Darrell Jackson Interview 08/10/2024
NATASHA: Hello. I am Natasha Farah, and I'm here with Mr.
DARRELL: -Darrell Jackson
NATASHA: -at the Park Slope old timers Union at 4th Street and Sixth Avenue on Sunday, I'm sorry, Saturday, August 10, 20[2]4. Can you spell your name for me, sir?
DARRELL: Capital, D, A, R, R, E, L, L, Jackson, j, A, C, K, s, o, n,
NATASHA: So to start off this interview, I’m going to ask: What's your relationship to Park Slope?
DARRELL: I grew up in Park Slope. I came here when I was about five, and I've been here for over 30 something years. And then I moved up to Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue and bought me my own Coop,
NATASHA: Okay, and can I ask you, where you come from originally?
DARRELL: Well, I mean, I'm pretty sure I came from down South, but I was born here.
NATASHA: You was born in America.
DARRELL: Yes.
NATASHA: Do you have particularly powerful and important memory of that you like to share?
DARRELL: Park Slope was a learning place, because you've seen the diversity of everybody, and everybody pitched in. We were like one family on the block. Now, we all looked out for one another. Even when we got into certain things, it was always squashed. And we became friends anyway. It was a good place to grow up, because a lot of other places, if you had been there, you'd have got a one sided education about the street. Education and otherwise.
NATASHA: Why did you decide to come to Park Slope today?
DARRELL: Well, to see some of the older people that we hadn't seen in years, because we reached out to everybody in locations where they might have been at. And to see how everybody was doing, knowing to compare notes. And a lot of times when you meet people you haven't seen in a long time, there's always some wisdom there, that you might need inside yourself to help you take those extra steps. So it's always a good gathering place.
NATASHA: What are some things you think more people should know about park slope or Brooklyn based on your own experiences?
DARRELL: Well, let me see. Park Slope changed a whole lot, and it's always been a beautiful place to live. I wish back in the days that I had the money to buy the brownstone on Fourth Street there, but I didn't have it.
NATASHA: What are some of your hopes for the future of the neighborhood and for Brooklyn?
DARRELL: That we get more unity in the community, and everybody becomes one family, and we look out for one another, because rough times are coming.
NATASHA: This is not an interview list, but you have children?
DARRELL: Yes.
NATASHA: And you started your family in Park Slope?
DARRELL: No, I was too young.
NATASHA: Okay, so when you went over to Easter Parkway.
DARRELL: Let's see now, yes, I started, I started my first child on Fifth Avenue between President and union. Yeah, that was Hakeem.
NATASHA: And would you would recommend having to start in a family in Brooklyn?
DARRELL: I would, I would this, this is the melting pot. I did this. How do I put it. It's more like you don't have to walk around looking behind yourself, because we have so many different people here, nationalities and everything that we get to learn one another and and have a good time being around one another and doing different things with one another.
NATASHA: And the last question is, what does history mean to you?
DARRELL: The past, the present and the future.
This is my sister. (Laughing) Let me sign. Let me sign.
NATASHA: Okay.