The Library of Congress >  Researchers >  Search Finding Aids  >  Civil Rights History Project collection, 2010-2016
ContainerContents
Series 2: Interviews (continued)
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.
Moving Images
6 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:26:38) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0133_mv01-06
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0133_ms01
E. Maynard Moore oral history interview conducted by David. P. Cline in Washington, District of Columbia, December 14, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Reverend E. Maynard Moore was born in Petersburg, Virginia in 1938. In his youth, he was generally unaware of the segregation in his community. As a teenager, he participated in the Methodist Student Movement and began to interact with black students in other Methodist groups and became aware of civil rights issues. After attending undergraduate college at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, he went to seminary school at Southern Methodist University in 1959. He participated in sit-ins in the Dallas area and worked with migrant communities during summer breaks. In 1964, he was accepted to the University of Chicago Divinity School to do doctoral work. During this time, he and classmates drove from Chicago to join the march to Montgomery for the last few miles. In 1966, he became the national coordinator for Student Interracial Ministry. For most of his career, he has focused on urban ministry projects.
Summary: Maynard E. Moore shares his experience in the Civil Rights Movement as a minister and how the intersection of religion and education provided an opportunity for racial integration. He recalls his involvement in the Methodist Student Movement from his early career as a migrant camp worker, to later pursuits in doctoral education, up to his participation in the Selma march. Emphasizing the commitment to non-violence, he discusses how religion grounded the efforts of Civil Rights activists, was used as a tactic to navigate racial tension in the South, and inspired the growth and mobilization of student-led action groups.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:50:16) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0134_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0134_ms01
Julius W. Becton oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, December 15, 2015
Digital content available
Biographical History: Lieutenant General Julius W. Becton, Jr., United States Army, retired, was born in 1926 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He joined the Army Air Corps in July 1944 and graduated from Infantry Officer Candidate School in 1945. Becton originally separated from the Army in 1946, but he returned to active duty in 1948 when the Army was officially desegregated. Eventually, rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, he served during both the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and retired from the U.S. Army in 1983 after nearly 40 years of service. After retirement, he has held numerous positions including: Director of Disaster Assistance for the Agency for International Development (AID), the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), president of Prairie View A&M University, and Superintendent for the District of Columbia school system.
Summary: Julius W. Becton recalls events that led to his service in the military. He highlights being the first African American to hold many of his positions in academics, the military and post-military career. Emphasizing how the integration of the military influenced his attitude towards racial issues, he offers a unique perspective on the Civil Rights Movement. He expresses deep pride for his efforts to advance himself, his family, race, and country through his military service.
Moving Images
8 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (3:08:47) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0135_mv01-08
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0135_ms01
Gloria Arellanes oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in El Monte, California, June 26, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Gloria Arellanes was born in East Los Angeles in 1946. As a child, her family purchased a home in El Monte, California, where she experienced racism. Her father was a Mexican immigrant and her mother was Tongva Indian, but her parents encouraged her to identify as Chicana in school. After graduating high school, Gloria became involved in community work with Youth Temporary Employment Project (YTEP) and Neighborhood Adult Participation Project (NAPP). In 1967, she became involved with the Brown Berets and the Chicano movement, running the Brown Beret free clinic. After leaving the Brown Berets, she has focused on her indigenous roots and has been an active member of her tribe.
Summary: Gloria Arellanes talks about her life growing up in California, finding her way to the Brown Berets and participation in the Poor People's Campaign (1968) in Washington, DC. She also talks about her exploration of her roots and identity in an indigenous community.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:34:55) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0136_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0136_ms01
Michael D. McCarty oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Los Angeles, California, June 26, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Michael D. "Mac" McCarty was born in 1950 in Chicago. As a young man, he attended St. Ignatius College Prep, where he started a Black Student Union, and he was subsequently expelled for his involvement in protests. In 1968, he joined the Black Panther Party as part of the education cadre. He left the party after the assassination of Fred Hampton. He joined the Army in 1972 to avoid being a target of the FBI. After leaving the military, he became an acupuncturist. Since 1992, he has been a professional storyteller.
Summary: Michael "Mac" McCarty talks about joining the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Chicago, IL. He discusses racism in Chicago and the leadership of Fred Hampton of the Party and the beginnings of the Rainbow Coalition that brought together African Americans and Appalachian whites. He recalls the circumstances under which Hampton was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 21 by the COINTELPRO operation of the FBI.
Moving Images
8 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:37:09) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0137_mv01-08
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0137_ms01
Norma Mtume oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Los Angeles, California, June 27, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Norma Stoker Mtume was born in 1949 in San Diego, CA. She moved to South Central Los Angeles at the age of four. After graduating from high school in 1967, she attended Cal State LA and became involved in the Black Student Union and met her first husband, Albert Armour. Through Armour, she became involved with the Black Panther Party. She worked in free clinics in LA and Berkeley in the 1970s. She went on to work for non-profit community health organizations including SHIELDS for Families.
Summary: Norma Mtume talks about her involvement with the Black Panther Party (BPP); her work in the free medical clinics established by the BPP and her incarceration on trumped-up charges orchestrated by the COINTELPRO initiative of the FBI. She talks of her subsequent work to establish city-wide free health-care programs
Moving Images
8 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:25:12) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0138_mv01-08
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0138_ms01
Carlos Montes oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Alhambra, California, June 27, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Carlos Montes was born in 1947 in El Paso, Texas. He was raised in Juarez, Mexico for part of his childhood, and moved to Los Angeles in 1956. While attending East L.A. Community College, he became involved with various Chicano organizations and eventually co-founded the Brown Berets. He was an organizer of the Chicano Blowouts in East L.A., and he participated in numerous protests including the Poor People's Campaign. In 1970 he fled the country and lived underground for several years in both Juarez and El Paso. Since returning to L.A. in 1980, he has been involved with immigration reform, Chicano rights, freeing political prisoners, and community organizing.
Summary: Carlos Montes, founding member of the Brown Berets, talks about his decades-long involvement and activism in the Brown Berets, the Brown Power movement, MEChA, the East L.A. blowouts, the Chicano moratorium against the Vietnam War, the anti-Iraq war protests, his political persecution at the hands of federal and local authorities. He recounts participating in the inter-racial coalition that occupied the Mall in Washington, DC, for the Poor People's Campaign (1968), and the ways in which that experience opened up the consciousness of the Brown Berets to the global struggle against class oppression and imperialism. He talks about the circumstances of his arrest on arson charges in 1969, and having to flee the country in the face of relentless, racist persecution of himself and other Chicano activists. He recalls community action programs and events that challenged the Brown Power movement.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:18:32) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0139_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0139_ms01
Mateo Camarillo oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in National City, California, June 28, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Mateo Camarillo was born in 1941 in Tijuana, Mexico. His family moved to San Diego, CA when he was 10 years old where he attended school. While attending San Diego State University, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. After graduating from college in 1965, he volunteered to join the U.S. Army, and he served for two years in Europe. Upon returning to San Diego, he became a social worker. He formed the San Diego chapter of Trabajadores de la Raza and worked to establish bilingual pay programs. After serving as Executive Director of the Chicano Federation, in 1976 he went into private business development in several different fields including bilingual radio stations.
Summary: Mateo R. Camarillo talks of his involvement in a range of civil rights campaigns in and around the San Diego area, since the 1960s, including fair housing, police-community tensions, collaboration and cooperation with city officials on these issues. He recalls racism in the south during his service years in Vietnam. Finally, he talks about his entrepreneurial work in recent years.
Moving Images
11 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:02:53) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0140_mv01-11
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0140_ms01
Harold K. Brown oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in San Diego, California, June 28, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Harold K. Brown was born in 1934 in York, Pennsylvania where he attended segregated elementary school and integrated junior high and high schools. After joining the Army for two years, he eventually attended San Diego State University where he became involved in student government. After graduating in 1960, he became involved with Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He became deputy director for the Peace Corps in Lesotho, Africa. He returned to the United States after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. After a short time in New York, he was hired to develop the Afro American Studies department at San Diego State. He went on to hold several different positions, including Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration, at his alma mater. Since retiring in 2004, he has continued work in economic engagement and real estate development.
Summary: Harold "Hal" K. Brown talks about his activist work in obtaining housing and voting rights for San Diego's African American communities. He also discusses his time working in Apartheid-era Lesotho with the Peace Corps, his tenure as chairman of San Diego's CORE branch, and his thoughts on contemporary activism and racial and economic inequality.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:19:43) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0141_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0141_ms01
Roberta Alexander oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in San Diego, California, June 29, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Roberta Alexander was born in 1946 in Berkeley, California. As a college student in the Bay Area, she was arrested in the Free Speech movement protests in 1964, and then kicked out of Francoist Spain for protesting the Vietnam War there in 1967. She joined the Black Panther Party and was in the party for one year in the late sixties. Among her assignments was one that called for her to go Japan in 1969 with Elbert "Big Man" Howard to speak at rallies and demonstrations in Japan by organizations protesting the Vietnam War. She took her activism into teaching and taught Reading, Composition, Literature, Chicano Studies, and Black Studies as well as English as a Second Language courses for the San Diego Community College District beginning in 1974. She is a labor activist and delegate for the AFT Guild, Local 1931. Dr. Alexander earned her BA in Spanish Literature from University of California, Berkeley and her PhD in Comparative Literature from University of California, San Diego. Her son, also an activist teacher and a Muslim, leads inter-faith workshops and initiatives in San Diego.
Summary: Dr. Roberta Alexander, Professor Emeritus at San Diego City College, talks about her family background in California, her mixed-race heritage, and activist roots, including her time with the Black Panther Party.
Moving Images
9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (02:10:06) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0142_mv01-09
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0142_ms01
Maria Varela oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Pasadena, California, June 29, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Maria Varela was born in 1940 in Newell, Pennsylvania. She attended college at Alverno College in Milwaukee, where she was student body president and became aware of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while attending the National Student Association Congress. She later joined SNCC and worked in Selma, Alabama and Mississippi as a photographer and media creator. In 1968, she moved to New Mexico where she worked with the Land Grant Movement and the Chicano Press Association. Varela received her M.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1982. She later became a visiting professor at Colorado College and then adjunct professor at University of New Mexico. She helped organize rural development and founded Los Ganados del Valle and helped found Tierra Wools co-op, which re-introduced native sheep stock to Hispano and Native American land-holders and small ranchers.
Summary: Activist and MacArthur fellow, Maria Varela, recalls her role in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), discussing her work in organizing adult literacy programs in Mississippi and her role as one of SNCC's only female photographers. Offering a Mexican American perspective of the Civil Rights Movement, she identifies how SNCC embraced multiculturalism, extending its activism to include the Chicano Movement. She reflects on her transition from SNCC into the Chicano Movement, including her participation in the Land Grant Movement and the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.
Moving Images
15 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:40:46) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0143_mv01-15
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0143_ms01
Ericka C. Huggins oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Oakland, California, June 30, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Ericka Huggins was born Ericka Jenkins in 1948 in Washington, D.C. Huggins was the youngest of three. After graduating high school in 1966, she attended Cheyney State College and from there enrolled at Lincoln University, an HBCU in Philadelphia, where she met her husband, Vietnam veteran John Huggins. Both moved to California after reading about the Black Panther Party in Ramparts magazine, and joined the BPP in 1967. After her husband's assassination in 1969, she became a leader in the Los Angeles chapter and later led the Black Panther Party chapter in New Haven, CT. She was the Director of the Black Panther Party's Oakland Community School from 1973-1981. Huggins was a Professor of Sociology at Laney College in Oakland and at Berkeley City College. In addition, she has lectured at Stanford, Cornell, and UCLA. Huggins holds a master's degree in Sociology.
Summary: Ericka Huggins discusses joining the Los Angeles Chapter of the Blank Panther Party in 1967. She shares her involvement with community survival programs such as the People's Free Medical Clinics and Breakfast Programs. Sharing how these programs were often undervalued and overlooked by the suspicions of the police and the FBI, she sheds considerable light on the turbulent experience of being a Panther woman. In spite of the assassination of her husband and being imprisoned multiple times on conspiracy charges, she emphasizes the importance of remaining resilient and committed to issues of racial injustice and remains active in civic organizations today.
Moving Images
13 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:52:50) : digital, sound, color
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0144_mv01-13
Manuscripts
1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0144_ms01
Elbert "Big Man" Howard oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Santa Rosa, California, June 30, 2016
Digital content available
Biographical History: Elbert "Big Man" Howard was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1938. After serving four years in the military, he enrolled in Merritt College in Oakland, where he met Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. Together they founded the Black Panther Party. As one of the Party's early organizers, he played a key role in creating the Ten-Point Program, organizing defense committees and developing programs and opportunities for activism. After leaving the party in the 1970s, he returned to the South and worked in retail in various locations for several years. Eventually he returned to California where he wrote, lectured, and was a jazz disc jockey.
Summary: Elbert "Big Man" Howard founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland with Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and others in 1965. Howard speaks of the Party's accomplishments in establishing the free community food programs, free medical clinics, and other service initiatives. He recounts the harassment by the FBI's COINTELPRO initiative, and recounts instances of everyday racist oppression by the state and local officials. Howard talks about the failed attempt by the Panthers to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the Attica Prison Uprising (NY) in 1971. Howard talks of his leaving the organization due to various pressures and internal conflicts that eventually led to the demise of the Party.
Next Page »

Contents List