island, on City Island. It was really beautiful.
Samuels: It was. It was. I loved going over there to Potter’s Field. And people were moved, every time we went. Everybody was moved. Everybody was moved. It was an experience. It was an experience. People… No, you came out there with some reflections, like “Okay… Okay… Yeah, what is—what is they doing? Like, who could be, who’s over there? Who’s over there?!”
Lewis: Eight hundred thousand people.
Samuels: Yeah, but who? Who are those eight hundred thousand people?! Yeah, you came out there—you know, saying, “This could be my family member.” Yeah.
Lewis: [01:42:21] Yeah… It was intense. And, we went to—we went to Albany together one time and Conrad spoke about the hawks have nests, and homeless people, you know—need nests, and why are the hawks more important? And he was involved with the Potter’s Field campaign—like, the folks that got involved with the Potter’s Field campaign, got involved in a way—maybe that they weren’t involved in anything else but that. They really held onto that.
Samuels: Yep.
Lewis: The Prison of the Dead,
Samuels: Yeah.
Lewis: Charlie used to call it.
Samuels: [01:43:04] Right. [Laughs] Right. We had some really, really powerful members. I mean like—members just stayed because they knew they had a place where people cared. People cared. They didn’t feel… Like when they came to Picture the Homeless—when you came to Picture the Homeless, you didn’t feel like you was homeless. You felt like you was somebody, you know? Picture the Homeless made you feel like, “Okay, I’m not just another homeless nobody out there. I’m homeless with somebody—you know like, I’m not homeless!” Picture the Homeless… That’s—that’s what you’ve got when you walked through the doors of Picture the Homeless and when you left, you felt empowered.
Lewis: [01:43:50] What does it take? So, if somebody was trying to start a homeless organization, what would you recommend to them that they have in place? If that’s important for people to feel that way, what needs to happen?
Samuels: You need to treat them just like they’re not homeless—like they’re individuals, just like you. What needs to happen is, you need to have people with passion, people who care. If you don’t have people with passion or people who care, and people who want to make a difference, then you ain’t got nothing to begin with. If you’ve just got somebody who just want a 501c3 so they can get a tax-exempt form, then you ain’t got nothing, okay?
Samuels: [01:44:31] You got to make… You’ve got to have people who wants to make a difference, who wants to care. Organizing and wanting to make change is not a paycheck—is not a paycheck. When—to do an organization and to do what you did to start that organization Lynn—it was from hours and hours and hours at work. To have an organization with—from two people to start, and then to get paid, and then three organizers, and then to do all the work we did? And to have people… People had to come through that door knowing that this is a place where people want change, where people care that they’re not just here to use me.
Samuels: [01:45:19] And most organizations out there—you go into, “Oh yeah… They going to help me, but that’s all they care, because they know if they help me, they’re going to get paid.” Okay? You can’t have that. Anybody who wants to start an organization, you’d better start out with some compassion.
Lewis: [01:45:38] And the Canner’s campaign! So, I was looking—when Charlie pulled out that picture of him and Jean and they’re both laughing. You’re in those pictures. You helped organize that.
Samuels: Oh my God! That campaign… I remember one that we went to, when we went to the game, okay—and we had to collect cans. [Smiles] We had a [laughs] fundraiser, and we went to the game, okay? Now we done had some campaigns, where we done had some fun, okay? So we done had campaigns where we had fun. That was a very fun campaign. It was fun.
Samuels: [01:46:17] Collecting all them cans where they had… Oh God, what do you call that before they have the game, they have the party outside?
Lewis: Yeah, the tailgate party.
Samuels: Yeah, the tailgate.
Lewis: At Yankee Stadium.
Samuels: Right! We went to the tailgate parties to pick up all their cans, and it was fun. To meet the people, you know—and then to pick up the cans and then people was coming giving us their cans.
Samuels: [01:46:45] And Jean… He’s just—oh my God, Jean is just awesome with his cans. He could just organize anything. And then we had the action where we had the cans—at the supermarket… Where we had that action with the supermarket? That was a fun one, where we took all them cans to the supermarket.
Lewis: What was fun about it? [Smiles]
Samuels: It was the people! It was the people with the cans. It was the canners—how they took their can—and it’s very serious. [Laughs]
Lewis: Eugene came from the West Side with a giant—it was like a float of cans in the Thanksgiving Day parade, and we all started jumping up and down. [Laughter]
Samuels: [Laughs] Sorry. Yeah. It’s fun! It was fun to see all that, and to see how seriously people—that’s like their job, their livelihood, you know… To see how seriously people take this. And then you have all these cans, and here’s a supermarket only going to take two dollars’ worth? Come on with that! Here—I got to eat! And I got twenty dollars’ worth of cans, and you’re going to pay—take two dollars’ worth? No, I don’t think so. So, it’s fun to challenge—to me, it’s fun to challenge these places and to scare them half to death [laughs] at the same time. Because that supermarket was not feeling us.
Lewis: [01:48:15] No, and they were being bullies
Samuels: Yes.
Lewis: because they were breaking the law.
Samuels: Yeah! Yeah, yeah.
Lewis: They were breaking the law.
Samuels: [01:48:20] And to know that we were right, and that we wasn’t leaving until they took our cans. I mean like, it’s fun. [Smiles]
Lewis: It is fun. [Laughter] It’s fun to make the bullies
Samuels: Yes! Make them sweat.
Lewis: Sit down. Sit down!
Samuels: Mm-hmm. That’s right. Yeah.
Lewis: [01:48:40] What was—during all the time that you worked at Picture the Homeless and, you know—we would try to engage with city council members, and… I remember there was a meeting in the Bronx where Melissa [Mark Viverito], our councilwoman came, because she was—she was backing away from the law—that we wanted her to—that she was the lead sponsor of, to count vacant property. And Christine Quinn didn’t like it, so we were putting a lot of pressure. [Laughter] And then Melissa came—by herself, to the office. Do you remember that meeting?
Samuels: No.
Lewis: And you were there.
Samuels: I was?
Lewis: We had like, thirty members there...
Samuels: I vaguely remember. I vaguely remember.
Lewis: And she was talking about how we were making things so hard for her.
Samuels: Yeah, that’s probably why I vaguely remember, because Melissa—at the end, flip-flopped on everything and I vaguely want to remember Melissa Mark Viverito, so I guess that’s why. [Laughs]
Lewis: Do you—okay. Well, I don’t have any more questions.
Samuels: Okay. Well, I enjoyed this. I hope you got what you wanted.
Lewis: I think I did, because—you know, you played a really important role at Picture the Homeless and so you’re a big part of the story.
Samuels: Well, I thank you. And I really, really want to thank you for hiring me when I said, “Lynn, when you get that money I want to come work with you.” [Laughs] And you said, “Well, if I get an opening…” And you did and you gave me a chance, and I really appreciate it because I did learn, I did grow, and Picture the Homeless will always be a part of me. Always.
Lewis: Yep, me too. All right!
Samuels: All right.
Lewis: Thank you.
Samuels: [Laughs]
[END OF INTERVIEW]
Samuels, Tyletha. Oral history interview conducted by Lynn Lewis, April 19, 2019, Picture the Homeless Oral History Project.