My dad owned a small farm down in Georgia. There was six of us my Mama, my Papa, my two sister and I, and my two brothers. Me being 18, I was the oldest. My name was Doja Brown. My dream was to be a well known dancer. I would always dance around the house and outside doing the Charleston. I loved the adrenaline I got from moving real fast.

After some months of trying to prove my worthiness of bein an African American Flapper, I finally became one. I was real good at it too. One of the best black Flappers back then. I learned how to make my own clothes and i had the prettiest dresses.

I would go up to the city, New York, on the weekends. That's where I met my boyfriend. After I started doing more shows, I said goodbye to my family and moved to the city with my boyfriend to become a full time dancer. He proposed a month later. I was so happy.

My career was finally at its peak. Life was great. I was with the man I loved. My husband was very supportive of me not wanting to be a regular housewife. He was a jazz player at a very popular restaurant. I never actually got to see him play because I could not go in to where he played because of segregation.

I ended up having two beautiful daughters with my husband and that's when I turned away from being a dancer. It was great while it lasted, but I had a family now. 

I continued to make dresses and other clothes for my daughters and other fellow black flappers to bring in some money.

The stock market crashed on October 24, 1929. They called it "Black Tuesday" The banks were going bankrupt! The banks said that they didn't have our money. The president didn't seem to be doing anything about it either. Even the white people were going poor. Of course blacks were the first to get their hours and jobs cut.  

All the money I had saved in the bank, completely gone? We were completely out of jobs. But we weren't alone in this disaster. Many people, including my husband, were out on the streets of New York trying to sell something just to get enough money in their pocket to feed their family. It was so scary. It was even harder with all the segregation laws.

Poverty was at its highest. We became so poor we couldn't afford our home for some weeks we had to live on the streets. Gratefully we have family up here that let us stay with them.

There wasn't many things I could do to bring in an income. Nor was there for my husband. We were flat out poor. Trying to support for our family was so hard. There was some days we didn't know if we would survive. The laws was not meant for our people to succeed, better yet live.

It seemed like our current president did absolutely nothing to help anyone. He decided to let things go with the flow basically. People started getting angrier and angrier. They had no money and no job to get money. There were places that had almost all black customers but only hired white works. Therefore, people started boycotting. We wanted to feed our families like everyone else.