| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|
Series 2: Interviews
(continued) |
|
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
|
|
Digital content available
|
|
Biographical History: Jennifer Lawson was born in
June of 1946, in Fairfield, Alabama and encountered racial segregation as a
young child. Lawson later attended Tuskegee College. In the summer of 1963 she
moved to New York City to pursue an internship at Sloan Kettering Center and in
the summer of 1964 pursued a Research Aide role, meanwhile attending
demonstrations to protest Martin Luther King in Birmingham Jail. While at
Tuskegee she was involved with the student group that worked on desegregating
Macon County and mobilizing voting registration. After Freedom Summer 1964, she
went to Jackson, Mississippi to work on voter registration, and later left
school in the Spring of 1966 to join SNCC and work in Wilcox County. After she
left SNCC, she worked at the National Council of Negro Women and worked with
Dorothy Height and Fanny Lou Hamer. She was involved with designing the symbol
of the Black Panther for the Lowndes County Party, and created political
education material through art. Lawson was elected to the central coordinating
committee of SNCC, and then moved to Atlanta. At the time when SNCC began to
adopt racial separatism, she left the organization. She attended Columbia
University to pursue art in formal education, and studied film, working in
public television for the last thirty years. Lawson is active in volunteering
with the SNCC Legacy Project today. |
|
Summary: Jennifer Lawson shares her experience
throughout the Civil Rights Movement. She discusses her decision to leave
college to join the movement, and her involvement with voter registration
activities in Mississippi. She joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) in 1966 and was elected to the organization's central
coordinating committee. She shares her role in designing the Black Panther
symbol and campaign materials for the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization
(later the Black Panther Party). She reflects on the issues surrounding racial
separatism and her decision to leave organizational efforts in search of other
activist work, including joining the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).
She recalls going to Cuba and being involved with art programs that celebrated
African and Cuban heritage and moved to Tanzania from 1970-1972 and became part
of a writer's group with Walter Rodney. She later attended Columbia University
to merge her interest in civil rights activism and art, and pursued a film
degree. |
|
Moving Images |
|
17 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime
wrapper) (4:09:19) : digital, sound, color |
|
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0131_mv01-17 |
|
Manuscripts |
|
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file |
|
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0131_ms01 |
|
Dion Diamond oral history
interview conducted by David Cline in Washington, District of Columbia, December 13, 2015
|
|
Digital content available
|
|
Biographical History: Dion Diamond was born in
Petersburg, Virginia in 1941. Growing up in the segregated community of
Petersburg, he began doing sit-ins, often by himself. He enrolled in Howard
University in 1959, where he was a founding member of Nonviolent Action Group,
staging protests at Glen Echo, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia. He also was a
part of the Freedom Riders and was a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi and Louisiana from 1961 to 1963.
During this time, he was arrested over 30 times. He later attended the
University of Wisconsin and earned a graduate degree from Harvard
University. |
|
Summary: Dion Diamond discusses his activism and
experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. He remembers growing up in
segregated Petersburg, Virginia, and attending Howard University, where he
began organizing for civil rights. He also recalls his work in Mississippi and
Louisiana as a Freedom Rider and activist, his studies at University of
Wisconsin and Harvard University, and his later career. Finally, he speaks
about contemporary activism and rights issues. |
|
Moving Images |
|
7 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime
wrapper) (1:34:38) : digital, sound, color |
|
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0132_mv01-07 |
|
Manuscripts |
|
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file |
|
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0132_ms01 |
|
Joseph Howell and Embry Howell
oral history interview conducted by David Cline in Washington, District of
Columbia, December 13,
2015
|
|
Digital content available
|
|
Biographical History: Embry Howell was born in 1945
in Bethesda, Maryland. She grew up in Davidson, North Carolina and attended
Davidson College before transferring to Barnard College. She later attended
graduate school at the University of North Carolina. She earned a Ph.D. in
Public Policy from George Washington University. She has had a long career as a
health policy researcher, primarily at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.
She worked for SNCC in Southwest Georgia during the summer of 1966. |
|
Biographical History: Joseph Howell was born in 1942
in the suburb of Belle Meade in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1964 while a student
Davidson College, he organized a civil rights march in Charlotte. He went on to
attend Union Theological Seminary and the University of North Carolina where he
earned a planning degree. He worked for SNCC in Southwest Georgia during the
summer of 1966. He is the author of Civil Rights Journey : The Story of a White Southerner Coming of Age during the Civil Rights Revolution (2011) which details his experience working with the civil rights
movement. |
|
Summary: Joseph and Embry Howell recall the summer
of 1966 in Southern Georgia. Recruited by Charlie Sherrod of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) they discuss the complexities they
encountered from embodying a white identity, most significantly through their
experience of living with a black family in the South. They emphasize how
changing racial perception and power influenced a shift in SNCC's tactic of
nonviolence, ultimately leading to greater forms of militancy under ideologies
of Black Power. In spite of the complicated nature of navigating racial
tension, they remained committed to working with voting registration
activities, organizing efforts, and the Head Start program and were guided by
the belief of helping others. |
Next Page » |