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	Author, activist, and sociologist Fred Anderson maintains a blog at fred-anderson.com. Interview subjects include the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, lynchings, SNCC, jail, and relationships 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, Martin Luther King, first black member of Berkeley, CA city council; founder Civil Rights Museum in Memphis
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.
George Barrett	04/20/2006	Racism, sit-ins, civil rights law, unions
Rev. Marion Bascom	01/22/2007	Racism in FL, Martin Luther King, Baltimore, NAACP
Jack Bass
Keith Beauchamp	09/15/2005	Emmett Louis Till, lynchings, film
Charles Black	11/16/2005	Atlanta Student Movement, lunch counter sit-ins
Arthur Blackman	09/25/2010	Martin Luther King in Groton & Boston demonstrations Arthur Blackman, remembers Dr. King speaking in Groton, Massachusetts;
Dr. T.B. Boyd III	04/17/2006	School desegregation, sit-ins, black businesses
Nathaniel Briggs	05/26/2005	Briggs v. Elliott, school desegregation, South Carolina
Brooklyn CORE: Rioghan Kirchner Arnold Goldwag Msemaji Weusi Nandi Weusi Dr. Ed Lewinson Congressman Major Owens Jerome Bibuld Maryellen Phifer-Kirton Princene Hyatt Larry Cumberbatch	02/19/2006	Racism in Housing, Education, Employment in Brooklyn, including boycott of Ebinger’s, demonstrations at Downstate Medical Center construction site.

State Rep. Tyrone Brooks	11/15/2005	NAACP, sit-ins, lynchings, government
Ernest “Brownie” Brown	06/24/2005	Racism, the dance
Russell Brown	07/07/2005	Civil Rights, Jobs, Civil War, academic discrimination
Thomas Brown		Racism in employment
Washington Butler, Jr.	08/01/2006	East TN, sit-ins, first black elected to city council, first to run for Governor
David Byer-Tyre	08/23/2007	Architecture

Marvin Chambers, Sr.	08/15/2011	Marvin D. Chambers, Sr. was born in Asheville. 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
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.
Congressman Elijah Cummings	01/22/2007	Desegregation of pools; education; civil rights law; first African American Speaker Pro Tem in Maryland; government
Valerie Cunningham	09/15/2011
Donald Cunnigen
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
Alvin Dorfman	06/25/2010	McCarthyism, Martin Luther King, voting registration protests St. Augustine, FL
Rabbi Israel Dresner	11/ /2011
Frank Driggs
Lorenzo Dufau	02/27/2006	USS Mason World War 2, racism in armed services and New Orleans

Edisto 13 dinner Marian C. Bennett David Lawlor Julia TenBrink Bruce Miroff Dennis Barrett Ike Williams Henry Williams Geraldine Gallashaw Judge Matthew Perry Judge Bernard Fielding Russell Brown	07/03/2005	Civil Rights, park desegregation
Edisto - Marian C. Bennett	07/04/2005	Civil Rights, freedom schools, park desegregation
Edisto - Judge David Lawlor	07/04/2005	Civil Rights, park desegregation
Edisto - Julia TenBrink	07/04/2005	Civil Rights, park desegregation
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	Martin Luther King assassination, Pennsylvania riots
Jack T. Franklin	08/15/2005	Civil Rights actions and leaders, World War 2, photography

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

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 haed 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. Topics: Japanese-American internment, Civil Rights, Black Panthers, Amnesty Int., housing
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 continued fighting racism right up to today.
Dr. James Hefner	04/17/2006	Segregation, sit-ins, black colleges
Rev. Arthur Hilson	09/15/2011
Julian Holliday	10/09/2008	Clarendon County, Rev. DeLaine
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	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 Jervey
Paul Jervey, Jr.	2/28/2011
Johnnie Jones, Sr.	2/28/2011
Doris Johnson

Pamela Kellar	04/20/2006	Racism, school desegregation as a child
Rev. Marcel Kellar	04/20/2006	Racism, school desegregation, ministry
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.
Celestine Parson Lloyd	06/05/2005	Briggs v. Elliott, Civil War
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.
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
James Mills	01/29/2011	Voting Rights, At-Large Reps in NC
Prof. Reavis Mitchell	07/31/2006	History of civil rights in TN, sit-ins, demonstrations
Dabney Montgomery	08/27/2005	Racism, World War 2, Tuskegee Airmen, Martin Luther King, AME Zion church history
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	Demonstrations, Sit-ins, white students

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	MCHR, Medicine in South, Healthcare as a right, Fanny Lou Hamer
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;

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
Morris Rosen	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		Fred Scheiner, piloted Dr. King from Long Island to rabinnical assembly in the Catskills;
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.
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	02/00/11
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 Hickory, NC Branch of the NAACP, holds two advanced degrees in theology and is proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish. As pastor of Clinton Tabernacle AME Zion Church, he established a major building campaign for the church and founded the nonprofit Clinton’s Corner of Catawba, Inc. He is also the Chair of Religious Affairs for the North Carolina NAACP. Growing up in Rye, NY, his experience as the one black child in the fifth grade class of Robert Cullum, a white educator who became his ally, 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 of his research into his family history, go to the name link, left.
Ozell Sutton	11/15/05	Sharecropping, school desegregation, government,

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
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.
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.
Jefferson A. Williams		South Carolina, World War 2, black business in NYC
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	Civil Rights, Unions, Women’s Rights, Poverty

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	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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