Civil Rights History Project collection, 2010-2016 (Library of Congress Finding Aid)

Contents

Series 2: Interviews (continued)
	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.
		Moving Images
			9 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:13:36) : digital, sound, color
			Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0145_mv01-09
		Manuscripts
			1 transcript (.pdf) : text file
			Digital ID: afc2010039_crhp0145_ms01

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