Robert J Moss Jr ‘74 Dramatic Arts interviewing Pamela Cross ‘75 Speech Communication

Robert Moss – “Hello, Pam. How are you today?

Pamela Cross Ancrum – I am doing great, and happy to be here.

Robert – All right, thank you for allowing some questions about your experience at Emerson College. Tell me what year years did you attend Emerson?

Pam – You know, when you say the years, it sounds so long ago. I attended Emerson in the’70s. I entered in the fall of ’71, and I graduated in ’75. So, I was there four years straight through. And it was an interesting time to be at Emerson, and in Boston, and college age, too, with all that was going on in the country. Yes, absolutely. In Boston they were just at the back end of the whole busing dispute. Yes. And many of us were paying attention to that because it was happening all around us.

Robert – What was your course of study and your degree?

Pam – My degree is in speech communication. It’s a degree I don’t believe they offer anymore. I spent most of my time in mass communication and journalism courses. But I liked it a lot. I felt totally immersed.

Robert – Where were you living at the time you applied to Emerson?

Pam – So, I’m one of those people. I’m from New England, I’m from Connecticut, but I’ve never been to Boston. I applied to three schools, two in Boston, one elsewhere, and decided to come to Emerson after going to a college fair in Connecticut. So, I arrived on freshman arrival day. My parents drove me, and we had to navigate our way to Emerson. It was fun, but it was also just a little bit of anxiety, because I didn’t know the city and I’d never seen the campus, even though I knew it was a school that was on the streets. I was given the opportunity to join a new dorm 206 Beacon Street, and that was a great experience. It was a cultural center, open house, and landing spot. It’s a safe place.

Robert – I just want to let you know that I am a fellow New Englander as well, being from Providence Rhode Island. And because it’s only 50 miles away, I had visited Boston many times before my freshman year. I can understand the newness, the anxiety, it’s quite different from Connecticut.

Pam – Yes, I was going to say, you had prior experience, and my parents who were mature, were like, should we really leave our baby here in this city? But it all worked out.

Robert – What were your first few days at Emerson like, since it was so new to you?

Pam – Well, the first few days were just getting acclimated like probably any college freshman, just figuring out where you were and what you were doing, living in 206 was interesting. There were, I think there were a couple of meetings, as we learned how 206 came to be and what our role was there. I had several great roommates, and our floor was all freshmen, so it was getting acclimated and just learning the campus and that little bit of Back Bay that we needed to know right away.

Robert – When you applied to Emerson, did you know about Eboni?

Pam – I didn’t know about Eboni. I don’t recall that. I remember learning about Eboni as soon as I moved in. I do recall discussing the dorm itself, but I didn’t know there was a whole organization that was instrumental in its formation.

Robert – You had a unique experience. I’m a year ahead of you there, and I lived in a regular dorm with a roommate and then eventually we transitioned over to 206. So, wow, it must have been great to just walk into it.

Pam – It was, yeah, I think it was a good experience and, you know, as a child who grew up on her own without siblings around. I have siblings, but they were all older than me. It was a quick, deep dive into sharing and things like that. But what I liked about 206 and about Eboni was the culture, just the fact that people were willing to share, tell you things, and then there was all kinds of arts and culture going on, parties, of course. But also, cultural things, you know, theater. Just people practicing and trying to figure things out in this one big house.

Robert -I’m in Rhode Island, I guess it might be similar in Connecticut. People of color were in small numbers and scattered. And so oftentimes in school and other places, you’d be like the only person of color there. So it must have been nice to walk into a place where you were surrounded and immersed in your culture, and the thing about the African American experience is that it’s not the same. It’s different if you’re from Connecticut, it’s different if you’re from Rhode Island. If you’re from New York, if you’re from Florida or North Carolina, it’s different. And to meet with all these people from all these different places, it really gave a greater view of what it’s like to be African American or black in America, particularly at that time.

Pam – I absolutely agree with you. So, there are commonalities that we as African Americans know or recognize, and that’s where that comfort zone comes in. You know, there are things that we know from our own families and our growing up experience. But you’re right, meeting people from other places, from New York, New Jersey, California, wherever they’re from, and learning their backgrounds, too, is a good mix. And, yes, absolutely. Emerson is majority white, even though, you know, we were perhaps a little bit more focused on what’s going on in the black community because of the Cultural Center. But that was also my experience going through school. I was always in a majority white community, school experience. And, yeah, it was reassuring to have to have a base where the people were like you and had interests like you, and then from there you could go out to whatever your specific agenda was for coming to Emerson.

Robert – We are going to share this interview, on the newly formed Eboni Legaci website. It’s going to be just basically for all the Eboni people, from Emerson through all the various years. Not everyone had a chance to have the 206 experience, because at some point, they closed it down. But do you have any special memories or recollection of 206 that you think are safe to share?

Pam – I was just going to say, I don’t know if I want to share every single one.” Yeah, they closed 206 while I was still at Emerson, and the cultural center moved to the student Union. And that was a an office, a meeting place, but it wasn’t the same as having an entire dorm building and feeling like you had a living room and a kitchen and a place to land, so that, I think, is the experience that stays with me most, just the fact that once you came through that front door, if you lived there, you could flop down on the couch and just relax. I do remember many parties, and a lot of them were just wonderful for bonding. We celebrated everything, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Halloween. If there was a reason, we celebrated, and that was a good thing. There was also some studying going on those public floors with people testing each other or trading information about their majors and just understanding what they were doing. So, I don’t have one specific memory that I want to share, but what I leave with is just that sense of comfort and being in a place where you’re wanted and known. It also became a home for other people who were not Emerson’s students. We had visitors from across the community, local people, people from other colleges in the area they found out about us somehow.

Robert – Yeah, we were on Beacon Street, so I guess it became a beacon to a lot of people, but we did draw in and connect with a lot of people. It became a place more than just the Emerson community. It was a little larger than that, wouldn’t you say?

Pam – I would agree, yes. I could think of a couple of people who I won’t name them, but people who are there a lot. A lot, yes. And that’s because, you know, they felt that they were recognized as well. their art, their talent, their voice, listen to each other and debated and traded stuff, so. Yes. It was a good experience.

Robert – Okay. A good grounding for Eboni, too.

Pam – Yes. I know Eboni was around before, but it was definitely a place for Eboni to say, “we did this.” Yeah, really, you kind of took root there and it was a good platform to grow from.

Robert – It’s about the culture. You mentioned that your school days were basically in a white majority environment and coming to Emerson and being in 206 was shall we say, Afrocentric. It was so enriching for us. Because our culture is unique, special and endearing to us. I live-in California and just moved from an area that was mostly white, into the historically black community in LA. area called View Park. And the thing that’s really enlightening to me is when I’m out walking in the morning, and I see somebody, we give each other the “nod”. You know, the “nod”. Many people don’t understand that, but you and I know the nod. It’s a cultural thing; a way we acknowledge each other. We don’t have to do it with words. Sometimes the nod is enough. Sometimes a good morning is there too. And that’s one of the things that I felt came from my 206 experiences. Walking into 206 was like a great big welcome home. And what’s even better if you can give a nice big hug to someone, that’s part of your community, who’s part of who you are.

Pam – Right. And it’s an acknowledgement, I see you, and, you know, as someone said, “the light in me sees the light in you”.

Robert – One more question. After graduating in moving into your professional career, how did your Eboni experiences shape your work?

Pam –I guess it probably made me more mindful of other people of color, because I went into broadcasting, and like many industries, at least at the time, there weren’t that many people of color in the industry or in positions of power. I think the Eboni experience and the experience of being around other people who were creative and like-minded, helped me recognize in my first jobs the people of color that were there. We found ways to seek each other out. I think that probably came from the Eboni experience. We would get together for coffee or a meal or something like that, to talk about the organization we worked for and how we were all fitting into it. And that’s something that I think came from Eboni, that whole idea of banding together, assessing where you are, and then trying to take it somewhere else.

Robert – You mentioned banding together. There have been a few reunions. Yes. The ones that I attended were the 2004 that was in the Boston area, and then recently last year there was a 2024 one in the D.C. area. And, you know, that’s that bonding, it took a lot of effort to pull these people who are, let’s say, not teenagers anymore, who are all over the world in a way. We’re pulling people together, and you know, we spent a lot of time in between these gatherings, and we found at these gatherings that it was so rich and experienced, so warming, so healing to get with people. so that we must keep this going, and that’s really the idea behind forming this website and the other things that we’re planning on doing to keep Eboni Strong.

Pam – Nice. I would say the people of Eboni span many years. Yes. So, there are a lot of Eboni people that I don’t necessarily know, some who came before and some who came after, and so the idea that we might have reunions across classes is a great one, and that we’ve come together a marked different places and are different time periods, shall we say?

Robert – Pam, thanks so much for sharing your perspective here. We’ve talked about Eboni, the past, and Eboni, the present, and we are looking forward to a bright future of more gatherings. We are planning to offer a scholarship fund to support the new Eboni students at Emerson. It’s a way of passing along some of the richness we got and helping others make a new start.

Pam – That’s a great idea. I guess we should try to do it.

Robert – Well, we’re going to do it. Okay.

Pam – All right.

Robert – And we’re going to call on everyone to join us, and I’m just happy to spend some time with you.

Pam – Thank you so much.

Robert – You go on with your day and we’ll keep in touch. It was great talking with you.

Pam – Thanks, it was great talking to you too.