Linda Patricia Leach-James

Description

Linda Patricia Leach-James was born and raised in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Her parents, Walter C. Leach and Rosalind Boston (nee Leach), also raised a younger brother and sister. Leach-James attended St. Gregory the Great Elementary School and graduated from Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School in 1968. She went on to an undergraduate degree at Hampton Institute in Virginia. After marrying, starting a family, and taking the family abroad to France, she raised her children in France from the early 1980s to early 1990s. She then returned with her family to live full-time in Crown Heights. Leach-James took her father's previously-held position as a co-owner in the local storefront insurance brokerage firm, Cambridge and Leach. She is also a grandmother. In the interview, Linda Patricia Leach-James speaks about her experiences in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn as a member of a middle class African American family. She discusses her upbringing and her educational experiences in Catholic parochial schools. Leach-James recalls key biographical turning points. She remembers arriving to college and attending Hampton Institute, a historically Black school. Leach-James references her time living in a few towns in France. She reflects on how her family reacted and coped during the August, 1991 event that's sometimes known as the Crown Heights riot. Interview conducted by Vivian Millicent Warfield.

From Collection

Voices of Crown Heights