Interview with Benjamin "Yellow Benjy" Melendez (Bronx Latino History Project)
Channel: Bronx Latino History Project
Date: 31/03/2022

Oral history originally recorded for the Bronx African American History Project on November 20, 2006 (and now included in the Bronx Latino History Project as well) with Benjamin Melendez, or "Yellow Benjy" as he was commonly known, musician, community activist, and a leader in the Ghetto Brothers. In his oral history Yellow Benjy speaks about growing up in the neighborhood around Stebbins Avenue and 163rd Street in the 1960s and 1970s, the importance of self-education in his life, his experience with more typical street gangs like the Savage Skulls, and the transformation of the Ghetto Brothers, of which he was a founding member, into a community organization. He also speaks about the challenges of coming of age in the South Bronx of the 1970s and relates his struggles to those that Bronx teenagers were experiencing in the early 2000s.

The interviewer is Dr. Mark Naison, director of The Bronx African American History Project and professor at Fordham University. The Bronx Latino History Project is a project of The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library.