Kelven Hargraves - On memories and changes at Hargraves (clip)
Interviewed on August 12, 2022
Kelven Hargraves: Oooh Lord, look, I was reluctant to get up here but, you know, that Spirit just pushed me. I was motivated, my cousin, sitting here, Jimmy Merritt. We watched everybody grow up in front of us and they led us and role modeled for us over here at the Hargraves Center. It started out [as] the Roberson Street Center. Of course, all of us went to nursery school and laid on them green cots they had. I know y’all know, don’t act like y’all don’t know! And drunk that tomato juice and, what was it, cod liver oil or something. We didn’t get no colds. We didn’t get a cold. No. We followed that path over here. I learned how to play basketball, football, soccer, everything you could imagine. Mr. Fred Battle, my dad Cameron Hargraves, Hank Anderson, Mr. Cliff Eubanks, all of these people, Mr. Paul Caldwell over here, in the house, Church Street, so we just, we had a little bit of everything. We didn’t have all of this. We didn’t have no sidewalks coming up the side here. We had to fight up that orange dirt. It was an orange dirt path. You learned how to walk and ride the bicycle up that. Okay. So, none of this was here. But like I said, at the Center we played pool, we played ping pong, it kept us out of trouble, believe me. I can’t imagine what we would have been doing without the Hargraves Center here in the community because not only did the residents in this area, they came from Merritt Mill, Tin Top, all the way out to Rangewood, Neville, all of that, everything was here for the Black community just because we didn’t have it elsewhere. Like Mr. Farrar, listen, you couldn’t go down to Umstead Park. You know we’d go down to the campus every now and then and sneak in, doing what we wanted to do, play some basketball or whatever, but this was it. This was it. I mean ingrained all of your individual thoughts, your process of what you could be. I mean, it was like a school. We had the summer camp. I went to summer camp every year. Ms. Clark, the [] Clark sister, I can’t remember her name, but she helped coordinate everything at the summer camp. We played, we did everything that you could imagine. So all of this, this is added on, this was something that was coordinated. Mr. French was a young dude under me. He taught me how to coach, but he came up under me when all of this wasn’t here. My sister worked at the swimming pool for about fifteen years as the cashier. They had the concession stand over here. You could do everything that you wanted to do. So, I just want to say, you know, whoever thought of that idea to put that over here that was a blessing because, I mean, all the kids came through. I’ll just say I’m very thankful for all the people that came out and who coordinated this. Amen.
