Ethel Edwards was born and raised in Syracuse, New York.  Here she is being interviewed by the Committee to Save 711 East Fayette Street.  711 East Fayette is the location of the old building of People’s AME Zion Church in Syracuse.

See I got baptized at Bethany Baptist, they had a pool right underneath the pulpit like we have one here, too.  All they had to do was just change my memory chip from one church to the other.  So I didn’t have to get baptized here.

Do it again, yeah.

And then over at Bethany, I think my father was one of the deacons.  He tried to drown me!  He just kept me under the water!  Supposed to put you down there and bring you back up.  And they said, ok, bring it back up!  Whatever they said, bring you back up.  He kept me down there and I’m like [coughs] so after we got home I said “you tried to drown me!”  He said “I wouldn’t do that to you!”