Alliance of Ethics & Art (AEA)

Sandra Adickes	11/22/2005, New Brunswick, NJ	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	08/27/2006, Montreal, Quebec	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	2/28/2011, Baton Rouge, LA	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	4/30/2012, Hartford, CT	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	07/26/2006 Memphis, TN Metadata subjects	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 heping 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	04/20/2006	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	01/22/2007	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	09/15/2005	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	11/16/2005	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	09/25/2010 Manchester-by- the-sea, MA	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	04/17/2006	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	05/26/2005 NYC	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: Reunion of Brooklyn CORE Activists (l to r) Msemaji Weusi, Jerome Bibuld, Edith Diamond, Arnold Goldwag, Ed Lewinson. Photo credit: Doug Diamond	02/19/2006	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. Two-part article at http://alicebernstein.net/BrooklynCORE-Part1__Remembering-Civil-Rights-In-Brooklyn-SCBN.html

State Rep. Tyrone Brooks	11/15/2005 Atlanta, GA	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	06/24/2005	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	04/04/2014 Jackson, MI	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	07/07/2005	Civil Rights, Jobs, Civil War, academic discrimination
Thomas "Tom" Brown	5/11/06 Boston, MA	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.	08/01/2006	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	08/23/2007 African-American Museum of Nassau County, LI	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.	03/20/2014	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	06/11/2014 Mundelein, IL	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.	08/15/2011	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	01/29/2011	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	04/01/2011 LaGrange, GA	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	08/15/2011
Dorothy Crook	04/19/2006	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. Crutchfield, Sr. M.D.	3/2, 3/9 3/30/14	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 Elijah Cummings	01/22/2007 Baltimore, MD	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	09/15/2011 Portsmouth NH	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	3/23/2012 Hempstead NY	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	11/16/2005	Sit-ins, sharecropping, school desegregation
George Curry

Jesse Davidson	01/23/2006	Bronx NAACP, Alabama Civil Rights
Richard A. Days	11/11/2005	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.	05/16/2012 from L.A. 07/19/2012 NYC	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	04/15/2006	Rosenwald School, segregation, sit-ins, desegregation lawsuits
John Dittmer	06/18/2012 Indiana	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	06/25/2010	McCarthyism, Martin Luther King, voting registration protests St. Augustine, FL
Rabbi Israel "Sy" Dresner	11/14/2011 Wayne, NJ Metadata subjects	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	2005 NYC	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	02/27/2006 NYC	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.

Edgecombe, Frank		Frank A. Edgcombe 2014, via email and phone from Hampton, Virginia.
Edisto 13 40th Anniversary Reunion 7/3/2005		Like millions of Americans, thirteen high school and college students in South Carolina set out on July 4, 1965, for a picnic and swim. Arriving at Edisto Beach State Park in Charleston, they spread their blankets. Minutes later, while others looked on, they were placed under arrest. Their crime: “trespassing on public property” and “disturbing the peace.” The would-be picknickers were an interracial group, black and white, and South Carolina, like other Southern states, was still segregated despite the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We covered their reunion in 2005 (link to article), during which they finally enjoyed their July 4th picnic on Edisto Beach. Below, Edisto 13 Reunion, Charleston, SC at the Francis Marion Hotel.
Rev. Edwin R. Edmonds 11/11/2005		Dr. Edwin Edmonds (1918-2007) graduated from Morehouse College in 1938 and received a doctorate in social ethics from Boston University. He was ordained in the Methodist Church in 1950. He was hired as a sociology professor at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC and soon became president of the local chapter of the NAACP. He met the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1958 and the two corresponded until Dr. King was slain. He led delegations to protest inferior educational facilities and demand the whites-only swimming pool be opened to blacks. He moved to New Haven, CT in 1959 where he served as pastor of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church until his passing in 2007. For the full story, click on the name link, left.
Jesse Epps 11/00/2006		Jesse Epps’ labor career began with the Int’l Union of Electrical Workers, Local 320, in Syracuse, NY. He was assistant to the int’l president of AFSCME (1960-72), directing field operations in cities North and South. In Memphis in 1968 for AFSCME’s momentous Sanitation Workers Strike, he successfully negotiated a contract for the 1,300 workers. He founded and remains active in the National Union of American Families. Topics: Memphis Sanitation Strike, Martin Luther King, AFSCME, Local 1733, “I AM A MAN”

Judge Bernard Fielding	07/05/2005	Civil Rights, NAACP, judiciary
Dr. June Finer	07/04/2006	Medical Committee for Human Rights, SNCC (MS, AL, LA) in 1960s-70s
Henry Foner	03/31/2012	Henry Foner, labor leader, historian, songwriter, and newspaper editor, was president of the Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union, for 27 years. He was a social activist for civil rights and social justice, and against the Vietnam War. After retiring in 1988, he taught labor history and wrote for the journal Jewish Currents, among many other activities. In 2003, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. Topics: Archie Waters, unions, Fur and Leather Workers Union, ALBA, songs
William H. Foster	10/17/2005	Prof. William H. Foster III, who teaches English Literature at Naugatucket Valley Community College, talks about the riots in Philadelphia between black and white students in his high school at the time Dr. King was assassinated. His narrative includes the good relations between the black and white students in the English class taught by a faculty member he identifies as "Ms. Hurwitz" and how during the riot the black students defended their white classmates from abuse. He discusses his care for black history and how blacks were represented in literature, including in comic books, about which he is an expert. He mentions works of literature about historic black leaders and their accomplishments right up to 2005.
Jack T. Franklin	08/15/2005	Jack T. Franklin (1922-2009), Philadelphia photographer of the black experience for decades, donated his collection of over 500,000 negatives and photographs to the African American Museum in Philadelphia in 1986.

James Gavin III
Arnold Goldwag	3/06/2006	Arnold Goldwag’s (1938-2008) civil rights and labor activism began as Community Relations Director for the radical Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the 1960s, including 27 arrests in the South and North. His successful strategies included challenging grocery store owners in Bedford-Stuyvesant to eat the spoiled food they sold at inflated prices to poor black people. He was the Health Safety Coordinator with SSEU, Local 371 AFSCME for 26 years. Brooklyn CORE, Maryland sit-ins
Pamela Green	07/21/2005	African American History, Weeksville, Racism, Civil Rights
Ricardo Grijalva

Inge Hardison	2013, NYC	Inge Hardison, the American sculptor, actor, and photographer, celebrated her 100th birthday on February 3, 2014. She is best known for a series of bronze busts begun in 1963 of African Americans who fought slavery and led the struggle for civil rights, and who at that time had not yet been acknowledged in the National Hall of Fame in Washington, DC. She is shown left with her portrait of Sojourner Truth (photo credit: Manu Sassoonian). She was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and began her artistic career acting in Broadway plays. During one production, “What a Life,” her sculptural portraits of fellow cast members were exhibited in the Mansfield Theater lobby, and this was the beginning of her career as a sculptor. For fuller biographical details, click the name link, left.
Conrad Harper	09/02/2005	Civil Rights, NAACP, school desegregation, nuclear disarmament
Rev. Forrest Harris	04/17/2006	Segregation, sharecropping, sit-ins, teaching diversity, theology
Jack Hasegawa	10/17/2005	Jack Hasegawa was born during World War II, when his parents and other Japanese American citizens had been relocated in internment camps. His father served with distinction in the US Army in Italy. Jack was a passionate student activist for civil rights with Dr. King in the South, and a community organizer in Boston and Asia. He served on the US Commission on Civil Rights. His career with Conn. State Dept. of Education included supervising projects to reduce racial, ethnic and economic isolation and to increase fairness in public education. On retiring, he became Exec. Dir. of 4-H Education Center at Auer Farm in Bloomfield. Click on the name link, left, for a more detailed listing of the interview topics.
Yoshino Hasegawa	11/20/2005, 12/4/2005 Marina, CA	Yoshino Hasegawa’s parents had come to the US from Japan, and she was born in Dinuba, California in 1921. She describes the impact on their lives, along with over 110,000 other people of Japanese descent, of being forced from their homes and relocated in internment camps. She tells of American citizens of Italian and German descent, as well as Japanese descent, who were in those camps, and of her marriage during that time. At age 55, after raising 5 children and earning her master's degree, Mrs. Hasegawa became head librarian in the central library in Fresno, California. There she conducted a huge oral history project consisting of many interviews with Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans about their lives, including in the camps. For more, click the name link, left.
Dr. Robert B. Hayling		Dr. Robert Hayling, hailed as the "father" of civil rights in St. Augustine, Florida, barely escaped death by the KKK, and continues fighting racism right up to today.
Dr. James Hefner	04/17/2006	Segregation, sit-ins, black colleges
Rev. Arthur Hilson	09/15/2011 Portsmouth, NH	Dr. Arthur L. Hilson is a civil rights activist, Baptist minister, educator, and a commissioner of Human Rights for New Hampshire. His rich, various work includes having marched with Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the South. He has taught at the Universities of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, is pastor (for 21 years) of New Hope Baptist Church, and founding president of the Portsmouth Chapter of SCLC and of Amherst NAACP. Click on the name link, left, to read more about his exciting work at at Portsmouth High School, where he teaches history, world religion, the 1960s, and classes called Another View—with a broad-ranging curriculum centered on diversity.
Julian Holliday	10/09/2008 St. John Baptist Church NYC	Julian Holliday (1934-2008) was originally from Clarendon County, and took part in desegregation efforts there both before and after his military service in the Korean War. Click on the name link, left, to read more about him, including an event honoring his memory at St. John's Baptist Church in West Harlem, New York City.
Joseph H. Holt, Jr.	01/28/2011	Joseph H. Holt, Jr. was born in Raleigh. Joe and his parents, Elwyna and Joseph Sr. led the fight to integrate Raleigh Public Schools shortly after the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. He was 13 at the time, and their fight went on for many years. Their courageous story is recounted in the award-winning documentary, "Exhausted Remedies: Joe Holt's Story." For more, go to name link, left. Joe Holt, Jr. served in the US Air Force, and his 25 year career included duties as a navigator on multi-engine jet transport aircraft on transoceanic and transcontinental airlift missions flown all over the world. Now retired, he continues to work as a volunteer with veterans groups and community health care support organizations.
Leamon Hood	11/00/2006	Leamon Hood, in Atlanta, helped organize the Classified School employees in AFSCME, joining the union in 1964 himself, after union president Jerry Wurf removed racial barriers of segregation. He was one of its most active members, and in 1967 became a charter member in the Union's Staff Intern Program. In 1970 he was a nationwide organizer, including as Area Director in Michigan, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia. In 1999 he was appointed as Regional Director for Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. He was an AFSCME local organizer in the cold winter of the 1977 Atlanta Sanitation Workers strike, saying that workers should manage their workplace free of bosses sitting in warm offices of city hall. Topics: Memphis & Atlanta sanitation strikes, AFSCME, union activism
Benjamin Hooks	04/18/2006	(January 31, 1925 – April 15, 2010) Segregation, lawsuits, NAACP, black business
Frances Hooks	04/18/2006	Segregation, Rosenwald School, education, NAACP
Jason Hughes	04/20/2006	Segregation, black publishing
Doris Humphries	06/24/2005	Racism, the dance

Earl Ijames	8/16/2011	Earl L. Ijames is curator of community history and African-American history at the N.C. Museum of History (NCMH) in Raleigh. He has hosted and conducted numerous genealogy and history sessions with individuals and organizations statewide. He is often interviewed on radio and television on a wide range of people and events in North Carolina history — from the U.S. Colored Troops of the Civil War and the Daughters of the Confederacy, to the Rosenwald Schools. His many credits include serving as host and panelist for the 2009 African-American Genealogy and History Forum and National Genealogical Society Conference, From Roanoke to the West. His interviews with many North Carolinians include Pvt. Robert Hodge, WWI (1888-2004), possibly our nation’s oldest veteran. For detailed credits, please go to the name link at left.
Eugenia Ijames	8/16/2011

Bishop Frederick Calhoun James	12/10/2008 Columbia, SC	Bishop Frederick Calhoun James, a distinguished ecumenical theologian, activist for Civil Rights and social justice, political leader and public servant, was born in Prosperity, SC. In 1967, Rev. James led the sponsorship of the first 221(d) Rent Supplement Housing Project in South Carolina, and later, the first 221(h) Home Ownership Project in the state. In 1972 he was elected to the AME Bishopric and served as Presiding Bishop in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, and Mozambique. In 1994 he served as President Clinton’s delegate to the inauguration of South African President Nelson Mandela. In 2003 Bishop James was awarded the state's highest honor, The Order of the Palmetto, for his significant contributions. Bishop James is Chairman of The Howard Junior High School Restoration Center, whose purpose is to restore and maintain this historic Rosenwald School in Prosperity, SC. For more, go to the name link, left.
Kelvin Jervay
Paul Jervay, Jr.	2/28/2011
Johnnie Jones, Sr.	2/28/2011
Doris Johnson
Dr. John Mitchell Johnson	05/17/2011 Raleigh, NC	The interview took place at Hamlin Drug Store in Raleigh, NC. Originally opened in 1907, Hamlin is likely the oldest African American owned pharmacy in the United States. Since 1957, pharmacist John Johnson has owned and operated Hamlin and proudly keeps the traditions of hospitality and excellent customer service-- offered by the founders over a century ago. He works six days a week and enjoys greeting generations of customers by name. Dr. Johnson shares this legacy with his daughters, Mischelle Corbin and Kimberley Scott, and together they give priority to supporting centers for homeless people and battered women, an intern program for Wake County Public School System students, and mentoring pharmacy students. Over 350 employees, most of whom were college students, have worked there. Follow this link to learn more about the history of the Hamlin Drug Store.

Mabel Katz	04/14/2014	Mabel Katz came to LA from Argentina. She teacher of the ancient Hawaiian art of Ho’oponopono, and is a Latino rights activist and Mideast peace advocate.
Pamela Kellar	04/20/2006	Racism, school desegregation as a child
Rev. Marcel Kellar	04/20/2006	Racism, school desegregation, ministry
Ken Kimmelman	10/15/2005	Ken Kimmelman is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker/director and Aesthetic Realism Consultant, known for his anti-prejudice films The Heart Knows Better, Brushstrokes, and Asimbonanga and for Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana.
Clarke King		Clarke King is Exec. VP, Greater Hartford Central Labor Council—a coalition fighting for the rights of 140,000 workers. He is the first African American president of AFSCME Local 1716 Council 4, representing 35,000 people in CT. He is also president of Greater Hartford African American Alliance, a community organization to protect for the rights of black people in the workplace. He was the first president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, CT Chapter. Clarke joined the UAW in 1965, working as a heat treater at Colt Firearms. From 1975-91 he worked in the UAW Manpower Program, representing workers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.
Lonnie King	11/16/2005	Atlanta Student Movement
Dr. Robert Kirton		Dr. Robert Kirton is an educator and CEO/Founder of Brotherhood of Achievers Determined to Make a Difference, Columbia, SC. To read the transcript of his interview with Alice Bernstein, go to the name link, left.
Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles	04/18/2006	Segregation, demonstrations, Memphis sanitation strike, Martin Luther King assassination

Ted Landsmark		Interracial camps, voter registration in South, Racism in Boston, gangs
John Lemon		John Lemon, former president of the Bronx NAACP, grew up in Clarendon County, SC. His father, Joseph Lemon, Sr. encouraged the parents who filed the first lawsuit to desegregate public schools, in Briggs v. Elliott. When lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who was black, went before the all-white three-judge panel in Charleston—a first in South Carolina—John Lemon’s father took him, his brothers, and his sisters to the courthouse to see history in the making. A white judge, J. Waties Waring, ruled in behalf of the black plaintiffs. While Briggs v. Elliot did not win a majority, it led the way to the 1954 Supreme Court's ruling "Brown v. Board of Education", outlawing segregation in public schools. Mr. Lemon has spoken about his family's experiences at many Alliance of Ethics&Art events. For a fuller account, go to the name link, left.
Malinda Maynard Lowery (Lumbee)		Malinda Maynor Lowery, PhD., a Lumbee Indian, was born in Robeson County, NC. Her grandparents and her parents —Louise and Waltz Maynor—all became educators. She earned a Ph.D. in History from UNC-Chapel Hill, and is an Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University. Her research concerns Native American identity and politics in the late 19th and 20th centuries in North Carolina, and she has produced three documentary films about Native American issues, including the award-winning In the Light of Reverence, which aired on PBS in 2001 to over three million people. Her films have been shown nationwide in classrooms, at conferences, and at film festivals. Lowery serves as the President of the Board of Directors of the Carolina Arts Network, a non-profit organization headquartered in Robeson County that produces the outdoor drama, Strike at the Wind! For a fuller account, go to the name link, left.
Milton Long	04/14/2006	Milton Long, now of Charlotte, attended school at the time of the Massive Resistance policy adopted in 1956 by Virginia's state government to defy the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Mr. Long’s parents were activists for equal education. In 1960, as a 2nd grader, Milton, and his sisters, Rosalind (5th grade), and Cecelia (7th grade) were among the first seven children to integrate the Roanoke, Virginia schools. This was the second integration in the State of Virginia. “Each year thereafter,” Mr. Long has written, “a few more African American students joined the ranks, to help fulfill the dream my parents, George and Arletha Long, had for equal education for all people.”
Bob Lucas	06/15/2007	Chicago CORE 1965-68, equal housing, Martin Luther King, Cicero March
William Lucy	12/15/2005	William “Bill” Lucy, AFSCME Sec.-Treasurer, retired in 2010 after a 57- year labor career. Still active, he addressed NYC school bus drivers at a strike rally in January 2013. He founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) in 1972, and stood with Dr. King in the Memphis Sanitation Strike, and for civil rights and labor struggles here and with Nelson Mandela, against apartheid in South Africa. In 1956, with a degree in Engineering, he joined AFSCME Local 1675 union of Contra Costa, California as a materials and research engineer and was elected president in 1965. In 1966 he left to work for the AFSCME international organization as associate director of the legislation and community affairs departments. Topics: Civil Rights, unions, CBTU, Martin Luther King, Memphis Sanitation workers strike
Frank and Beatrice Lumpkin	06/28/2005	Frank Lumpkin (1916-2010), son of Georgia cotton sharecroppers, was a professional boxer, orange picker, construction worker, merchant seaman, and then a steelworker at Wisconsin Steel (WS) for 30 years. When WS closed without paying workers in Chicago, he organized the Save Our Jobs Committee, which fought for 17 years, winning settlements of $19 million. Always Bring a Crowd, the story of his life, was written by his wife of 60 years, Beatrice Lumpkin.Topics: Unions, Racism, Multicultural Education

Emma Mashinini	06/24/2005	Emma Mashinini of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist and labor leader, joined the Garment Workers Union in 1956 and was elected shop steward in 1970. She fought to improve working conditions and secured better hours, wages, and unemployment insurance. She was elected to the national executive committee of National Union of Clothing Workers (NUCW). After the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, many political organizations were banned, forcing union leaders underground, but Emma continued. Arrested in 1981, she spent six months in solitary confinement. She formed the Commercial, Catering & Allied Workers Union of South Africa (CCAWUSA), which became the second largest union after the National Union of Mineworkers, and she helped to found the Congress of South African Trade Unions.
Lois Mason	04/18/2007 NYC	Lois Mason, Aesthetic Realism Consultant and teacher-educator, discusses 30 years of teaching history using the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method in New York City classrooms and the great success of this method in enabling students to learn. She speaks about her study of Aesthetic Realism in consultations and later in classes with its founder Eli Siegel which led to her becoming an instructor of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, a writer on education and history, and a consultant to women, on the faculty of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.
Leatrice McKissack	04/13/2006	Demonstrations, put up home as collateral, black businesses, architecture
Reggio McLaughlin	06/24/2005	Racism, the dance
Maj. Gen. Joseph McNeil	11/25/2005	Joseph McNeil was one of four African American students from the Agricultural and Technical College of NC who sat down at the lunch counter in the Woolworth store in Greensboro one day in 1060, challenging the “whites only” policy. The lunch counter protest gained national attention, inspiring similar actions across the south by thousands of people of all races. Five months later, black employees of the F.W. Woolworth in Greensboro were the first to be served at the lunch counter, and the following day Woolworth’s entire chain of stores was desegregated. McNeil graduated with a degree in engineering physics. He went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force and retired in 2001 with the rank of Major General. For a more complete account, go to the name link, left.
Lillian McNeill		Lillian McNeill is a native of Charleston, SC. After the 1965 voting rights act was passed, Mrs. McNeill went door to door around Hanover Street, to encourage as many black people as possible to register to vote. She not only taught those who didn’t know how to read and write, she also helped them to learn and recite paragraphs from the US Constitution so that they could pass the voting test. And then she showed them how to use the voting machine. I met her son, Clarence, after a presentation of my event in the Congressional Auditorium in Washington. Clarence McNeill told me that in the late 1940s, he and other black youths played baseball on a Charleston little league team called Waring Warriors.
Terrence Melvin		Terrence ‘Terry’ Melvin was elected secretary-treasurer of New York State AFL-CIO in 2007, and was elected in 2012 as president of the national Coalition of Black Trade Unionists upon the retirement of William ‘Bill’ Lucy. His union career began in 1980 with CSEA Local 427 in Western NY where, in 1983, he became the youngest local president at age 21.
Memphis Conference: Rev. John Mendez Donald Minor Rev. J. Herbert Nelson Rev. Spearman Sandy Weaver	07/26-28/2006	Civil Rights history, NC, TN, NY, Unions
Axel Meyer
Cecile Meyer
Monique Michael		Monique Michael , born in Haiti, has an MS in Education from Hunter College (NYC) where she studied with historian John Henrik Clarke and majored in Black and Puerto Rican Studies. An elementary school educator since 1992, she has given papers and conducted work¬shops on the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method for the National Council of Teachers of English and National Science Teachers Association. She taught in East Harlem public schools, and teaches in a public school on New York’s Lower East Side. She wrote the groundbreaking article “Children Learn to Read through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method,” and is a contributor to Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism, and to “The People of Clarendon County”—A Play by Ossie Davis, & the Answer to Racism."
James Mills	01/29/2011 Raleigh, NC 08/2011 Mayor's office, Scotland Neck, NC	Mayor James E. Mills of Scotland Neck, NC, discusses being the first African American mayor of that city and the role of Charles Smith during Reconstruction and the North Carolina State representatives. In addition to voting rights, other historic subjects in the interview are Holden's Rebellion, Halifax County, Secession, Palmyra, slavery, the Confedaracy, the building by slaves of the Ram Albermarle Ironclad Warship during the Civil War, Peter Evans Smith and the Halifax Resolve. For more biographical information about Mayor Mills, go to the name link, left, and the link to the video clip, bottom of page.
Prof. Reavis Mitchell	07/31/2006	History of civil rights in TN, sit-ins, demonstrations
Dabney Montgomery	08/27/2005	Dabney Montgomery speaks of his birthplace, Selma, Alabama, and his father's work on the railroad as a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, headed by A. Phillip Randolph. He tells of the racism his father and others suffered, and describes his experience with the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. He reflects on his ancestors during the Civil War and a courageous encounter by one male ancestor with General Grant. The interview gives some history of AME Mother Zion Church in New York, and a discussion of labor unions, the union army in the Civil War, strikes, segregation, and many other topics. For the complete listing, please go to the name link left, and check out the link to the video clip, bottom of page.
Mary Moultrie	12/12/2008	Mary Moultrie’s dedication to workers' rights began in 1969 when she led 550 black women hospital workers in the successful 113-day strike against racist treatment, conditions, and pay by the Medical College and Charleston County hospitals. Black workers joined forces with the Local 1199 union and Bill Saunders in massive protests which attracted national notice. Moultrie has continued as an organizer for Local 1199, now working in behalf of city sanitation workers.
Charles Myers	04/14/2006 Nashville, TN	Myers and his wife Lynn were college students with two infants in Nashville, Tennessee in the 1960s. In the interview, he tells why he and his wife chose to leave their safe lives in the white majority to fight for civil rights, going so far as to leave directions for the care of their children in the event they were killed.

Rev. James Netters	04/19/2006	Rev. James L. Netters of Memphis, a close friend of Dr. King, was an activist, arrested and jailed, for civil rights. In 1967, he became one of the first black men elected to the new Memphis City Council, just as the Sanitation Workers Strike began. This council was set to sign a document to end the strike, but when Dr. King was killed, some withdrew their support. He was central in ending that strike and his activism continues right up to the present day.
Rev. H. Lloyd Norris	07/30/2005	Civil Rights, I.D. Newman, Martin Luther King, Rev. DeLaine

Dr. Leo Orris	06/22/2006 Greenwich Village, NY	During his long, distinguished career as a specialist in Dermatology, Dr. Leo Orris (1916-2009) was an activist for social change and progressive medical organizations. A lifelong member of state and local medical societies and the AMA, he participated in the historic 1963 picketing of the AMA, demandng the integration of their southern state societies. He helped to organize the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR), doctors, nurses, dentists, and other healthcare professionals who treated civil rights and peace movement workers in the 1960s, including during Freedom Summer 1964 in Mississippi. There he treated the great Fannie Lou Hamer at her home in Ruleville, MS (click name link, left, for photograph).
Dr. Helen Chavis Othow		Dr. Helen Chavis Othow, who was born in Oxford, NC, has written a biography that examines the life and work of her ancestor John Chavis, and the America in which he lived and taught. It also includes the text of his “Letter Upon the Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement of Christ (1837)”, which had been thought to be lost by earlier biographers. To learn more, go to the name link, left. Dr. Othow is a professor of English at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, and is a previous department chair and outstanding faculty award winner. She has written extensively in the areas of African American culture and literature.
Boris Ourlicht	6/3/2012, Great Neck, NY	Boris Ourlicht (July 18, 1925-November 9, 2013), was an antiwar, pro-union, and human rights activist. He grew up in the Bronx in the United Workers Housing Cooperative, known as “The Coops,” in which his mother was an activist. He went to Michigan where he worked with the UAW for 13 years. He returned to New York. married, and together with his wife Libby, an African American woman, had two children and worked to fight racism and to improve healthcare and educational opportunities for all children.
Rose Ourlicht
Cleve Overton	10/29/2010	Staten Island NAACP, founding, Black Man on Staten Island Oral History Cleve Overton, artist and Staten Island civil rights historian and activist;
Major Owens	2005	The Hon. Major Owens (June 28, 1936 – October 21, 2013) was a Distinguished Professor at Medgar Evers College in the Department of Public Administration, bringing a wealth of experience from his tenure as a New York City Commissioner, State Senator, and member of the United States House of Representatives. During his 12 terms in the House, he was revered for his advocacy of education and issues most important to middle class families and the poor. A major achievement was the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A librarian by profession, he worked at the Brooklyn Public Library 1958-1966, and became president of the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Read the interview with Alice Bernstein as published in the Multicultural Review.

Celestine Parson-Lloyd	06/05/2005 NYC	Celestine Parson-Lloyd was born in Clarendon County, SC. Her parents along with others had risked their lives in the 1950s to file a lawsuit for “an equal school bus” for their children, and Mrs. Lloyd was one of the children directly affected by events in those dangerous times. She spoke in the interview about her great grandmother, Angeline Brunson Parson, formerly a slave, who lived to be 117 years old, and whose memories included being sold into slavery on a South Carolina auction block and being one of very few, after the Civil War, who were given 40 acres and a mule by the Union Army as a result of the victorious “March to the Sea” by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. For more details, go to the name link, left.
Charles Perry	05/28/2005	Charles Perry, from South Carolina, has been a labor and civil rights activist in New York City for 50 fifty years. He served in the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 413, and is 2nd VP of CSEA Retiree Local 910. He’s been a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists since its founding in 1972. He is proud that his grandfather fought against the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
Dr. Ledwald O.P. Perry	04/16/2006	Racism, medicine, black elected officials
Rosetta Miller Perry	04/16/2006	Racism, Civil Rights Commission, Memphis sanitation strike, business
Maryellen Phifer-Kirton		Mary Ellen Phifer-Kirton was born in Wadesboro, NC, and attended George Washington Carver High School. After moving to Brooklyn, NY, she earned her BS degree at Medgar Evers College, and, as a single parent, raised five children. She worked with the New York City Community Development Agency for 28 years, along with volunteering in many aspects of community advocacy. During the turbulent 1960s she was an assistant to Major Owens, the president of Brooklyn’s CORE. In 1996, she retired to Kannapolis, NC, where she continued her work for civil rights and justice. She has received numerous awards and citations for her activism, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in NYC, presented by Major Owens, now a US Congressman. For more, go to the name link, left.
Rev. Eugene Pierce
Eddie Ponds		Eddie Ponds is a native and lifelong resident of Ponchatoula, LA and the founding publisher and editor of The Drum Newspaper, which in 2011 celebrated its 25th Anniversary. After a distinguished teaching career of 30 years, including in the very school he could not attend as a child because it was segregated, he set out to continue teaching—as a publisher and journalist. The Drum serves Baton Rouge, Ponchatoula, St. Tammany, Livingston and LaPlace. Mr. Ponds was present at the production of "The People of Clarendon County"--A Play by Ossie Davis, & the Answer to Racism! at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in 2011, and was one of the unsung pioneers of civil rights introduced to the audience. Topics: Racism, unions, Memphis sanitation workers strike, union leaders. For a fuller story, go to the name link, left.
Thomas Powell	04/18/2006	H. T. ‘Tommy’ Powell (1928-2008) was a longtime labor leader and 3 term Tennessee state legislator. At Armour Meat Packing Co. in Memphis he became a union representative and later President of the Memphis AFL-CIO Labor Council, a position he held for 30 years. He was first VP of the Tenn. Labor Council and chairman of the state’s Election Commission. As a white man, his activism in the Civil Rights movement helped change attitudes and improve workers' lives. He was central in resolving the 1968 Memphis Sanitation workers' strike and the 1978 Memphis Firemen and Police strike. Topics: Racism, unions, Memphis sanitation workers strike, union leaders

Herbert Randall	04/09/2007	Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964, Bob Moses, Racism in education
Lauren Rhodes	07/2120/05	African American History, Weeksville, Racism, Civil Rights
Enid Rocha	09/25/2010	Desegregation in Ohio and MA Husband's role in founding NAACP Lowell branch
Taylor Rogers	04/19/2006	Taylor Rogers (d. 2013) led 1,300 city of Memphis black sanitation workers in 1968, who had walked off the job and onto a picket line, demanding workplace safety, union recognition of AFSCME Local 1733, and their civil rights. They were beaten, gassed, and jailed with Dr. King, who was assassinated while supporting them. In 1972 Mr. Rogers was elected president of Local 1733, serving for over 20 years. Topics: Segregation, sanitation workers strike, unions
Dr. Juan Romagoza	12/14/2005	El Salvador, healthcare, torture, free clinic in DC, class action suit
Rebecca Ronstadt	09/15/2011 Portsmouth NH	A New Hampshire resident working for the beauty of the world, Rebecca Ronstadt is publisher of Journal of the Print World, artist, and supporter of the not-for-profit Alliance of Ethics & Art. In a recent interview, Mrs. Ronstadt told a remarkable story of the unearthing and preservation of a rare edition of 103 original lithographs by John James Audubon., "Quadrupeds of North America," valued at over $1mm. For more of the story and representative images, follow the name link, left.
Philip Rose	2004 NYC	Broadway producer Philip Rose (July 4, 1921 – May 31, 2011) was responsible for many important "firsts" on Broaday, beginning with A Raisin in the Sun, the first dramatic work about a black family; written by Lorraine Hansberry, the first black woman playwright on Broadway; and Lloyd Richards, the first black director on Broadway. His life and life-long friendships with the original cast and others, and his book, You Can't Do That on Broadway, were discussed in Alice Bernstein's interview conducted in his home in 2004.
Morris Rosen, Esq.	07/05/2005	Civil Rights, Racism, Charleston Hospital Strike

William “Bill” Saunders	12/13/2008	William ‘Bill’ Saunders was a principal organizer for Local 1199 in the momentous 1969 Charleston Hospital strike. Brave black workers and their union changed labor history, forcing South Carolina’s legislature to raise pay scales for state employees, black and white. Bill was elected to the SC Public Service Commission, serving for 10 years. He founded and is Exec. Dir. of the Committee on Better Racial Assurance (COBRA) to address racism in the community and to assist people in need.
Roger Sawtelle	09/25/2010	President, Merrimack Valley NAACP
James Scandrick	07/31/2006	Sit-ins, music of the movement, demonstrations
Fred Scheiner	10/29/11 Roslyn Heights NY	Fred Scheiner is a LI businessman who owned and piloted a small four-seater airplane. In 1968, while Dr. Martin Luther King was in New York City on a speaking tour, he was invited to address an important Rabbinical Assembly in the Catskills, to heal the growing breach between blacks and Jews. When Scheiner learned that Dr. King’s heavy schedule didn’t allow for a lengthy roundtrip car ride upstate, he offered to fly him to and from the Concord Hotel, knowing that his small plane was the only kind able to land at the airport near Lake Kiamesha. He safely piloted Dr. King to the conference where 700 rabbis sang, “We Shall Overcome” in Hebrew to greet them. “It was one of the great experiences in my life,” Sheiner said. The interview also covers Mr. Scheiner's anti-war activities and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Rabbi Hugo Schiff
Rev. John Scott	10/09/2008	Rev. John Luster Scott was born in Halifax, NC. He worked with the SCLC in Operation Breadbasket (1970) and was a leader of the freedom movement. He knew Dr. King and liked to tell the dramatic story of Dr. King's safe arrival in a rural field in the dark of night in a single engine plane. Terrified for his safety, supporters had lined the runway with cars and turned on their headlights. Rev. Scott later became the pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church in Harlem, where he has been a fearless opponent of drugs and gangs. He is on the board of the National Action Network with the Rev. Al Sharpton. “The People of Clarendon County/Answer to Racism Event” was presented at Rev. Scott's church in memory of parishoner Julian Holliday (d. 2008). For a fuller account, go to the name link, left.
Dave Sear	03/11/2011	Dave Sear, internationally known folksinger from New York, attended Black Mountain College in NC in 1950-1951 in order to study folk music and the social scene in the south. While there he formed an association with Lawrence Daugherty (1916-1980), an African American coordinator of music events around the state. Together they organized black and white members of the community and participated in voter registration drives. Dave Sear also helped establish a literacy course at Black Mountain College, and helped escort many of these new students to voting booths for the first time. To learn more about the historic friendship between David Sear and Lawrence Daugherty, go to the name link left.
Barbra Pace Sears	Arlington, TX	Barbra Pace Sears (1933-2005) was a civil rights activist in the 1950s and '60s who worked as a secretary to Dr. Martin Luther King; an educator; community advocate; and managing editor for many years at La Vida News/The Black Voice serving Tarrant County, Texas. With her encouragement, this Oral History project was born. Click the name link left to read her obituary in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Click here to read more about her in Alice Bernstein's article in remembrance of her life and work.
Donald Shaffer	01/10/2011	Martin Luther King on Long Island, housing, voting, employment, ACLU Don Shaffer, Long Island civil rights activist, Working Families Party, NYCLU;
Harold Sharp	01/02/2012	Harlem Health Festival, Victoria Theater
Prof. Edward Sherman	02/25/11 New Orleans, LA	In the interview, Prof. Sherman discusses the pioneering civil rights work of his father, Ray E. Sherman, mayor of El Paso in the 1930s, who brought the city its first public housing under the New Deal. He describes his early awareness of the need for civil rights activism and his activities as a young lawyer on behalf of desegregation in El Paso, then his work with his wife Alice in Georgia with the SLCC, helping black protestors who’d been jailed and teaching in a Freedom School. During the Vietnam war Edward Sherman used his military law background to work for the ACLU, representing black soldiers who had been court martialed for speaking out against the war. Prof. Sherman concludes by discussing the teaching of law for social purposes and the careers of some of his students. To find out more, click the name link, left.
Otha Sherrill	08/15/11	Otha L. Sherrill, co-principal during riot at first integrated High School in Asheville, NC;
Beatrice Siegel	07/09/06	Author of books on Civil Rights and African Americans for young readers
Dr. Samuel Siegel	07/09/06	Dentist with MCHR, Freedom Summer, health care as a right
Rosie Simpson	06/15/07	Rosie Simpson was an organizer with Chicago Packinghouse Workers Union Local 347 District 1 with Addie Wyatt and Charlie Hayes for 15 years. A mother of 6, she worked with the Urban League and was an organizer for The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), a coalition of neighborhood and religious groups working for racial reform in housing, economics, and the use of Willis Wagons—portable classrooms for black students, when empty seats were available in white schools. Topics: Chicago Packinghouse Workers Union organizer, school desegregation, Willis Wagons, community organizing
Rev. Susan Smith		Rev. Susan Smith is a courageous supporter of full and equal civil rights for ALL people. She is Associate Pastor of Exodus Missionary Outreach Church in Hickory, NC and Assistant Executive Director of the award-winning nonprofit Exodus Homes, which provides faith based supportive housing for people returning to the community from treatment centers and prison. Rev. Smith has worked diligently for 14 years with Exodus, advocating for justice and reform in the criminal justice system, as well as in workforce development for people recovering from addiction or incarceration. Rev. Smith serves in the Hickory Branch NAACP as chair of Press and Publicity. She is a Rotarian, and received the 2011 Spirit of King Award for the Hickory area.
Rev. Anthony T. Spearman		Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the Hickory, NC Branch of the NAACP, holds two advanced degrees in theology and is proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish. As pastor of the Clinton Tabernacle AME Zion Church, he founded the nonprofit Clinton’s Corner of Catawba, Inc. He is also the Chair of Religious Affairs for the North Carolina NAACP. As he grew up in Rye, NY, he was the one black child in the fifth grade class of Robert Cullum, a white educator who became his ally. this is told of in the documentary A Touch of Greatness. Reverend Spearman received the 2008 Spirit of King award and the City of Hickory's 2009 Community Relations Award. To learn more about Dr. Spearman, including his research into his own family history, go to the name link, left.
Ozell Sutton	11/15/05, Atlanta, GA	In this interview Mr. Sutton describes growing up as one of eight children in an Arkansas sharecropper's family (for a more detailed account click the name link, left) and tells what happened years later when he was Special Assistant to Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller (1967-71) and the family's former landlord, who had cheated his mother and threatened all their lives, came to the governor’s office seeking disaster relief after a tornado destroyed his town.

Rev. James Thomas	04/14/2006	Demonstrations, Sit-ins, voter registration
Jose “Chegui” Torres	11/04/2005	Boxing, Puerto Rico, Young Lords
Roberta Shade Tyson	2/28/2011	Roberta Shade Tyson, civil rights leader in Baton Rouge and Plaquemine Parrish, LA;

Geronimo Valdez

Geronimo Valdez has been an Airfoil Cell Operator at Pratt & Whitney since 1988. In 2008 he was elected as a Shop Committee member of Int’l Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 1746. In 2005 he became VP and Exec. Board Member, AFL-CIO Greater Hartford Central Labor Council. He played a role in the successful 2010 lawsuit against P&W’s plan to move work overseas, saving 1,000 jobs. He is president of LCLAAA-Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

Matthew Walker, Jr.	04/15/2006	Sit-ins, jail, Freedom Rides, Martin Luther King
William “Sonny" Walker	11/15/2005	School desegregation, black teachers, blacks in government
Lucius Ware	08/23/2010	President, Eastern L.I. Branch, NAACP
Ludye Wallace	04/13/2006	President Nashville Branch, NAACP Demonstrations, Sit-ins, black baseball, elections, City Council
Booker Washington	12/ /2011	Booker Washington is VP of UAW Local 2110 in NYC, an amalgamated union with 30 contracts covering over 3,000 workers, including workers in universities, publishing, museums, and law firms. He was born in Clarendon County, SC during Jim Crow and attended segregated schools at the time of the Briggs v. Elliot lawsuit. He came to NY, became an employee of Columbia University, saw racial discrimination there, and learned about the union, encouraged by David Livingston, Julie Kushner, and Maida Rosenstein. In 1985, he became an organizer, and as a result of a strike, Local 2110 won recognition—and their first contract. “It was a grand experience and transforming for me,” he said. In January 2013 he received the UAW Region 9A Benny Thornton Labor—Civil Rights Award.
Onilaja Waters	12/ /2011
Dr. Jefferson Wiggins	10/17/2005	(February 22, 1925 - January 9, 2013) Lynchings, World War II, lynchings, sharecropping, segregation
Emmett Wigglesworth	08/213/2007	Artist, SNCC
Cecil Williams	05/15/2010	Civil rights in Couth Carolina, Clarendon County, etc.
Jefferson "Jeff" Williams	03/20/14	Jefferson Williams (1918-2010) was born in St. Matthews, SC and broke new ground in the history of civil rights by becoming one of the first African Americans to own a pharmacy in Harlem. Also, he was likely the first African American to receive a reciprocal license as a pharmacist in the states of New York and South Carolina. His unpublished memoirs, “Oral History of a Black Man Who Succeeded in a White Man’s World,” is an important narrative addition to American history in the 20th century. For more, see the name link, left.
Isaac "Ike" Williams	07/07/2005	Isaac "Ike" Williams Isaac (1945-2008), was honored as a life-long activist for civil rights on April 22, 2010. The tribute chronicled his life, from his student days at then - SC State College (SCSC) through his work as chief liaison for Congressman James E. Clyburn. To know more, click on the name link, left.
Clarence E. Willie		Clarence E. Willie, Ed.D. grew up on a US Air Force Base in Germany, where he was the only African American student in his high school graduation class. He went on to serve in the US Marine Corps, and underwent culture shock on re-entering the segregated south in the early 1960s. He became a teacher and then school district superintendent in Clarendon County, SC, and served as educational consultant at the State Department of Education. He has served as interviewer and chief consultant for PBS, and his book African American Voices from Iwo Jima earned him a 2010 Congressional Black Caucus Veterans’ Braintrust Award. For more of his story, go to the name link, left.
Kenneth Wingood	09/26/2010	Merrimack Valley NAACP, MA founding
Margaret Wiseman	03/26/2006	Sharecropping, CORE, demonstrations, Fannie Lou Hamer
Michele Woodard	03/22/2012	Racism in Bayside, England, the court system first African American in Nassau County Supreme Court;
Rev. Dr. Addie Wyatt	06/27/2005	Addie Wyatt discusses Civil Rights, racism in employment, her first job as a butcher, how she joined the union, her 42 years with labor unions, Women’s Rights, church work and desire to combine the meaning of the church and the meaning of justice, Poverty, United Packinghouse Workers, United Meat Packers, AFL-CIO, United Food & Commercial Workers, union contracts, butchers, pay inequality, discrimination, union organizing, strikes, Solidarity Forever, segregation, her work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Charles A. Hayes, PWI Local 1651, Rosa Parks, Montgomery Improvement Association, Selma, Alabama, Andrew Young, Morrison Hotel, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Pace Hunt, A. Phillip Randolph, Time Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, William "Bill" Lucy, Anita Patterson, Harold Washington, UMW, United Mine Workers, UAW, Eli Siegel's poem, "Something Else Should Die."

Rev. Lennox Yearwood	12/14/2005	Hip Hop Caucus, Katrina victims, FEMA
Dr. Quentin Young	09/22/2005	Dr. King, Civil Rights, Medical Committee for Human Rights

Zellner, Bob	01/27/2008 Metadata subjects	KKK, chain gang, torture, SCNC
Zisholtz, Ellen	11/21/2011	Swastika to Jim Crow; Executive Director of I.P. Stanback Museum, at SCSU, a historically black college, in Orangeburg, SC;

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"The Force of Ethics in Civil Rights" Oral History Project

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