A lot had changed for my family and for the house by the middle of the 1970s, specifically with regard to who was calling it home at that time. Aunts and uncles alike had married and moved away. And in spring of 1972, Mama passed away. When that happened, the house wasn’t sold, but instead was passed down to my grandmother, Alice Harper, beginning a line of inheritance that continues to this day.

By the 1960s, the home my mother lived in was full. The house roster included my mom, Jacqueline, my grandmother Syjunia, and my great-grandmother, Mama, as well as my great-aunts, Debbie and Elaine, great-uncle, Allen, and cousin Gordon (who the family affectionately referred to as “Snuffy”). Like for so many other Black families, “the house” was the official hub of my family’s life. It was the setting for countless family events from Sunday dinners to proms, holiday gatherings and late-night penuchle games. “Our house was the center,” my mom confirms. “We were there for every holiday. Everybody would come [for] Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas, it was always at the house.”

At the beginning of 1956, the Belfield area of Philadelphia was a predominantly white part of the city. With few exceptions, just about all of the African Americans to be found there were domestic workers, coming in and out of houses as they finished their work as maids. But in October of that year, a new family arrived. Made up of three generations — a grandmother, her four children, and two grandchildren — they were only the second Black family to move onto the block.