Sandra Adickes |
interviewed |
Educator and historian Sandra Adickes wrote the book Legacy of a Freedom School about working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1964-64 to establish Freedom Schools in Mississippi. While teaching in Hattiesburg, she accompanied her black students to the public library where they were refused library cards. She was then arrested for attempting to eat with them at a lunch counter. Her lawsuit—Adickes v. Kress—led to a Supreme Court decision in her favor in 1970, and she contributed her settlement money to a scholarship fund for the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF) to be used for scholarships. Her papers are in the Manuscript division of the University of Southern Mississippi—McCain Library and Archives. Her account of History Lessons in Hattiesburg is on the website http://www.crmvet.org/info/hburg.htm |
Fred Anderson |
interviewed |
Fred Anderson was an organizer with SNCC in the Second Congressional District of Mississippi, Lowndes County, Alabama, and Southwest Georgia. He studied Hegelian philosophy and theories of non-violent/passive resistance at Tougaloo College, and received the Richard Wright Literary Prize for excellence in Southern Expressions (Jackson State College, Mississippi). He resisted enlistment during the war in Vietnam, went underground in Harlem, and worked as a youth development worker there. James Baldwin and historian, John Henrik Clarke sponsored his membership in the Harlem Writers Guild. Anderson went into political exile in Canada in 1965. Interview subjects include the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, lynchings, SNCC, jail, and civil rights work with Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and Stokely Carmichael. |
Inez Anderson |
interviewed |
Inez Anderson, together with her late husband, Dr. Dupuy Anderson, worked in the 1953 Baton Rouge Bus Boycott, which inspired Dr. King to take up the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Andersons survived the bombing of their home and cross burning on their lawn, and never gave up the fight. |
Muhammad Ansari |
interviewed |
Muhammad Ansari is serving a second term as President of the Greater Hartford Branch of the NAACP. He has made strides in recruiting young people for leadership positions; in rallying for health care, education and housing; and in opposing youth violence and foreclosures, which impact people of color disproportionately. He credits Hartford activist and NAACP branch president Ella Cromwell (name link, left), as a major influence. |
Judge D’Army Bailey
 |
interviewed |
Judge D'Army Bailey (1941 - 2015) of Memphis was an ardent civil rights activist, and was jailed for demonstrating with CORE against segregation. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1967, and was instrumental in helping lawyers and students to support Dr. King in Memphis during the sanitation workers strike. He moved to Berkeley, CA in 1969 and was the first black to be elected to the City Council, in 1971. In 1991, he founded the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in Memphis. He is the author of Mine Eyes Have Seen: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Journey, and The Education of a Black Radical; A Southern Civil Rights Activist's Journey, 1959 - 1964 (LSU Press: 2009). Here is a link to a video clip of Judge Bailey reading "Something Else Should Die: A Poem with Rhymes," by Eli Siegel. http://bit.ly/1K4rQEw |
Stanley Baird |
|
Stanley Baird was born in Asheville and attended segregated schools there. Along with his lifelong friend Marvin Chambers, he was a member of the student organization ASCORE and participated in protests and demonstrations leading to the integration of Woolworth and the A&P. He was one of the high school singing group, The Untils, begun by Lawrence Daugherty. As a musician—saxophone is his instrument of choice--he has shared the concert stage with his mentor Donald Byrd. He has also achieved recognition as a music educator at the public school and university level. He created the nonprofit Stanley Baird Youth Jazz Foundation because he believes jazz can be kept alive through young rising instrumentalists and vocalists. For more, go to the name link, left. |
Will Barnet |
|
Will Barnet (1911-2012), the eminent American printmaker and painter, was interviewed in relation to his long collaboration with African American printmaker Bob Blackburn, founder of the Printmaking Studio in New York City. To find out more, go to the article reprinted by permission of the Journal of the Print World in the News Section of this website. |
George Barrett |
interviewed |
George Barrett is a Nashville attorney noted for his work on behalf of civil rights and unions. He was the original counsel for a 1969 lawsuit seeking to change the state’s public education laws. He is interviewed on the subject of the sit-ins, racism, and civil and union rights. |
Rev. Marion Bascom |
interviewed |
Marion C. Bascom (March 14, 1925 - May 17, 2012) is recognized as a civil rights leader in Baltimore for more than 60 years, notably in the desegregation of area parks and restaurants in the 1960s. Born in Florida, he was interviewed on the subject of racism there, his memories of Martin Luther King, his activities in Baltimore, and the NAACP. |
Jack Bass |
Jack Bass is author or co-author of eight nonfiction books focused on Southern politics, race relations, and the role of law in shaping the civil rights era. The book Unlikely Heroes is a vivid account of the Brown decision implemented by southern federal judges committed to the rule of law. He is Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Social Sciences at the College of Charleston. |
|
Keith Beauchamp |
interviewed |
Keith Beauchamp is the filmmaker whose research eventually led to the documentary film The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till , and the reopening of the case by the United States Department of Justice in May 2004. |
Charles Black |
interviewed |
Charles Black was one of eight students Dr. Martin Luther King's social philosophy course at Morehouse College in 1961. In the interview, Mr. Black speaks of his role in the Atlanta Student Movement, the sit-ins, and their work to desegregate hospitals, downtown theaters, and Rich's Department Store. |
Arthur Blackman |
interviewed |
Arthur Blackman speaks about an unexpected and lifechanging meeting he attended during a visit by Martin Luther King to the Groton School in Massachusetts, which led to his participation in Boston demonstrations for civil rights. |
Dr. T.B. Boyd III |
interviewed |
Dr. T. B. Boyd III is the current head of the National Baptist Publishing Board, the oldest and largest religious publisher in the U.S. He speaks about his participation in the marches, demonstrations, and sit-ins that led to the desegregation of Nashville in the 1960s. |
Nathaniel Briggs |
interviewed |
Nathaniel Briggs is a son of Harry and Eliza Briggs whose name heads the Clarendon County, South Carolina Briggs v. Elliot lawsuit for "equal" school buses and teachers’ pay. Mr. Briggs often speaks at schools and conferences about the sacrifices of these courageous parents who risked their lives and livelihoods so that all children can get the best education. Mr. Briggs is a former 3rd vice president of the NJ State Conference of the NAACP and former president of the Bergen County branch. He maintains his parents’ home in Clarendon County and hopes in time it will become a museum. We’re proud that he is a supporter of our work. |
Brooklyn CORE: |
interviewed |
Members of the Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle. In these interviews they describe their imaginative, highly visible campaigns for equality in housing, employment, and education — for example, their boycott of Ebinger's Bakery which forced the owners to begin hiring black and Latino workers; Operation Clean Sweep, which shamed the Department of Sanitation into increasing garbage pickups in densely populated Bedford-Stuyvesant; and their demonstrations at Downstate Medical Center construction site. Members interviewed include Rioghan Kirchner, Arnold Goldwag, Msemaji Weusi, Nandi Weusi, Edith Diamond, Dr. Ed Lewinson, Congressman Major Owens, Jerome Bibuld, Maryellen PfeifferKurtin, Princene Hyatt, and Larry Cumberbatch. |
Reunion of Brooklyn CORE Activists (l to r) Msemaji Weusi, Jerome Bibuld,
Edith Diamond, Arnold Goldwag, Ed Lewinson. Photo credit: Doug Diamond
State Rep. |
interviewed |
State Representative Tyrone Brooks of Georgia was first elected in 1980 and continues right up to now. His life is a microcosm of civil rights history in Georgia, beginning with his arrest as a child and detention with other children for peacefully marching for equal education. He was a field secretary for the NAACP and with Dr. King on many campaigns. In 2003 he successfully ended a 20 year battle to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag. In this interview, Mr. Brooks discussed the 1946 mass lynching in Monroe (GA) of two African American World War II veterans, George Dorsey and Roger Malcom, their wives, and an unborn child, and his continuing efforts to bring the killers to justice. Click here to read Alice Bernstein's three-part interview with Tyrone Brooks. |
Ernest “Brownie” Brown |
interviewed |
Ernest "Brownie" Brown (d. August 27, 2009), is a member of the American Tap Dance Foundation's Hall of Fame. He performed nationally and internationally, and at one time was on the same bill at the Cotton Club with Duke Ellington. He speaks in the interview about his love for dance, his choreography for the "chair dance," his partnership with Reggio McLaughlin, and his experience of racism. Click hear to read Alice Bernstein's article, Impressions of A Festival of Learning and Joy: Tap City 2003. |
Jim Brown |
interviewed |
Jim Brown is professor of history at Tougaloo College. His narrative adds important knowledge to civil rights history in Mississippi, and to the contributions of the Jewish refugee scholar Ernst Borinski, who taught at Tougaloo College for many decades. Click here to view Jim Brown teaching at Tougaloo in the 1960s. |
Russell Brown |
interviewed |
Civil Rights, Jobs, Civil War, academic discrimination |
Thomas "Tom" Brown |
interviewed |
Thomas J. Brown (d. June 24, 2013) is best known as founder and CEO of Jobs Clearing House, a program he established in 1963 to provide meaningful job opportunities for racial minorities in Boston. For more than 30 years, Brown provided 10,000 new jobs for minorities. He worked for all those years as a volunteer. |
Washington Butler, Jr.
|
interviewed |
Washington Roosevelt Butler, Jr. (d. July 3, 2011) was the first black elected to the city council in Nashville, Tennessee and the first to run for Governor. He speaks about his experience in the student non-violent movement, including in the desegregation of public parks. For an early document, see the name link at left. |
David Byer-Tyre |
interviewed |
David Byer-Tyre, artist and educator, is director of programming and community development for the Suburban Oral History Project at Hofstra University in Hempstead and a curator of African-American material culture. He sculpted the Eubie Blake Memorial award, and his public works include a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Peace Park in Uniondale. Click here to view the Rosa Parks Hempstead Transit Center Project, which he designed. It was installed in 2007. |
Isaac Byrd, Jr., Esq. |
|
Isaac Byrd grew up on a Mississippi Delta family-owned farm, and studied education at Tougaloo College. After that he obtained his law degree, became a successful attorney, and is currently a member of the Brown/Tougaloo Partnership. |
Vivian Callender |
interviewed |
Vivian Callender, in Chicago, has preserved the legacy of her father, Rupert Callender, one of the earliest black advertising photographers and illustrators in New York City, and a founder of the first black modeling agency. Vivian was the first Black Clairol child (does she or doesn’t she), the first black Sealtest Milk child in a print ad, Gerber Baby, and Bassette Furniture child. And she is a dedicated preservationist of the hardly known history of black people in publishing, advertising, fashion, and modeling. |
Marvin Chambers, Sr. |
interviewed |
Marvin D. Chambers, Sr. was born in Asheville, NC. He became active in civil rights as a teenager, in 1958, with the Greater Asheville Youth Council, a group of students from all-white Lee Edwards High School and all-black Stephens-Lee High School, sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In his senior year, Chambers and four classmates founded ASCORE (Asheville Student Committee on Racial Equality). ASCORE’s protests against the inferior segregated high school, and their careful reports to the PTA documenting the inequities, became front-page news and resulted in a new school being built. Their continued sit-ins eventually integrated Woolworth’s, and they also succeeded in getting better jobs for black youths. For more about Mr. Chambers, go to the name link, left. |
Benjamin Chavis |
Benjamin Chavis, civil rights leader, was born in North Carolina, where, as a child his actions led to the desegregation of the local library. He went on to work as an assistant to Dr. Martin Luther King. He was the leader of the Wilmington Ten, civil rights protesters who were imprisoned in 1971, for nearly a decade. In 1980 their convictions were overturned by a federal appeals court ruling that their constitutional rights were violated by both the prosecutor and trial judge. He went on to work as Vice President of the National Council of Churches and Executive Director of the NAACP. He is co-founder with Russell Simmons of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. |
|
Edward Chavis |
interviewed |
Edward Henry Chavis, Sr. of Raleigh, NC, descendant of John Chavis, the first African American to fight in the American Revolution, spoke in the interview, which was conducted at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh, about the segregated military in World War II. |
Wes and Missy Cochran |
interviewed |
Wesley and Missy Cochran are pioneering art collectors from La Grange, Georgia, who collect and exhibit works on the basis of quality, not as a matter of fame or race. Their dedication to making their collection accessible, not to a select few, but to everyone, is beautiful and adds to knowledge and ethics in this world. One notable aspect of their collection is their recognition of works by black American artists, bringing many of these works to the attention of a wide public. To read the story about one exhibition, and about the interview with them, click here. |
Clifford Cotton |
interviewed |
|
Dorothy Crook |
interviewed |
Dorothy Crook, the first woman President of AFSCME Local 1733 in Memphis, began working for the union in 1969, after Dr. King was assassinated during the historic Sanitation Workers Strike. She worked with Taylor Rogers, the first black president of Local 1733, for 27 years, after which she was elected president. She successfully negotiated many contracts, i.e., the City of Memphis contract for a 5% wage increase for city workers—the first and only increase of that magnitude they’ve ever had; and retired in 2008. |
Charles E. |
interviewed |
Dr. Charles E. Crutchfield, Sr. was born in Jasper, Alabama in the 1940s, where he picked cotton and attended a segregated school. His inspiration to become a doctor occurred following a painful childhood illness when he became well after a doctor gave him penicillin. As a youth, his parents sent him to live with close relatives in Minneapolis. In 1963 he earned his medical degree and in 1969 he became Minnesota’s first obstetrician-gynecologist of color. During 47 years he has delivered as many as 9,000 babies, and is dedicated to accessible healthcare for all. |
Congressman |
interviewed |
In 2007, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore, MD (D) was serving his 5th term in the [U.S.] House of Representatives, and was president of the Congressional Black Caucus. He speaks of growing up in a segregated city, the desegregation of public pools, and acknowledges black community activists, and the influence of a Jewish man who encouraged his educational advancement. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science (Howard University), served as Student Government President and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, then his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law. He began his career in the Maryland House of Delegates, serving for 14 years--the first African American in Maryland history to be named Speaker Pro Tem. Since 1996, he has represented Maryland’s 7th Congressional District. His commitment to secure quality healthcare, education, clean air and water, and a strong economy, is a hallmark of his service. Click here to read Alice Bernstein's published interview with Elijah Cummings |
Valerie Cunningham |
interviewed |
Valerie Cunningham is a historic preservationist, a community activist, and the founder of Portsmouth's Black Heritage Trail. Together with Mark Sammons she co-authored of the landmark volume Black Portsmouth (UNH Press, 2004) with original research on Africans and African Americans in New England and Portsmouth, beginning over 350 years ago with the arrival of enslaved people in 1645. She speaks of finding this 1807 entry in a church record: "To Venus—a Black— $1," and her quest to find documents that could help bring this unknown enslaved woman to life and restore her dignity. To learn more about her pioneering work, go to the name link, left. |
Donald Cunnigen |
interviewed |
Donald Cunnigen is a scholar and author on the subject of race relations, including in the Jim Crow South, and is currently Professor at the University of Rhode Island in the Sociology Department. In this audio interview Dr. Cunnigen discusses having studied sociology at Tougaloo College in Mississippi with the Jewish refugee scholar Ernst Borinski. He also speaks about visiting New York City as a youth and attending programs sponsored there by Mobilization for Youth, and tells of his friendship with artist Laurie Ourlicht. A further interview, on videotape, is planned. |
Constance Curry |
interviewed |
Sit-ins, sharecropping, school desegregation |
George Curry |
|
Jesse Davidson |
interviewed |
Bronx NAACP, Alabama Civil Rights |
Richard A. Days |
interviewed |
Richard ‘Dik’ Days (1929-2009), born in Saginaw, Michigan, attended Michigan State, and was forced out during the McCarthy “witch hunts” for his union and political activism. In his long UAW career, he was an organizer for Local 259 (NY) and Administrator of Welfare & Pension Plans; then Education and Civil Rights Director for UAW Region 9A. He taught at the Walter & Mae Reuther Family Education Center; was a charter member of the national Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and co-founder of the Connecticut Chapter. He spoke in the interview about the labor movement, the UAW, voting rights, and the actions of David Duke. |
Ernest C. Dillard, Sr. |
interviewed |
Ernest C. Dillard, Sr., labor leader and author, was born the fourth of seven children in Montgomery, Alabama in January 1915. He left Alabama for Detroit in 1937. He led a successful NAACP sit-in in the 40’s, integrating Detroit restaurants, and became a UAW Local 15 leader (elected & appointed), encouraged by Irving Capilowish and other white union brothers. He edited the Local’s newspaper, was Educational Director of Trade Union Leadership Council, served on UAW’s GM Dept. Umpire Staff, and was Assist. Director of its Nat’l. Community Action Program, retiring in 1980. |
Richard Dinkins |
interviewed |
Rosenwald School, segregation, sit-ins, desegregation lawsuits |
John Dittmer |
interviewed |
John Dittmer, professor emeritus of history at DePauw University, award-winning author, and a nationally recognized authority on the civil rights movement, is the author of Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920. From 1967 to 1979 he taught history at Tougaloo College in Mississippi and was a friend and colleague of Dr. Ernst Borinski, the Jewish refugee scholar who taught sociology at Tougaloo. John Dittmer is also the author of Local People:The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi and The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care. Here is a youtube link to his discussion of The Good Doctors and Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. |
Alvin Dorfman |
interviewed |
McCarthyism, Martin Luther King, voting registration protests St. Augustine, FL |
Rabbi Israel |
interviewed |
The reform Jewish Rabbi Israel “Sy” Dresner is a lifelong civil rights activist from northern New Jersey. Dr. King called on him numerous times, including in the desegregation protests in St. Augustine, Florida, where Rabbi Dresner brought 17 other rabbis prepared to be arrested “for self-respect and human dignity.” Rabbi Dresner participated in campaigns to desegregate municipal facilities in Georgia, and in the inter-faith Freedom Bus Ride from Washington DC to Tallahassee, Florida. He served jail time in 1964 and went on to participate in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. Rabbi Dresner’s courage for civil rights led to his being called “the most arrested rabbi” in the country. |
Frank Driggs |
interviewed |
Frank Driggs (1930-2011), the noted, beloved jazz historian, record producer, and writer, was interviewed in New York City in 2005. His archive of jazz photographs, recordings, sheet music, posters and memorabilia--more than 100,000 items--is con-sidered the greatest collection of jazz photographs in the world. For more, see the name link, left. |
Lorenzo Dufau |
interviewed |
Lorenzo Dufau, originally from New Orleans, is a WWII naval hero and celebrated his 93rd birthday on January 2014. The interview took place in New York, and Mr. DuFau discussed growing up in New Orleans during the Jim Crow era and his World War II military service in the United States Navy. He was one of the crew of the USS Mason, the first naval ship manned by African Americans. The Mason was a segregated vessel whose black sailors, despite dangerous winds and seas, repaired vessels attacked by the Nazis and safely returned a damaged advance US convoy to the main body. Their immense courage inspired the film “Proud,” in which Ossie Davis starred in the role of Mr. Dufau. |
