Interview: Lillie McKnight, August 2, 1983

Interview: Lillie McKnight, August 2, 1983

African Americans--Southern States.

Migration, Internal.

African American families

African Americans--Employment.

African Americans--Social conditions.

Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social conditions.

Lillie McKnight (1894-1996) grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, with a single mother, where several generations of her family worked in domestic service for a white superintendent of cotton mills. She moved with two friends to Philadelphia in 1925 as a means of providing her children with better opportunities in the North, although she initially left her children in the South until she earned enough money to bring them north. She recounts working as a live-in domestic servant in a home of a Jewish family for many years. Throughout the interview, she discusses the importance of responsibility and faith, the hallmarks of her life.

1983-08-02

audio

2014OH177GN029

Charles Hardy

Lillie McKnight

African Americans--Relations with Jews.

African Americans--Conduct of life.

African Americans--Religion.

African American churches