The Library of Congress >  Researchers >  Search Finding Aids  >  Civil Rights History Project collection, 2010-2016
ContainerContents
Series 2: Interviews (continued)
Carolyn Miller and James Miller oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Port Gibson, Mississippi, December 4, 2015 (continued)
Carolyn Miller and James Miller oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Port Gibson, Mississippi, December 4, 2015 (continued)
Digital content available
Biographical History: James E. Miller was born in 1949 and grew up in Port Gibson, Mississippi, where he met his wife, Carolyn Miller, in the youth group of the NAACP and participated in the Port Gibson boycotts. He was involved with Mississippi Cultural Crossroads and worked as County Administrator in Claiborne County, Mississippi.
Biographical History: Carolyn Miller was born in Alcorn, Mississippi in 1953 and grew up in Hermanville and Port Gibson, Mississippi. She was involved in the youth chapter of the NAACP, where she met her husband, James Miller, and she participated in the Port Gibson boycotts. She taught at A. W. Watson elementary school, was involved in Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, and was a library board member.
Summary: James and Carolyn Miller discuss their experience of living in Port Gibson, Mississippi during the Port Gibson Movement. They specifically reference the downtown merchant boycotts and how race and class tensions impacted the local community. They discuss their persistence in building interracial coalitions and emphasize the strength of local community building, political accountability and leadership for the sustainability of Port Gibson.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:20:23) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0119_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0119_ms01
Patricia A. Crosby and David L. Crosby oral history interview, with Worth W. Long, Carolyn Miller and James Miller, conducted by Emilye Crosby in Port Gibson, Mississippi, December 4, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: David L. Crosby is a civil rights activist. He co-founded Mississippi Cultural Crossroads in Port Gibson, Mississippi in 1976.
Biographical History: Patricia A. Crosby is a civil rights activist. She co-founded Mississippi Cultural Crossroads in Port Gibson, Mississippi in 1976.
Biographical History: Worth W. Long was born in 1936 in Durham, North Carolina. He joined the Air Force around 1953. In 1959, he was a student at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, he worked as a medic at the Little Rock Air Force base, served on the executive board of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, and worked at Duke University Bale Research Lab in Durham, North Carolina. He became involved with organizing events in the civil rights movement as early as 1956, continuing through the 1960s, including participation in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After the height of the civil rights movement, he was involved in folk music programming through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Delta Blues Festival, Louisiana Zydeco Festival in South Carolina, Penn Center Heritage Festival in Florida, and Zora Neale Hurston Festival. In 1977 he was funded by the Ford Foundation Leadership and Development program to study folklife and community empowerment with Alan Lomax at Columbia University. He joined the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads Board in 1980.
Biographical History: Carolyn Miller was born in Alcorn, Mississippi in 1953 and grew up in Hermanville and Port Gibson, Mississippi. She was involved in the youth chapter of the NAACP, where she met her husband, James Miller, and she participated in the Port Gibson boycotts. She taught at A. W. Watson elementary school, was involved in Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, and was a library board member.
Biographical History: James E. Miller was born in 1949 and grew up in Port Gibson, Mississippi, where he met his wife, Carolyn Miller, in the youth group of the NAACP and participated in the Port Gibson boycotts. He was involved with Mississippi Cultural Crossroads and worked as County Administrator in Claiborne County, Mississippi.
Summary: Patricia and David Crosby discuss the founding and subsequent work of the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads, a cultural arts organization in Port Gibson. The organization was a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and it did important activist work in generating arts and cultural activities and documenting and interpreting local movement history. Worth Long, James and Carolyn Miller, who were involved in the organization also participate in the interview.
Moving Images
8 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (03:19:54) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0120_mv01-08
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0120_ms01
Charles McLaurin oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Indianola, Mississippi, December 5, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Charles McLaurin is a civil rights advocate, born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1939. He joined the Army Reserves in about 1955. He joined the civil rights movement in 1960, helped register voters, and served as Fannie Lou Hamer's campaign manager when she ran for Congress in 1964.
Summary: Charles McLaurin discusses his work as a Civil Rights activist in the 1950's and 60's. He begins by discussing the racism he experienced growing up and how this shaped his personal and political values. McLaurin mainly describes working with African American voter registration rights issues, SNCC, and the Freedom Riders. He describes how he became a congressional officer for a number of years in Mississippi, working closely with Fannie Lou Hamer as her congressional campaign manager. McLaurin describes his involvement in a range of Mississippi-based protests, as well as his experiences with the judicial system and his personal arrests.
Moving Images
14 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (4:36:56) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0121_mv01-14
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0121_ms01
Worth W. Long oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Jackson, Mississippi, December 6, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Worth W. Long was born in 1936 in Durham, North Carolina. He joined the Air Force around 1953. In 1959, he was a student at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, he worked as a medic at the Little Rock Air Force base, served on the executive board of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, and worked at Duke University Bale Research Lab in Durham, North Carolina. He became involved with organizing events in the civil rights movement as early as 1956, continuing through the 1960s, including participation in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After the height of the civil rights movement, he was involved in folk music programming through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Delta Blues Festival, Louisiana Zydeco Festival in South Carolina, Penn Center Heritage Festival in Florida, and Zora Neale Hurston Festival. In 1977 he was funded by the Ford Foundation Leadership and Development program to study folklife and community empowerment with Alan Lomax at Columbia University. He joined the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads Board in 1980.
Summary: Worth W. Long largely discusses experiences growing up in a household strongly connected to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Long discusses churches as important aspects of community building and as meeting spaces for the African American civil rights activists. He recalls personal experiences participating in protest and other forms of activism during the 1950's and 60's, including his participation with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and other organizations involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He discusses some of his community-based political philosophies, and ends with a discussion of a powerful experience in the Kilby prison in Alabama.
Moving Images
15 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:42:13) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0122_mv01-15
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0122_ms01
Frankye Adams Johnson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Jackson, Mississippi, December 6, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Frankye Adams-Johnson was born in Pocahontas, Mississippi to a family of sharecroppers. As a teenager in Jackson, Mississippi, she participated in the NAACP, COFO, and SNCC as a youth organizer and was heavily involved in the Jackson civil rights movement in 1963. In 1964, she enrolled at Tougaloo College where she continued to be involved in civil rights demonstrations. After moving to New York in 1967, she co-organized the White Plains branch of the Black Panther Party. Adams-Johnson became a college professor in the 1980s, and returned to Jackson from New York in the late 1990s.
Summary: Frankye Adams-Johnson recalls her involvement as a Civil Rights activist in the Jackson Movement. While a student at Tougaloo College she became involved with SNCC, the Freedom Riders and the March on Washington. Placing emphasis on the themes of racial consciousness, gender and violence, she traces the evolution of her political role, concluding with her involvement in the Black Panther Party.
Moving Images
4 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:27:28) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0123_mv01-04
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0123_ms01
Betty Garman Robinson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Baltimore, Maryland, December 8, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Betty Garman Robinson was born on January 8, 1939 in New York City. She enrolled in Skidmore College in 1956 and became involved with NSA and attending National Student Congress meetings. In 1960 she became the assistant vice-president of the NSA, organizing the National Student Congress for the following summer where she first met members from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the fall of 1961 she attended graduate school to study Political Science in Berkeley, California. In November of 1963 she attended the Howard Conference in Washington, DC and was recruited to join SNCC, leaving graduate school for a position with the organization. Robinson then went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer in 1964 and became the Northern Coordinator in the Greenwood Office. In 1965, she moved to Washington, DC was involved in the Free DC Movement and the Bus Boycotts, and later the anti-war movement and women's movement of the 1970's. She is currently involved in Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), an organization in Baltimore that is committed to fighting structural inequity and racial injustice.
Summary: Betty Garman Robinson shares her experience in the Civil Rights Movement. She discusses her early involvement with the National Student Association (NSA) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), before joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963. Of her many roles, she recalls serving as a Northern Coordinator in Greenwood, Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964 and her later efforts that focused on bringing federal programs into southern communities. She discusses the role of women in SNCC and emphasizes the openness the organization had to women taking initiative and the impact it had on her activism. Shedding light on the on the inner organizational tensions of interracial relationships, the attitudes of white communities, and her navigation of "white privilege" she offers a unique perspective on the experience of role of white women in the Civil Rights Movement.
Moving Images
10 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:44:05) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0124_mv01-10
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0124_ms01
Dorothy Zellner oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Baltimore, Maryland, December 8, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner was born on January 14th, 1938 in New York City. She joined the NAACP in high school, and later went to Miami, Florida to enroll in a CORE workshop, training in non-violent organizing. Under CORE, she moved to New Orleans and was involved with "casing" sites for sit-ins and outreach to the white community. Dotty left CORE and was hired by the Southern Regional Council and moved to Atlanta in June of 1961. Later that year, she became involved with SNCC, organizing a Civil Liberties Workshop in the spring of 1963, and later marrying her husband Bob Zellner the following August. In 1964 she moved to Boston with her husband forming a Northeast Regional Office of SNCC while recruiting and interviewing prospective volunteers for the Freedom Summer Project. In 1965, Dottie had a daughter, and moved back to Atlanta with her new child and husband. She and her husband wrote a Grassroots Organizing Work (GROW) proposal to SNCC, to stay a part of the organization. She later moved to New Orleans to work with Anne and Carl Braden of the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF) for five years. Zellner worked as a nurse for several years before joining the Center for Constitutional Rights in 1984. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. She lectures and writes frequently about the civil rights movement and co-edited Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. As of 2014, she is involved in advocacy work on behalf of Palestinians
Summary: Dorothy Zellner reflects on her experience as one of the early organizers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Offering a unique perspective as a white woman in a black-led organization, she sheds light on the dynamics of race and gender in the Civil Rights Movement. Detailing the efforts of her and her then husband Bob Zellner, she discusses her involvement in organizing civil liberties workshops, forming a Northeast Regional Office of SNCC, and her role in recruiting Northern volunteers for the 1964 Freedom Summer Project. She discusses SNCC's decision to exclude white workers by the late 1960s and reflects on the complexities of this consensus. Emphasizing how SNCC was dynamic in its ability to function as a non-racial community, she considers its deterioration an endured loss for American society. She continues to pride SNCC as her life's work, to this day.
Moving Images
21 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (3:03:01) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0125_mv01-21
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0125_ms01
Timothy Jenkins oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, December 9, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Timothy Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 30, 1938, and was raised in a family invested in education. He received full tuition funding from a scholarship to Howard University in 1956. He stayed connected to the university after he graduated through his position as the National Affairs Vice President for the United States National Student Association. This position is also how he got involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He later went to law school at Yale, which was integral to his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Jenkins' role in the SNCC summer meeting of 1961 was particularly important in deciding to create Freedom Schools. He also attended and helped organize the Greenwood Folk Festival, and other folk festivals. He continues his involvement with law and racial justice.
Summary: Timothy Jones discusses his personal experiences growing up in Philadelphia and in particular his experiences in integrated school. He describes at length his experience attending Howard University, and why Howard was so important to the Civil Rights Movement. He describes how he became a lawyer, and his political involvement with the Civil Rights Movement as an African American lawyer. Jenkins discusses some of the nuances of the political climate of the 1960s, and how that influenced SNCC's decision-making process. Jenkins concludes the interview by recalling the three events that he felt he directly affected the course of history.
Moving Images
6 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (02:20:40) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0126_mv01-06
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0126_ms01
Judy Richardson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Silver Spring, Maryland, December 9, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Judy Richardson was born on March 10, 1944, in Tarrytown, New York. In 1962 she was one of eight black students accepted into Swarthmore College and was involved with the Students for Democratic Society's (SDS) chapter named the Swarthmore Political Action Committee (SPAC). From 1963 to 1965, she held various positions with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including moving around the country for demonstrations, executive secretarial duties, and proposing Residential Freedom Schools. She left work to attend Columbia University in New York City, and eventually worked with Drum and Spear Bookstore in Washington, DC. She was involved in the production of the documentary Eyes on the Prize and works with the SNCC Legacy Project at Duke University.
Summary: Judy Richardson was born on March 10, 1944. As one of eight black students accepted into Swarthmore College in 1962, she recalls her initial involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, attending mass meetings and participating in freedom rides in the Cambridge, Maryland Movement. She discusses her decision to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), where she served as a secretary for then executive secretary, Jim Forman. She recalls her involvement with Freedom Summer 1964 and her proposal to organize a SNCC Residential Freedom School in 1965. After leaving SNCC, she discusses her involvement with Julian Bond's all-black political party in Lowndes County where she served as a temporary head of communications. She discusses her later community organizing efforts in Washington, DC and her current involvement with the SNCC Legacy Project at Duke University.
Moving Images
13 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (03:37:49) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0127_mv01-13
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0127_ms01
Juadine Henderson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, December 3, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Juadine Henderson was born in Batesville, Mississippi and attended church regularly growing up. She learned about the NAACP, SNCC, and the Freedom Songs through her church. In June of 1963 she went to Greenwood, Mississippi with John Smith of SNCC to attend a one week voter registration workshop, and shortly after decided to join the movement and began work with voter registration programs. Henderson was arrested on multiple occasions because of her involvement with the Civil Rights Movement. She attended Bishop College, George Washington University, and Columbia University at different points in her life. She eventually moved to Washington DC, first working with Drum and Spear bookstore, and then became a journalist; a career she held for twenty eight years.
Summary: Juadine Henderson recalls her initial interaction with Frank Smith, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963, and his influence on her decision to attend a voter registration workshop in Greenswood, Mississippi. She discusses how exposure to the movement was instrumental to her later decisions to become involved with the Freedom Labor Union, work on voter registration projects on plantations throughout Mississippi and attend the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, DC. She discusses her multiple arrests, participation in movement activities, and how the role of the church, freedom songs, and "black beauty" served as empowering symbols to affirming her identity as a black woman in the movement.
Moving Images
8 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (02:29:28) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0128_mv01-08
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0128_ms01
Freddie Greene Biddle oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, December 10, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Freddie Greene was born in was born in Greenwood, Mississippi on February 15, 1945 where she experienced firsthand segregation. She attended mass meetings in 1962 when SNCC came to Greenwood, Mississippi and was involved with the organizing efforts for the discontinuation of food being sent to Leflore County. Later on, Greene went to Dillard University in New Orleans where she became involved with Tulane University's Student Group and met Cathy Cage. Greene went to McComb, Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964 and attended the National Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She left Dillard University to continue her work with voter registration for African Americans. She was arrested for her demonstration efforts. She later moved to Atlanta, Georgia to work in the SNCC office and was involved with the switchboard and financing. In the summer of 1968, Freddie left SNCC and moved to Washington, D.C, where she started working with the United Neighborhood Youth Program.
Summary: Freddie Greene was born in Greenwood, Mississippi on February 15, 1945. She discusses how living in a segregated community exposed her to the early efforts of the Civil Rights Movement. She reflects on her decision to leave Greenwood and attend Dillard University in New Orleans in 1962. Feeling disconnected with the movement, she became a participant in the McComb project during Freedom Summer 1964. After returning to school post-Freedom Summer, she decided to leave and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1965. She discusses her involvement working on voting registration and canvassing, as well as her role of working on the switchboard and in finance in SNCC's Atlanta Office.
Moving Images
6 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (01:36:06) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0129_mv01-06
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0129_ms01
Reginald Robinson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, District of Columbia, December 11, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Reginald Robinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1939. After leaving high school during the eleventh grade to work, he eventually attended Cortez Peters Business College, where he first got involved in civil rights through the student organization, Civic Interest Group. He quickly became involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1961. Working for SNCC as a field secretary, his duties focused on supporting voter registration in McComb, Mississippi and Cambridge, Maryland. After SNCC, he worked multiple jobs around the country before finally settling in Washington, DC, where he eventually retired in 2001.
Summary: Reginald "Reg" Robinson shares his experience of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and how he became known as an "advance man" throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning with his involvement with the student-led Civic Interest Group in Baltimore, Maryland, he discusses how his involvement with the Cambridge Movement led him to becoming a field secretary for SNCC. He recalls how Voter Education Programs and various recruitment activities of SNCC epitomized the rule of "building and growing" and prides himself for remaining committed to ensuring civil rights today.
Moving Images
10 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (03:26:30) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0130_mv01-10
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0130_ms01
Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, December 11, 2015
Next Page »

Contents List