9 10 109 https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/240aec86334bf26b744c352acd1822b6.mp4 7f77a233e3550e0b1e0afdd837cfab5b https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/de63bc5165a4668cb7f8451d6eb8d401.srt 4f34024d0cecc20b3a6d5a0bf7161911 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures Description An account of the resource In addition to his Reflections series, the UMW Special Collections and University Archives possessed three recordings of classroom lectures from Dr. James Farmer's Civil Rights Movement class. The James Farmer Project undertook the task of captioning and transcribing these recordings, making them publicly available for the first time. Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Lecture Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Sounds like you had it right, Council on United Civil Rights Leadership. And we just might ask you what that was. And let me repeat what it was, the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership was an organization set up by the heads of the civil rights organizations, it was an umbrella organization. Its members were Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Dorothy Height, John Lewis, and James Foreman, the SNCC, and me. We met roughly once a month in New York City, and its purpose was to provide a forum where the heads of the civil rights organizations could compare notes on a regular basis, discuss and debate tactics, and map strategies. In other words, where we had differences of opinion, sometimes sharp differences of opinion, we would talk those out behind the closed doors of people we were leading. Sometimes we would argue. But that was, if we may use the analogy of warfare, that was the tent and not the battlefield. When we went out on the battlefield, we were united. And the disagreements, the debates, the arguments were kept for the tent, reserved for the tent. So that was the Council of United Civil Rights Leadership, known as CUCRL, where Randolph proposed his March on Washington idea to CUCRL, and the idea was adopted and it was the various civil rights organizations who combined their resources to put on the march. And other groups were drawn in, such as some of the labor groups, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the National Council of Churches, Anti-Defamation League, Catholic organizations, and so on. It was a giant coalition that put on the march. Now I proceed. We'd like you to be able to define integration - what do we mean by integration? So you can give that some thought, between now and examination time. Define black nationalism, too. Among the black nationalist leaders were Malcolm X, that is the best known of them, were Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and before them, of course, there was the late Marcus Garvey. Rap Brown, who followed Stokely Carmichael as national chairman of SNCC, was also a nationalist, black nationalist. [Student: What was his name again?] H. Rapp, R-A-P-P, Brown. Rap Brown was even more militant than Stokely Carmichael was. We didn't talk much about him, of course, in these lectures and discussions. Rap had a very brief tenure in SNCC, SNCC went out of existence under his tenure, and he was arrested, jailed, charged with inciting arson, in Cambridge, Maryland, where he made a fiery speech, no pun intended, proposing that they burn down the city. And when he left, Cambridge would be set afire, parts of it. Cambridge, Maryland. Rap Brown, now, by the way, has changed his name, he has taken a Muslim name and he has joined the Nation of Islam, the so-called Black Muslims. And he owns a grocery store in Atlanta. It was curious, the semester before last, one of my students here decided to write a term paper on H. Rap Brown. And he found out that Brown was down in Atlanta, running a grocery store, a Muslim grocery store. Halal foods, no pork, et cetera, et cetera. So he fetched a long-distance call down there, a man answered. He said, may I speak with Mr. Brown, please? The guy said, "There is no Mr. Brown here." He said, "Well, I'm very anxious to get in touch with Mr. H. Rap Brown, because I'm writing a term paper on him and I'm in Jim Farmer's class at Mary Washington College." And I've decided I want to do a term paper on H. Rapp Brown. The voice on the other end of the line said, "Well, I'm the former H. Rapp Brown, my name is such and such and such and such now." And gave him an interview for about half an hour on the phone. And gave him my regards. I was surprised, because H. Rapp Brown and I were hardly on speaking terms when he was with SNCC. But anyway, those were some of the militants, and black nationalist militants. So you want to be able to define black nationalism, how it differs from integration, and I'd like you to make a stab at defining pan-Africanism, too. It's a term we've mentioned, I don't know that we've discussed it at any length. Marcus Garvey considered himself an Africanist in the 1920s, 1930s. DuBois began a Pan-Africanist movement at one stage in his life. Stokely Carmichael considers himself to be a pan-Africanist now, and is working for a pan-Africanist organization. The Pan-Africanists originally spoke of a 'back to Africa' movement, that all persons of African descent should return to Africa. Now very few of the pan-Africanists talk about returning to the motherland. They talk more frequently about the African diaspora, or persons of African descent scattered throughout the world, wherever they are, considering themselves Africans because of a certain assumed similarity of culture and of heritage. That is what most of the pan-Africanists think now: a unity of all those of African descent. Wherever they are in the world, whether they're in the Carribean, or in Africa, or the United States and the islands of the sea, or wherever. Now, let's see. One of the essay questions probably will be, "What were the..." Oh, this was a good essay question. It'll be very simple. Back to our question. What were the major legislative accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement in the sixties? Well, that's simple. Anybody want to make a stab at it? [Student: "Civil rights act."] Civil rights act of what year? [Students together: 64.] Sixty-four. [Students: Voting Rights Act.] Voting Rights Act. That was what year? [Students: sixty-five.] Sixty-five, that is correct. It also wants you to tell us where and when the non-violent direct action movement for civil rights in this country began. [Student: Greensboro.] Well, actually, no. That's not what we're looking for - in Chicago, in 1942, when CORE was organized. But people did not know very much about that, it did not receive much publicity, but the technique was used from 1942 on. It became popularized in 1956, with the publicity surrounding the great Montgomery Bus Boycott. But we want you to know where it began. It was in Chicago in 1942, with the organization of CORE. It also wants to know where the Southern Student Sit-In Movement began, and when. Greensboro, North Carolina, and 1960.The month, and you won't be expected to remember that, was February. February first, 1960. Greensboro, North Carolina isimportant, and the year, 1960. The Freedom Rides began, took place, in what year?[Students: Sixty-one.] Sixty-one, correct. Montgomery Bus Boycott, what year? [Fifty-six.] Fifty-six, yes. A little in fifty-seven, went over into fifty-seven. Actually, it started in December of 55, very shortly after Rosa Parks was arrested, but 56 would be a good date, 56-57. The objective of the Southern Student Sit-In Movement. The sit-in movement that began in Greensboro, what is the objective?[Student: Desegregate the lunch counters at Woolworth.] Not only in Woolworth, but the other variety stores like Woolworth. That was the original objective, but very soon after it started, it spread to desegregation of all places and public accommodations. Originally it was desegregation of the lunch counters at the variety stores. The objective of the Montgomery Bus Boycott? [Inaudible student answer.] Desegregate what? [Student talking, inaudible.] Sit where you wanted on city buses in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. In other words, desegregation of the municipal buses in Montgomery. The objective of the Freedom Rides? [Student replies.] Yes, desegregation of interstate bus travel, that is, buses traveling from state to state, between states, all over the country. Let me see... Basically, that covers it. I want you to know... I want you to tell us what you think about the success or the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. What were its major accomplishments? What were its limitations or failures? I'd also like you to make a stab at your evaluation or appraisal of the state of civil rights in the United States today. That's opinion. That's opinion. And what would you do in the future? Do you have any questions, not just about the examination, but anything in the area of civil rights? I don't presume that I have all the answers to anything, but at least I'd like to get the questions. You know, in the sixties, I was amazed at the amount of answers I had. I had answers to everything then. But I've forgotten most of it. Now I'm not sure I know most of the questions. But there were lots of them in the sixties. [Student: I'd like to ask, um, for your exam schedules, is it at one time?] The exam schedule. [Student: Yeah.] Um, yes, what is the - [Are you offering it at that one time?] Just at one time. If there are those here, if there's only one person, who finds that most inconvenient, then you can arrange for another time, a better time for that individual for those individuals. Okay? [Thank you.] Any other questions? [Student: I was wondering if you could touch again on the subject of the teachings of Gandhi?] On what?[I was wondering if you could touch on the subject once again of how the teachings of Gandhi were quite influential in the nonviolent movement?]Oh, yes. Well, in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor and immediately after Pearl Harbor, a number of pacifists, including myself, were interested in finding nonviolent solutions to conflict situations. We did not find it enough for us, for our consciences, simply to refuse participation in war. Because to say no to participation in war was a negative act, and we had to do something positive to feel that we were constructive. So we were looking for nonviolent solutions to violent conflict situations. Not only the international scene, but the domestic scene as well. And there were two major problems to be concerned with on the domestic scene: the first was, one, rather than the first, but one was labor and management, labor and industry. And the other was race. My major concern was race. And I began studying the techniques of Gandhi, including Gandhi's writings and what was written about him and especially a book by Krishnalal Shridharani,a disciple of Gandhi's who was then studying in Columbia University. His book, titled War Without Violence, was an analysis of Gandhi's program and methods. Step-by-step procedures as used by Gandhi. Well, this small band of pacifists in Chicago and New York, chiefly in Chicago then, began studying Gandhi. And I wrote two memoranda to A.J. Muste, who was head of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a religious pacifist organization for which I worked at the time. In 1941 I began writing the memos, completed the first memo in early 1942. I sent these memos to Muste, proposing that the F.O.R, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, sponsor the establishment of an interrracial organization using Gandhian techniques of nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, noncooperation, jail-going where necessary, and filling up the jails where necessary, in an attempt to bring an end to racial segregation and other forms of racial discrimination in this country. The Fellowship of Reconciliation's national council, which was its governing body , discussed the two memoranda and decided not to sponsor such an organization but to authorize me as its traveling race relations secretary. Part-time, fifteen dollars a week. And that was poor pay even in those days. Supposed to be part-time but it's actually a lot more full-time. More like full-time. They agreed that they would continue paying my salary, fifteen dollars a week, and allow me on their time to set up a pilot project along the lines which I had outlined in the memos. In one city, Chicago. And then they would determine, after a while, whether to sponsor it or not. After the pilot project was set up. The pilot project was the first chapter of CORE. In the course of the next year, I traveled around the country for the F.O.R., and in those travels organized about a dozen other organizations, like the Chicago Committee of Racial Equality, and then the next summer we called a conference of those organizations, and set up the national CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. So that was the connection between Gandhian technique and the civil rights movement in this country. Now, to repeat what I'd said earlier, we had no publicity. Though we were making successful use of technique of nonviolence, this was prior to the advent of television. Television was a post-World War Two development. Actually, it was not even in homes here until, well, I guess the early fifties. We had no television coverage, very little on the radio. Very little in the written press. Perhaps there would be a small item on the back page of a local paper such as the Chicago Tribune, saying that yesterday a half-dozen nuts and crackpots sat down in this restaurant until they were served or thrown out, whichever came first. But that was all. So a nonviolent movement did not take to the skies. Not until Dr. King with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1956. Television coverage and charismatic leadership captured the imagination of people not only in this country but all over the world. And the movement was on wings, then. It was after that, several years later, that the Southern Student Sit-in movement began, inspired in part by the example of Dr. King in Montgomery, the technique of nonviolence. And the CORE Freedom Rides followed a year later. 1961. So the movement was well on the way then. Other questions? [Student: Do you think part of the lack of publicity was because in the early forties we were in a world war and it was the biggest news of the time, bigger than anyone?] Of course. And people were not inclined to listen to nonviolence in a time of war. It sounded like a bunch of nuts, you know? People were talking about nonviolence, don't strike back, when we were fighting for our lives. Yeah, thank you, you're quite right, it was very annoying. Very annoying.[Student: Sometimes something is so important, the most important thing that's going on, they're gonna want publicity.] True. Yep. Whatever's bigger than you in someplace else, publicity-wise, you're dead. You're absolutely right. [Student: What do you see as your failures in the movement?] Failures? [Yeah, what are its limitations?] Our limitations... yeah. There are many; we left untouched some vital areas, such as residential segregation, very important, very. The movement, per ce, did virtually nothing on that. Martin, Martin Luther King, Jr., began moving in that direction in 1967 in Chicago. His efforts there were a failure. And he was literally astonished at the amount of prejudice and outright hostility and hatred that he encountered in the city of Chicago. He marched in Chicago and marched in Cicero or Cairo. Dr. King had grown up in the South and done most of his work in the Deep South, and had come North to get support for his efforts in the South. Financial support, moral support, et cetera. Here he was marching in the North, not in the South. And he was astonished by deeply-rooted racism in the Chicago area. He was pelted, the marches were pelted with stones and sticks and eggs and everything else, and obscenities were shouted at them as they went by, and police had to protect them as mobs gathered. Finally, in what I consider the three AM of his soul, he blurted out, "The people of Mississippi wanna learn how to hate? They oughta come to Chicago." He found more hatred there, he thought, than he had seen in Mississippi. Well, we did very little on housing, almost nothing. We did very little to try to counteract racism itself. We were attacking the effects of racism, the structures that racism built up to protect itself. Segregation, for instance. But for the prejudices themselves, we did virtually nothing. Another weakness of the movement was we did no long-range planning. We should have. But our excuse for not doing it was that we were crisis-oriented, we were constantly confronting emergencies and crises. And couldn't find the time to indulge in the luxury of thinking and doing long-range planning. As a consequence, when success in terms of achievement of the short-term goals - Civil Rights Act of 64, the Voting Rights Act of 65, came upon us, we were caught without programming for the future, what to do after we get the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. What were the problems likely to be? We should have thought at the time. Several times, in CORE, I scheduled think sessions where we planned to pull the entire CORE staff in, out of field, at some camp, out in the woods, away from the telephone, for some extended period of time, maybe two weeks. We would have scholars there with big baseline data so this wouldn't simply be batting the breeze, but strategy sessions. And we would talk about what the problems were probably going to be, in 1970, 1980, 1990. The year 2000. And how we can deal with those problems. Trying to anticipate the obstacles that would arise. How we should be getting to prepare our youngsters for those jobs. What ought to be done, you know, futuristic thinking. Futurism. But we didn't do it. I arranged a schedule and had everybody put it on their calendars, but invariably, before the dates rolled around, some emergency would arise. A CORE member would get jailed, or get killed down in Mississippi, or we'd have three thousand people in jail in Greensboro, North Carolina. And it seemed obvious to us then. We could not indulge in the luxury of thinking but I think the movement is paying a penalty for not having done any longterm planning. So now there is a lack of unity among civil rights organizations because there is no clear and united sense of direction and objective. There is nothing comparable to CUCRL, the Council On United Civil Rights Leadership, today. The issues, granted, are much more complex than they were in the sixties. But even so, it should be possible to get some unity to the point of union, so that there can be concerted action on them. So those are some of the limitations, as I see. Some are pages of omission, and others shortsightedness. Yes? [Student: Some are saying that the President's administration is trying to turn back time... that is, trying to reverse some of the achievements made during the Civil RightsMovement. Your comment? Well I agree with that, quite, I think that is true. His administration is trying to do that. I hope that I will not offend those who are supporters of President Reagan, I respect him as an individual and as a person, but I disagree with him strongly. During the sixties, Mr. Reagan was opposed to the Civil Rights movement, sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and he said so in no uncertain terms. While the Civil Rights Act was up for debate in Washington, he spoke out several times in California against it. He thought it was a mistake, he thought it was an infringement on the rights of the businessmen who man restaurants and other places of public accommodation for the federal government to get in and cull the divide by telling them who they could serve and who they could not refuse to serve. But he was opposed to it. And it has been my feeling, and the feeling of many other civil rights activists, that since he's been president his Senate is trying to undo what has been done by the Civil Rights Movement. In a number of ways, the Voting Rights Act is an example. When the Voting Rights Act was up for renewal and extension, he was opposed to it and said so. He wanted it to die right then. We don't need it anymore, it served a useful function but that time, its time, has passed. Which of course was the same point of view held by the segregationist Strom Thurmond. Who took the lead in Congress in trying to get the ball rolling on letting the Voting Rights Act die. But we managed to mount such a public relations campaign to bring political pressure there on Capitol Hill: letters, and telegrams, and phone calls, and rallies, and marches, that they saw that ending the Voting Rights Act was not gonna fly politically. So then they adopted a new strategy and that was to change it, amend it. So that in order to establish discrimination, you would have to prove intent to discriminate. In other words, the effect - if the effect is discriminatory - that didn't matter. You had to prove that that was their intention. Well, of course we know in a long history of civil rights activity that it's virtually impossible to prove intent. There you're being asked to read a person's mind. The gentleman intended, she intended. You're being asked to go into the closet with them and to pray to their god. They talk to their conscience, their conscience talks to them. So you can't tell what they intended, you can only tell the effects of what they do. In my opinion. They finally dropped that, the pressure that we founded was sufficiently great. So the bill went through, the extension went through, and the President signed, albeit reluctantly. Now, the Justice Department under Ed Meese and Bradford Reynolds is bringing [Continued in Part 2.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmer Lecture: Exam Review and Q&A (Part 1) Subject The topic of the resource Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Description An account of the resource First part of the recording of a lecture from James Farmer’s The Civil Rights Movement In The 20th Century class, which has been split in half by the James Farmer Project for upload space. Originally titled Lecture 038 by Special Collections. Farmer begins by reviewing for the upcoming final exam, discussing the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (0:00:00), the March on Washington (1:44), figures and movements in black nationalism (2:46), and pan-Africanism (5:55). He and the class then review the major legislative accomplishments and movements within the Civil Rights Movement (8:08). At 13:22, Farmer asks the class if they have any questions, either about the exam or about the movement. He discusses the influence of the teachings of Gandhi on the nonviolent movement and the origins of CORE (14:37), then addresses CORE’s early lack of publicity in relation to the Second World War. Farmer then discusses what he sees as the Civil Rights Movement’s limitations (22:35). Then, at 29:25, Farmer begins to answer a question about the Reagan administration’s attempts to dismantle the work done during the Civil Rights Movement. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Farmer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-04-22 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource HIST 428 Spring 2020 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright is retained by Special Collections and University Archives, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. This item is available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Items may not be reproduced or used for any commercial purposes without prior written consent from the University of Mary Washington. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Language A language of the resource English Classroom Education Lecture https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/84bfe3d7e8d3a6de616448bc4ac9e856.mp4 ddb19b4ba1fd89c4e9430f79175064e5 https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/689060ebe4032aa50d05f52bfe7cc20d.srt 466445459388c865e5e16251801ae3f1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures Description An account of the resource In addition to his Reflections series, the UMW Special Collections and University Archives possessed three recordings of classroom lectures from Dr. James Farmer's Civil Rights Movement class. The James Farmer Project undertook the task of captioning and transcribing these recordings, making them publicly available for the first time. Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound suits against civil rights workers in the Deep South who are trying to register people to vote, register blacks. In some cases, in Alabama for instance, the civil rights workers are using absentee ballots. They're using forms to take to old people and sick people who cannot go down to the courthouse or wherever it is they have to go to get the registration forms. Taking them to them, having them sign forms, have them notarized, with a notary public there, and then taking them back, registered. And trying to do the same in voting by using absentee ballots. This has been done by the white communities in Alabama for many, many years. But now, however, that the civil rights workers are doing it to register blacks. The Justice Department is writing a suit against them for voting fraud, charging voting twice. How? Well, they say, Spiver Gordon, you voted for yourself, right? Okay, then you took an absentee ballot over to Sister Jones, who is ninety-two years old, and so arthritic she can't get out of her house, and you showed her where to sign? So you showed her where to sign it and where to vote. You, in effect, voted twice. And that is a criminal offense. And so, Spiver and a number of the other civil rights workers have been indicted, multiple indictments Spiver has been convicted, I mention him particularly because he was, of course, a member of CORE. He is appealing. I don't know if they will win or lose. Also, affirmative action, which was another victory - I didn't mention affirmative action as a legislative victory because it was not legislative, it was the executive department, executive order where the federal government is concerned, an administrative decision. The president has said, and the Justice Department Attorney General has said, they're opposed to affirmative action and numerical goals and timetables. They say affirmative action's not so bad, but numerical goals and timetables, which sound like quotas, are terrible, because they color-conscious and not colorblind, which this administration hates a lot. When you say to your employers that since you don't have any blacks or Puerto Ricans in your employ, in the next five years we want to see you bring the number of blacks and Puerto Ricans up to ten percent of the workforce, let's say approximately ten percent of the population in this area. So that's numerical goals and timetables, and that is a quota, and that discriminates. It discriminates against whites. It is color-conscious, and not color-blind, as the president, and says 'at least.' Therefore, the President has said and repeated on several occasions that he intends soon to issue an executive order which will ban numerical goals and timetables and affirmative action. Well, now, there are many companies, business concerns, and city agencies such as police departments and fire departments which have worked out plans of affirmative action, including numerical goals and timetables. Some of them have had no blacks in their force, the fire department or the police and they worked out a plan with the NAACP or whatever other civil rights organization exists in that community to improve that gradually in the next five years or ten years, aiming at parity with the population, percentage in the population. Roughly. It's not a hard and fast figure, it's a goal, and it's flexible. Negotiable. They've worked out a plan, they've agreed to it. The Justice Department has learned from it. The Justice Department's gone up and written, "You must not do this, because this discriminates." "This is color conscious. We want color blind" These companies and these agencies say, "Look, Justice Department, please get off our backs." "We're happy. Our workforce is happy. The community organizations are happy." "The special interest groups are happy. The trade unions are happy. Everybody's happy, would you please leave us alone?" But instead of leaving them alone, Judge Reynolds files a suit against them. Takes them to court. But yeah, they're trying to turn back the clock on those. Part of it is ideological, I think. Honestly, some persons in the administration, I assume this is true of Reagan, feel that... Let's see, how should we put it? That if - that there's no longer any systemic discrimination against blacks as a group, or other minorities as a group. And that if a black person works hard, and follows the Protestant ethic of work habits and everything else, he will do as well as anybody else, because there's no longer any racial discrimination. And this individual will become a white person, with an invisible black skin. I don't think that's true. It has become popular, and it has for years, to say that there's no longer any racial discrimination. In fact, one black man, a guy in Michigan, a professor, wrote a book entitled The Declining Significance of Race. Other blacks, black intellectuals, neoconservatives, you know, black and white and such, have taken the position that it is no longer a race problem, it is now just a class problem and there's no longer any problem with race. Color doesn't mean anything anymore, it is class, class only. It is an economic problem. In fact, I heard a discussion on that this very morning, in New York City, on a TV show. They were being taped. The discussion was of Bayard Rustin, whom I've known many years, 1942, as a matter of fact. He used to be militant, now he's very, very neo-conservative and takes the position that it's no longer a race problem, it's now an economic problem. That we did it all in the sixties. Well, for me, that's simply nonsense. I think it is both race and class. There's still racism. Ask yourself if when you see a black person, you see just a person, or do you see a black person? Those of you who are white. Those of you who are black, ask yourself if when you see a white person you see a person who happens to be white, or do you see a white person? I suspect it is the latter. I suspect that all of us, when we see a person for the first time, view that person through race eyes. Because - it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing to deny. Because we've grown in a society which conditions us in that way. And we have to decondition ourselves, if there is such a word as decondition. Decondition ourselves. It is... I would say this, this is an extreme statement but I think that it is accurate. It certainly used to be completely accurate, twenty years ago I'd say it without any second thought. Now, I'd think before. It is, I used to say it is impossible for any person in our country to grow to adulthood, whether that person is black or white, without having some residues of racial feeling. That was an extreme statement. Now, a bit more sensitive, I'd still make the statement. But with some reservations now. The more sensitive among us, among white and among black, work hard to get rid of it, to root it out of us. And if we're very, very sensitive, we succeed. The less sensitive, we succeed to a lesser extent, if we are insensitive we don't succeed at all. If we don't try, we certainly don't succeed. But it is hard, because we grow up in a society which conditions us to racial responses. We're black and white. To say that race doesn't count now, that color doesn't matter, that we are colorblind, is to tell ourselves a lie. That is the worst kind of lie, the lie we tell ourselves. When you tell yourself one, you're kidding yourself. No, the time will come when we will have no racial responses, I'm sure. I don't think that time has come yet. I don't think that. I know a good friend of mine in New York, a woman from South Dakota. I think it was South Dakota, it doesn't matter. Who is very much anti-racist. In South Dakota, I don't think there were any blacks there. One or two, maybe. But she was leading some children in the street, blocked off street, in some game. She was a social worker. And she had to line them up somehow and decide who was going to play what role. So she started off, "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a -" [Muffles self.] "You know the saying, don't you? "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a nigger by the toe." "She said, eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a - [choked noise]." It's the tiger by the toe. And she worried, brooded about that for weeks. She finally told me, and I laughed uproariously. "Why in the world didn't you go ahead and say it?" "Get it out. Because it meant nothing to you. But the fact that it troubled her so much said it meant a little to her." Well, we can get rid of our biases, and I think you young ladies and young gentlemen who ten years from now will have families will have an awesome responsibility and a great privilege of seeing to it that if your children grow up to be decent human beings, with decent, humane values, that one of those humane values that you'll instill in your children will be that of knocking racism. I think parents could do it. More than the teachers, more than the preachers, more than anybody else, but then they can do much better if they have first done it for themselves. Any other questions? [Student: I just had a comment about when you were talking about the limitations of the movement, and one is how it did not counteract racism, I'm not sure the movement as such can, because that's something in someone's head - so how do you do that, as a movement?] Well - [How does that come in through the back door, through legislation?] That's a good point. [I don't think that's a failure, maybe I'm not -] Well, some of the movement intellectuals argued during the movement's day that we were trying to get at racism, that laws have educational effect in the long term. Because people don't want to be law violators, they keep abiding by a law which says, you treat everybody the same, and by and by, long enough, you will begin to feel that everybody is the same. I guess maybe that is true in the long term, but it's a very slow process. How do you do it, how could a movement do it? I'm not sure. I was talking with Doctor Kenneth Clark, one of the better-known black psychologists, who thinks that it can be done and that it would be a task for colleges and publicists to work out together. What they'd have to do in these fields is reach into the kind of input that goes into determining people's thinking, how they think and how they feel. Or how they feel, I guess, then how they think. That would mean the television, a kind of image to get on television, this would have to be a concerted approach where you sit down and kind of program it. Obviously, movies, certain books, especially preschool books, textbooks, children's books. Comic books would be very important because people read those more than anything else. The danger of that, of course, is that it might be too Big Brother. If it's to be so all-encompassing, affecting every instrument which comes to disseminate culture, and that's what he's talking about, then it would have to be orchestrated, I suppose, by government. And if the government begins orchestrating, involving every one of those instruments, where does that stop? Would the cure not as bad or worse than the disease? I don't know. But I think your question is such a good one, I'm kind of trying to talk around it, there. I'm not sure what can be done, can be orchestrated, but I think it might. I know dictatorships can do it. Cuba, by fiat, or is it fai-at, fiat, wiped it out. But that's a totalitarian society now. But the pre-Castro regime was not anti-racist. Castro came in and made a remonstration of racism. From weapons and all of the instruments which turn how people think and so forth, and get that message across. And I'm told by people who spent time there that it seemed to work. I think it's gonna be hard. Other questions? [Student: There was a comment about a theory that few people were racist towards someone they knew well.] Knew well? [Because once they know people well, that sort of decreases racism?] Yes, generally that's true. I would put one caveat down. Maybe I'm wrong, know that you can disagree with me. [Student: Okay.] Good. Isn't it possible, though, for a person to, say, know a servant well and love that servant, and still treat that person as a servant and think of the person as a servant? Which could well be a form of racism. Yes. Could be a form of racism. [Student: But wouldn't that imply to whites having white servants and blacks having black servants address them as people and not as colors? But just as the position of servant, not the rank.] Well, now, would it? Let's, let's discuss it, I think it is an important point. A person has a white servant, the servant is a servant but there is no concept of genetic inferiority. But it is quite possible for a person to love a black servant, love that black servant dearly, as we loved the mammies, the black mammies, as we loved Uncle Toms, Uncle Toms, we loved Uncle Toms. But there was the concept of genetic inferiority and the basic difference. The basic difference. No less affection or love, but it was superior - inferior genetically. Now with white I assume it would be superior with inferior on status level, but not on a genetic level. [Student: We could automatically assume that... I hope that you can see, either way, it's a problematic business.] [Other student: There's also the fact that the Irish were discriminated against, and the Irish weren't allowed to go into some stores, and they had to go into the back doors to things, and people had Irish servants that even if they were white families and the Irish were white, they still thought there was something that made them better than them.] Did they think it was genes, though? [It'd be cultural.] Cultural. As in the South, the white plantation owner, this plantation owner was an absentee owner, and there was the riding boss, store boss, driving boss on the plantation. Now, he was on a different level from the poor whites who worked on that plantation, the sharecroppers or tenant farmers. But it was not a caste system, that's the distinction. It was not a caste system, because it was still possible for that tenant farmer to become a store boss. [Student: Maybe a better example than the Irish would be Hitler's race theory on the Jews. They were thought to be genetically inferior.] I'd argue they were thought to be genetically superior.[Not in the Nazi perspective.] Not in the Nazi period, that's right. Yeah. [And Jews are still - people are still prejudiced against Jews today. (Overlapping talk.) Not to the point of Nazi Germans, but still.] Yeah, but you see, there is one thing different - I'm not finding the words that I want to put my finger on it, but there is a qualitative difference. The antisemite looks at the Jew and feels the Jew is somehow less of a person than he, the antisemite, is. But he does not say that he is inferior to me. The thought is, the Jew is smarter. And the Jew would outdo him in business. That the Jew would run circles around him, therefore he hates him. But there is not that thought in dealing with a black. When he looks at the black, he does not see a man who he thinks is smarter than he is, he sees a man who he thinks is genetically not the smarter. [Student: But even based on historical background, the first blacks came here basically as slaves, but our introduction to Jews here in the United States was, the first interactions seem to match, the sort of limiting of freedom.] Well, there were white indentured servants, nearly slaves. But Europe was not a caste system. Intermarriage was not taboo. That is a classic distinction. Slaves are, it is true, thought to be inferior. Aristotle looked at the Greek slaves and concluded so in his writing. "See? No wonder they're slaves, look at them." "They're obviously inferior to the rest of us and inferior to their masters." "Otherwise they wouldn't be slaves." Well, of course, Aristotle made a common mistake. He confused the effect for the cause. They became inferior because they were slaves, because they were treated that way, not the other way around. That's the way this thing even started. You had to brainwash a slave to make him act like a slave. You beat him and whip him and sometimes he prefers death. I'm glad that at last we've got some questions, people are challenging some assertions. All right, that's good! Because, you know, you may be right and I may be wrong! I think there's a qualitative difference and I think the qualitative difference is because you do have some residues of a racist feeling. I don't doubt - you know, before black power, most blacks considered themselves inferior to whites. I looked at my father, and he always astonished me, not just because of his brains, he could speak and write and read and think in so many languages, but because I was convinced that in his heart of hearts, he believed that blacks were inferior and whites were superior, despite himself and his obvious superiority. But then I asked myself, how could he believe anything else? He was born in Kingstree, South Carolina, 1886. As a small boy, moved to Peterson, Georgia, and there he was brought up, and everything that he saw or heard told him that blacks were inferior. A black was told that he was inferior, and came to believe it. How else do you explain the phenomenon of a black with kinky hair referring to kinky hair as 'bad' hair? And straight hair as "good hair"? I have bad hair.[Class laughs][Addressing a student:] Your hair's good hair. We're trying to lighten one's feeling, but good question. On the other hand, whites try to darken their skin, by cooking themselves in the sun. [Class and Farmer laughs.] And curl their hair, too! I think it really was ridiculous, but blacks did reject themselves. And considered themselves inferior, and thus began acting inferior in the presence of whites. That's why it was such a breath of fresh air, in spite of all its potential for danger and for evil, when the young blacks in the middle of the sixties began shouting, "Black is beautiful, it's not ugly!" "I'm somebody!" I haven't got bad hair, it's good hair! I won't try to get rid of those kinks, I'll grow them long in a bush and celebrate every kink! And make a few more of them!" So there was something refreshing about that, a person coming to terms with themselves, In spite of the danger of that person then saying, "If you are not black, and your hair is not kinky, then there's something wrong with you." You're not pretty, you're ugly. You're not beautiful, you're ugly. And that's of course what happened with many of the Black is Beautiful black power advocates. But many social movements have those negative, general... Bill Wilson said he believed in black power once, he was almost convinced, he'd go to a meeting, and hear Stokely Carmichael's full oration, and he'd be all fired up, once he'd listen to one of the orations, and his chest was stuck out, and his head held high. He'd walk down the street and told himself that the first brother or sister he saw, he was going to give them the old black power salute, you know? He said he'd got a cab on the way, and he saw a brother coming toward him, a black brother coming toward him. He waited until he got real close, and he gave him the old salute. He said, "You know what that guy said? He said, you better get both hands up, baby." [Laughter.] This is a stick-up. [More laughter.] Black is not automatically beautiful. The point is, it's not automatically ugly. That is the best thing to have you learn. I think that... blacks hated themselves. And believed themselves inferior and most whites believed blacks to be inferior. I told Senator Bilbo... This was 1938, 37? You don't know that name, do you? Senator Bilbo? Ted Bilbo, Mississippi, the granddaddy of all senatorial racists. The twenties and the thirties, and I guess the early forties, too. Bilbo ... I talked to him, and had an appointment with him, I was literally eighteen years old or so. And he said that "there ain't a nigger a fourth as smart as any white man." Which is of course an absurd statement. That's a very intelligent man, he was an intelligent man, obviously. So I round off of this with a few Negro - that is the word used in those years - Negro geniuses. He thought for a minute, said, "I bet every one of them had some white blood." I mentioned one, one black scientist who performed some miracles in surgery. The first successful operation on the human heart. Open heart surgery. A black surgeon, I mention that to Bilbo he thought for a while. He said, "Yeah, that's right, niggers always were good with knives." [Scattered laughter.] I had a laugh, too. You just can't win with this guy. Maybe I told you last week that - did I tell you? That I learned that he had a black mistress and black children – half, actually – whom he put through college. He loved his illegitimate family. I got this information from a chauffeur of Bilbo's, taking him to this lady's house. At least twice a week. Yet he was the worst Negro hater in the South. He'd educated his children. It's a funny thing. It's a strange love-hate complex. Less so now. Less so now than it was in those years, but we still have residues of it we have to try to get rid of. What time is it? Do we want to take a break, or do we want to - have I gotten all your papers? Are there some who still have their papers here, or are there some who don't have their papers here to turn in? Okay, you will get them into the office - [Student: Tomorrow.] Okay. Those that have not brought their papers, please try to get them in tomorrow. Okay? Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 34:28 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmer Lecture: Exam Review and Q&A (Part 2) Subject The topic of the resource Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Description An account of the resource Second part of the recording of a lecture from James Farmer’s The Civil Rights Movement in the 20th Century class, which has been split in half for upload space. Originally titled 'Lecture 038' by Special Collections. Starting from where the previous video left off, Farmer discusses the Reagan administration's reactions to civil rights legislations, including their opposition to numerical goals and timetables (2:19). He discusses his opposition to the idea that racial discrimination no longer exists in America (5:13). He then answers a question about whether it's possible to eliminate racism by legislative means (13:35) and the idea that people are less racist towards those they know well (18:05). Finally, at 26:10, he begins to discuss internalized racism, the black power movement, and an encounter with Mississippi's Senator Bilbo. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Farmer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-04-22 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource HIST 428 Spring 2020 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright is retained by Special Collections and University Archives, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. This item is available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Items may not be reproduced or used for any commercial purposes without prior written consent from the University of Mary Washington. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Language A language of the resource English Classroom Education Lecture https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/34233baee31f06507f52ad90593e515e.png 7dc7769345f68a7505863be22a0d946f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed McClurken, Jeffery Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Dr. Jeffrey McClurken for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Dr. McClurken. Could you please state your name for the record? Dr. McClurken: I am Jeffrey W. McClurken, a professor of History and American Studies at Mary Washington. Text: What year did you graduate? Dr. McClurken: I graduated in 1994. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Dr. McClurken: I mean, I was a student in his class, but of course I’d heard about him long before that semester. People on campus had talked about him and I’d heard about him from faculty in the department about him. Text: Did you learn something in his civil rights class that you still remember today? Or changed your perspective as a person or as a teacher? Dr. McClurken: I mean the class was, it’s almost trite, but it was life changing, right? You had this sense that you were in the presence of history greatness. Right? He had this booming, powerful voice, this great smile, terrific way of telling stories. Um, yeah, I mean, I think- look, as a history major I had taken a number of classes in which the Civil Rights movement was covered. Right? But it was one thing to hear about the movement from a faculty member, but there is something fundamentally different in hearing those stories come to life, right? Come to life from someone who has been there. Come to life from someone who is physically and emotionally suffered for the cause you’re studying. It’s just a- it’s a different experience. It’s a transformative experience. Um. You know, I guess another way to put it would be to say that as a history major who had every plan of going on to graduate school, to becoming a scholar, to becoming a professor, a teacher myself, there was something deeply powerful about hearing from what was effectively a living legend. Right? And-and a living legend who was somehow simultaneously clearly human as well. Right? I mean, he was self-deprecating. He was open about his personal struggles. He would talk, for example, about how he dealt with his jealousy of Martin’s fame. Right? Just, first of all, the fact that he talked about Martin Luther King as “Martin,” right? It was a constant reminder to us his ties to the other leaders of the movement. But, that- he wasn’t name dropping. He wasn’t trying to just- he wasn’t using it in some false or pretentious way. He was-he was there. Martin was a friend of his. Dr. King was a friend of his. Um, you know, so he was always-he was just always sort of self-deprecating. He talked through how he agonized about whether or not he made the right decision to stay in jail with the other protestors in Plaquemine, Louisiana, when he could have just paid the court fees and have been at the 1960’s March on Washington. Sort of agonized over whether it was the right thing to do, even thirty years later, or forty years later. So, that sense of, of both the majesty and humanity just really- just really stuck with me. Text: What kinds of values did he instill in his students? Do you see the reverberations of those lessons in your own teachings today? Dr. McClurken: Oh, man, I hope so. Um, you know, he-I would say he instilled service, thoughtfulness, honesty, a willingness to confront oppression. A, um, but also a sense- a sense of humor, and a sense of, of the need to still laugh and to be human. Yeah, I’d love to-I’d love to think that that has influenced my own teaching, but I-but I watched—you know, I mean there were, you know, over a hundred of us in each of these classes, um, and, um, and yet you could see people just be affected and transformed by this and we talk about it outside of class. Um, you know, for me personally, that experience solidified my desire to be a historian. Solidified my desire to represent the perspective of those in the past and in the present. Um, so, you know, I-there’s no question in my mind that he-he, he—but I was not the only one who had-who had that kind of reaction to it, because I was sitting with all my fellow classmates, and-and-and hearing their reactions and the conversations they we have at lunch, um, or, um, you know, at the dinner table at, you know, over at what was then Seacobek. Um, you know, having these conversations. It-it went beyond just a class. It was more than just content. Um, it was— this is going to sound trite, but it was an experience, right? Text: You have a very unique perspective as both an alumni and a current faculty member. How do you think Dr. Farmer has impacted UMW and the greater Fredericksburg area? Dr. McClurken: Um, I-I think Farmer’s legacy on-on campus and-and in town is hard to quantify. I mean it’s easier to point to-to sort of organizations or institutions or things that are named after him. Uh, I think the James Farmer Multicultural Center continues on his legacy. I think the Farmer bust is an important reminder, even if not everyone knows what they’re looking at when they walk past it. I think the work being carried out in his name, a lot of the work create the A.S.P.I.R.E. concept was really based in his ideas, and his work. You know, there have been numerous, um, um, first year seminars that have been created, and, about him or with his teachings at the center. Uh, earlier groups have done oral histories with people, um, who work with him or who knew him. Um, you know, I-I I think- you know, for me, as you point out, I do have this unique perspective, right, because I was his student but now I’m back teaching at the school where he taught for almost two decades. Um, you know, my time in that classroom was transformative, and so when I had a chance to come back and teach at Mary Washington, um, I jumped at the chance to try to find ways to remember and honor him, right? For his service to the Civil Rights Movement, but also to his service to a generation of students at Mary Washington. Um, I wanted people to be able to hear that booming voice, to hear his stories as much as possible. It’s why I’ve had three different classes over the last decade create digital projects related to Farmer and his work. Um, you know, I-and I think the work your group is doing and the work those previous groups have done mean that through the work of Mary Washington students everyone can hear James Farmer words, can-can read his words, can hear him tell his stories, to come to understand why we honor James Farmer and his legacy. Text: Do you have a favorite memory or anecdote about him? McClurken: It’s central to what I’ve been talking about, I think. You know, the paper-the research paper I wrote for his class was on President Lyndon Johnson’s varied stances—and they varied quite wildly—his stances on Civil Rights over the years. I-I won’t bore you with the details, but, but I know that when I turned in that paper I was very proud of the nuanced story that I had written, the narrative that I had laid out grounded in the primary sources—it really used LBJ’s autobiography which he wrote after he stepped down as president. Now, I-I’m enough of a scholar now and there’s been enough time that looking back, given what I now know about primary sources and Lyndon Johnson, I probably bought-I bought into LBJ’s retellings of his own past more than I should have, right? He was telling his own story in a way that made him look good. But when I got the paper back Dr. Farmer—the only thing he had written on it was: “Interesting. This is not the version President Johnson told me when I was in the oval office.” And so, you know, of course I had professors tell me I needed to think more critically about my sources before, that was the first time I’d ever had a professor cite actual interactions with the people in question to indicate how wrong I was. So, I, you know, and it was-I didn’t take it-I didn’t take it in a bad way. I could hear his-I could hear the tone and his voice, the sort of wry, sardonic tone in his voice as he was like “that’s not what President Johnson told me.” Right? And, um, so that-that was the kind of person he was. He-he-he- it was education, not indoctrination. Right? Um, and so um, you know, I-I- for me the fact that he-that we are finding ways to recognize the ways that-that this man brought the Civil Rights Movement to life through that resonant voice, through that-that wry humor, that deep intelligence, that empathy, right? And-and in some cases, what amounted to an incredibly raw emotion, right? The emotion of someone who had lived through the movement. And so, um, that fact that we are able to celebrate and recognize the life and teaching of Dr. Farmer whose-whose career as a Civil Rights leader, I think, was-was complemented by his career as an educator. It’s-it’s an amazing opportunity and responsibility for all of us, but-but it’s one that I think we gladly take up. Text: Thank you again, Dr. McClurken, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 10:20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dr. Jeffrey McClurken's Oral History Interview Subject The topic of the resource Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Faculty McClurken, Jeffrey W. Department of History and American Studies Oral History Interview University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview, Dr. Jeffrey McClurken of the University of Mary Washington's History and American Studies department about his time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class as well as Dr. Farmer's educational legacy at the University. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EZZrI7dKSC0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/EZZrI7dKSC0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Link to Youtube video">here</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-04-09 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McClurken, Jeffrey W. Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Dr. Jeffrey McCLurken Education James Farmer Legacy Oral History Oral History Interview https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/c1261ae8f3b78fc71d7629fb47def2d6.png 4e1f8ae5a7b3dbcb7fdbd8b79a491fe0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Davis, Pam Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Ms. Davis for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Dr. McClurken. Could you please state your name for the record? Ms. Davis: My name is Pamela Smith Davis Text: What year did you graduate? Ms. Davis: ’91. Text: What was your major? Ms. Davis: I was a business administration major with a concentration in finance, but, uh, I ended up not staying in that field very, very long and went into grad school and went into teaching. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Ms. Davis: So, I, uh, took his Civil Rights class my Junior year, and um it-I always loved history, took a lot of history courses at Mary Washington. Actually, if I go back and look at my transcripts I could have majored-I mean minor in American Studies very easily. Kim Eastridge: Wow. Yeah. Ms. Davis: That was what allowed me, when I went to my master’s program, to, um, certify to teach Social Studies, actually was from all the history and geography and poli sci that I had taken at Mary Washington. All those gen. ed. Courses paid off. Text: What do you remember from his class? Ms. Davis: So, the biggest thing I remember from his class was, um, his stories. His stories were just so vivid. Um, he was such a, um, such a great storyteller. Um, he added a lot of detail, um his memory was amazing. Um, I remember, um, him telling us a story about Freedom Summer when he, um, and some of his colleagues and C.O.R.E. were actually, um, in Mississippi when um Cheney, and, um, the two other, um young people were helping with voter registration were killed. And he was somewhere in Mississippi, and, um he was hiding out min a funeral home and actually escaped from that town in the back of a hearse. That-That was one of the stories that really stuck with me, just, you know, his experiences, um, were just, um, almost unbelievable, but certainly he was a piece of living history. So, it was just an honor, it was very humbling, um, sitting in his class and just listening, um, to his stories that he told. Of course, we read his book Lay Bare the Heart, um, as part of the course. And at that time, um, I believe it was Ken Burns who was putting together, um Eyes on the Prize, that PBS series so he, uh, we got to see some of that series before it ever came out on TV. Uh, it was, um, it was such a blessing to be able to take that class from someone who was actually there and lived it. Text: What was the style of his lecture? Was it a large class? Ms. Davis: I-you know, I remember it being probably about 30—it was probably one of the larger classes. Of course, not like Eastern and Western Anglo Geography which was in the-I guess there used to be an auditorium in the basement of Monroe, um, I’m assuming it’s still there. Besides that class being the largest class, everyone wanted to get into Dr. Farmer’s Civil Rights class. Everybody did. And I just got lucky my junior year because back then you signed up-you registered for classes based on how many credits you had, so the more credits you had the earlier you were able to sign up for classes. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Ms. Davis: I had more credit hours than the rest of my-a lot of people in my class because I took summer classes, and so I finished a semester early. So, I was able to uh register for his class my junior year. I think there may have been like twenty/thirty of us in that, but I can’t recall how many sections of the class he offered. But it was, it was one of the larger classes, but it wasn’t too large. None of the classes at Mary Washington were very large, which is a great selling point for the university. Text: How do you think Dr. Farmer is being represented on campus? Ms. Davis: Well, I-I saw the bust of him across from-I think it’s across from Trinkle, or what is now being renamed. Which, by the way, I think should be named Farmer Hall, but that’s just my opinion. That’s what I voted for on the survey! Um, yeah, um, so I’ve seen that there, um, I do know that and I wish able to have seen the bus, the commemorative bus for the Freedom Rides that went around to several of the school divisions and there on campus. I was not able to see that, um, I would’ve loved to have seen that. Um, but you know, I think one of the highest honors that the college, the university, can give him is naming Trinkle after him. Text: Do you have a favorite memory of him? Ms. Davis: You know, I-I- he was older, of course, um, when I was there. Um, he was just about partially blind, so he did have an aide who would walk him in and guide him into the classroom, and he sat, um, he sat behind his desk. Um, he could see, he could see us if we were in, um, you know a certain area of the room. He did wear a patch- he did have the patch on his eye at that time. Um, and, um, he-he- the biggest piece I remember about him was him being such a phenomenal storyteller. Um, I had never heard of C.O.R.E. before I had gotten to his class. I mean, I knew about Rosa Parks, I knew the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I knew, you know, about those things, but never knew any other organization other than the SCLC and Martin Luther King. And he really-I-you know, opened my mind, and my-you know, and my knowledge base on just how deep the Civil Rights Movement was beyond Dr. Martin Luther King, and that it didn’t really start with Dr. Martin Luther King. It had started, you know, a decade prior to that. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Ms. Davis: Right after World War II. So, and-and- it was, you know, it was just- and that’s one thing I remember about him most was, um, just his storytelling. He didn’t do much in the way of walking around the class when he taught. Um, he did teach from his chair. Uh, he did-he did sneak in some of those clips of what we now know as Eyes on the Prize, because he’s in them. Um, I-you know, we had to write a paper, um, for his class and the paper had to be about a time where we had experienced discrimination. And, uh, I wrote about an incident that happened at my high school when I was a freshman where, um, we came to school Monday morning with racist epitaphs written all over our parking lot, there had been a cross burned out on our pitcher’s mound on the baseball field in front of our school, and um wrote about just how frightened I was as a young girl and never really understood, you know, why that-why someone would be that way. I was a member of a pretty diverse school; Charlottesville High School is pretty diverse for this area. Um, and so I remember researching that and writing about that. So, um, I still have that paper. Kimberly Eastridge: Wow. Ms. Davis: I saved a few things from my time at Mary Washington and that’s one of them. Um, but, um, it definitely- and as a history teacher, U taught history for about fifteen years, and um those are the lessons and stories that aren’t found in the history books. And so I would bring that into the classroom, um, myself, um, just to, you know to honor him and to honor the work of others that aren’t mentioned so much in the history books. And so, I think that’s really what he made me appreciate, is that there is more to the story than what we read in books. And um, that is a lesson that I’ve kind of, you know, held onto all this time. Text: Would you say that he was a harsh grader, easy grader, or in between? Ms. Davis: I would say he was somewhere in between. Um, we had-I, you know-I-I assume we had quizzes or whatever, they never stood out in my brain. The paper did. He always talked about the paper. He always said, you know, “how’s it going? You should be doing this by now. You should be doing that by now.” So, you know, he wasn’t a professor that kept the goal, or the target, from you. He always kind of gave you the timeline of what he expected, um, by when. It wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t just something you turned in at the end of the time. It was a process, and, um, you know, I think got an A on that paper. I’m pretty sure I did. Text: You said that he inspired the content you were teaching, did he also inspire the methods that you taught in? Ms. Davis: You know, again, the biggest lesson that he taught me was that there’s more to the story than what you read in the history books. And, um, the really inquire, you know, have kids dig-dig deeper than what they’re learning, or are getting from one or two sources. Um, that there are other players, um, that are nine out of ten times behind the scenes of everything else that they’re reading about and they are just as important as those big-name people who show up in history books. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Text: Thank you again, Dr. McClurken, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Pam Davis; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 13:22 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pam Davis Oral History Interview Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview Pamela Davis speaks about her time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class and Dr. Farmer's educational legacy at the University. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-19 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Davis, Pamela Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 Davis, Pam Faculty History and American Studies Department University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6owDOg1f5n8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/EZZrI7dKSC0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Youtube video link">here</a>. Education James Farmer Legacy Oral History Oral History Interview Pam Davis https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/c30a872af631d6fbd02a4cca4873cc78.png 6718a0ad923d8e40c76694f6b6b4fd0e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dellinger, Mary Hellen Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Dr. Jeffrey McClurken for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Ms. Dellinger. Could you please state your name for the record? Ms. Dellinger: Mary Hellen Dellinger Text: What year did you graduate? Ms. Delligner: 1990. Text: What was your major? Ms. Delligner: History. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: He was a visiting professor there. I’m not quite sure what his actual title was. And I knew him by his classes. Text: You were in his Civil Rights class? Ms. Delligner: I think that’s the only one he taught. Yes, that’s the one I took. Text: What do you remember learning about in his class? Ms. Delligner: I remember sitting there thinking—I was a senior when I took it— “I’m looking at a living history.” I mean, right in front of me. Just straight out of the pages of a history book. And I remember learning things about the Civil Rights Movement that I didn’t know. Um, I liked the fact that the class addressed a lot of the—I don’t want to call it the pre-movement, because it was all the movement, I guess, but, uh, a lot of the early things from the 1950s. He talked a lot about that, thing that I’d never gone into before, and then quite a bit of time about his personal experiences literally on the front lines of the south. I’d probably say it was the best class I’d ever taken, and I completed the graduate courses at George Mason University. So, yeah, that’s hands-down the best class. Text: How would you describe Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: I’d describe him as a very, um, compassionate person. One that despite all his experiences wanted to share. He wasn’t bitter in the least, didn’t harbor any animosity towards anybody, and, um, was very eager for us to understand his story, so as to, you know, not repeat those types of things. Try and make us better people, I guess you could say. Text: Do you have a favorite memory of him? Ms. Delligner: I remember-my favorite memory is the laugh he had. He had a James Earl Jones kind of voice. One of those really deep voices—you can probably look him up online; I know there are recordings of him out there—but that voice, and when he would laugh—even though at that time he was blind and had to be brought into class on a wheelchair, he had an aide that brought him in, he had that signature eyepatch, but he still couldn’t see—his whole face would light up when he would remember something fondly or a person fondly, or when someone would ask a question that made him laugh. That’s—I know that’s not really a historical type of answer, but that’s the thing I remember the most is sitting there thinking “everything he’s been through, what people did to him solely because of the color of his skin, and yet he sits here and shares that story with a room of- we were all white students; not that he would know there wasn’t one minority student in the room, and he just, you know, just-it was like he was just telling a story.” Text: What kinds of values or lessons did he instill in his students? Ms. Dellinger: Well, I think that it was always that we shouldn’t judge other people. I, at that time, was-my roommate, my college roommate Freshman and Sophomore year, Junior and Senior year is still one of my very best friends, um, was from-was-was a minority student. She had been adopted by a white family as a young-as a young infant, um, and brought to the states and was a US citizen. And I think it made me see her life experiences a little more differently. Um, you know, just to- just to live with somebody that goes through the world and experiences the world differently than I do, I think that was one thing that I kind of learned from him. Does that answer your question? Text: What kind of impact did he have on your time at Mary Washington? Ms. Dellinger: Well, this was in the late 80s, obviously, um, so the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t even 25 years old at that point, 30 years old. Um, there were a lot of people who lived through that- both sides of it and remembered it, um, and I know that dateline or nightline, one of the big news programs of the time had been to Fredericksburg at that point and had interviewed a lot of people. It was a big, big story. We all watched it in the dorms. It talked about how racism was still a problem. Um, so I think to-to-to sit in his class, to kind of be exposed to, you know, that story… that was such an experience, um, you know, living in a different time I can’t say that it’s any better now. I don’t know-I don’t know. I’m not a minority person-to be living through that, I guess, I guess that’s a good answer. Text: Would you say that he has had an impact on your life outside of Mary Washington? Do you think about him sometimes? Ms. Delligner: I do. Definitely. I have two copies of his book, one in hard cover, one in soft cover, both autographed. He was still able to do that. And I-I’ve read them more than once. And I do think about that sometimes when I think-when I see on the news about racial injustice, or when I, you know, have dealings with-with people of color or minority-minority, um people. You know, I sometimes-I can just hear his voice in my head talking about the injustices that he felt and I always try and think “I’d like to do a better job, um, as a person.” Um, again, I move through the world as a white woman, and so that’s how I experience the world. And, so, um, I think that colors everything I do. And so it’s good that I had this class to kind of remember, you know, that there are people out there that-that experience horrible things every day based on just what they look like, um, or what they might sound like. So, that’s a thing I carry with me, and I think it does have an impact, yes. Text: How do you think he is being represented on campus today? Ms. Delligner: Definitely more of a presence today than when I was a student. I mean, obviously at that time he was still a teacher there. Um, since that time, obviously, he has passed away. Um, before he died President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is, I think, is the highest civilian honor we give in this country; well deserved, long overdue. Um, there’s a statue to him out in front of—what will hopefully be renamed—uh Trinkle Hall, and I know there’s the-I think the multicultural center is named after him. So, those are good steps. Um, I was recently asked to participate in a survey about the renaming of Trinkle Hall and I strongly suggested it should be named for James Farmer because the statue is right across the way. So, I think that’s great. Um, and I’m sure there are other things that I’m missing that I don’t know. I think the school does a good job of that, um, but only in the Mary Washington community. I think the bigger community-if you’re a Fredericksburg resident and you’re walking down campus you might not know that story. Um, and I think it’s critically important that people know he was one of the big four, he taught there. Um, very few people had more of an impact on the Civil Rights Movement than he did. Of course, Martin Luther King is a big name but he was just as important in doing a lot of the heavy lifting. If you-I can’t remember what the statue says, but obviously it identifies all—a statue like that does—but I know I’ve been on campus with people, ‘cause I live right next to campus, I can walk there from my home, and we’ll walk our dogs there and sometimes people will say “well, who’s that?” I mean, they just don’t know. He’s not a face that is recognized like Martin Luther King who is the face of the Civil Rights Movement, um but just as important if not more important. So, I know that can’t just name a day after him or anything, but they-you know, yeah, I think they do a good job of within the Mary Washington community, but outside not so much. So, I think, you know, it’s a good job that the school is doing, but there’s always room to do more, you know. Text: Do you have any funny anecdotes or other stories about Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: Ah, man, I’m trying to think. It was a very serious class. You could feel the weight of the subject, um, as he was talking about it and because he couldn’t see, he sat at the front of the room and just talked. Um, you know, I don’t remember. I really don’t. I’m trying to think. I was kind of a serious student. I didn’t fool around a lot. Um, I can’t remember anything. I just remember going to his office one time and waiting quite a while to have him sign the book, and I guess he had heard me out there and he thanked me for waiting. I, um, he didn’t really meet with his students one-on-one, he wasn’t on campus as much as some of the other professors. I don’t know if that was due to his health or just the arrangement, they had with him. I can’t think of anything, I’m sorry. Text: Did you ever attend any of his guest lectures? Ms. Delligner: I didn’t do any of those, I just attended his classes, never missed one, never took any notes either—you didn’t have to. I mean, you just kind of sat there and listened. And I don’t-I just remember he gave us a couple papers to write, I don’t think we had any exams. I think it was more just like papers and that was it. Everybody passed if you just showed up and paid half-way attention, which I don’t see how you couldn’t. Um, yeah, so that’s just what I remember. Text: Thank you again, Ms. Dellinger, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Mary Hellen Dellinger; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 9:38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary Hellen Dellinger Oral History Interview Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 Dellinger, Mary Hellen History and American Studies Department Faculty University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview, Mary Hellen Dellinger speaks about her time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class and his educational legacy at the University. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6-aHZqm0Dmk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/6-aHZqm0Dmk" title="Youtube Link to Oral History">here</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-31 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dellinger, Mary Hellen Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Education James Farmer Legacy Mary Hellen Dellinger Oral History Oral History Interview https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/2f58f7dfcabd22ea31b70ad8ffafc0b4.png b1ac62b07e89ba99f27e1bdc71879386 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kimberly Eastridge Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Christopher Williams Location The location of the interview Online Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound KIMBERLY: So, for our records, can you please state your full name? CHRISTOPHER: uh, do you want my middle name? KIMBERLY: if you want, give it to us, sure. CHRISTOPHER: [Laughing] I’ll just do Christopher Williams. KIMBERLY: Awesome, and saw that you signed our consent form, do you have any questions or comments about that? CHRISTOPHER: No, I do not. KIMBERLY: you do understand that this recording will be shared with my group members, Dr. McClurken, and will be uploaded to our website? CHRISTOPHER: Yes. KIMBERLY: Awesome, then we’ll go ahead and get started. So, Uh, When did you first meet Dr. Farmer? CHRISTOPHER: I first meet Dr. Farmer in 1996. KIMBERLY: Awesome, what was your relationship with Dr. Farmer? CHRISTOPHER: My relationship with him, I guess to give you a little bit of the back story, so one day my mom used to be an avid runner and jogger. So, she was running down our road and she just happened to bump into one of Dr. Farmer’s daughters, Tammy, who was working at the house with the horses and whatnot, and she struck up a conversation with her and she mentioned that I was a James Farmer scholar, and if she wouldn’t mind that, if my mom and I would come to the house to meet Dr. Farmer, because I was a scholar and because, you know I was interested in civil rights even at a young age. Uh, and Tam was like “Yeah sure”. Uh, and then, my mom was also friends with Brenda Sloan, Ms. Brenda Sloan, who was one of the librarians at UMW at the time, and who ended up being Dr. Farmer’s caregiver, um for the last few years of his life. So that really granted us access to him, pretty much whenever. So, the summer of my sophomore year of high school and my junior year in high school, I spent a good amount of time with dr. Farmer, a few days here and there, and just having conversations with him about the civil rights movement, you know, just life in general. Uh, So yeah, I hope that’s not too long winded. KIMBERLY: No that was great! No that was great. Uh what…I don’t, I’m not familiar with James Farmer scholars, what exactly is that? CHRISTOPHER: Oh okay, uh, well the James Farmer scholars program was founded in 1987, and has been around for the past, what is it now, 30 almost 33 years, and um the person who was the director of the program, who is still a UMW professor, Dr. Venita McCall, she is in the Education department, and um I consider her like a mother figure to me, outside of my own mother and my god mother. And being a part of that program, you get selected, so they started looking at students in the area, so it’s a program that covers the Spotsylvania school district, Caroline county, west morlin, and also Fredericksburg, the city of Fredericksburg, so you had students coming out of walker grant middle school, James Monroe high school, all the high schools in Spotsylvania county at the time, and then Caroline middle school, and Caroline high school, and west morlin, I think west morlin middle school and Washington and lee high school. So, forgive me I can’t remember the middle school in west morlin, I think I said the name of it but I may be wrong but. They started looking at students when they’re in 6th grade, and you’re selected before you hit for 7th grade. So, by the time you get into 7th grade, you’re enrolled into the James Farmer scholars program. And the program met at uh the University of Mary Washington campus a couple of Saturdays out of the month. There would be school busses dropping students off from all these schools to UMW, we used to meet in Trinkle hall room 204 as a large group and then break throughout the rest of the hall for the rest of the day with our various grade levels. Uh, then we had a summer program, a weeklong summer program at UMW, so you know the James farmers scholars program was really the first program to introduce me to what It could eventually feel like being a college student as a first gen. KIMBERLY: that’s very cool, tha sounds like a very, cool experience for you. CHRISTOPHER: haha, thank you KIMBERLY: Awesome, um how would you describe Dr. Farmer and your like personal experience with him? CHRISTOPHER: A very kind soul. Uh, he was very cerebral, ugh had a very strong baritone voice, shake the ground, uh deep, philosophical, uh, really, uh still, a real advocate, uh for those who could not represent themselves. One of the things that I tend to forget about was that Dr. Farmer represented many different identities. Uh, of course, of course he was a black man, but he also had disabilities. And you know, Disability accommodations were kinda difficult to come by especially at the time when he was teaching at the university. Uh, but he was such a giving person, great laugh haha great laugh, just really open to any questions I had. You know, I think of him very fondly, because of the time that we shared, and, uh, you know he was, he was just so great. I mean I can’t really put into words that experience. You know, he was one of my first mentors. So, um, I have been privileged to be around a few um civil rights legends in my time, but he was the first. And definitely left a [inaudible] mark on me, to this day. KIMBERLY: yeah that’s amazing, um, do you have any favorite memories with him? or ones you can share with us. CHRISTOPHER: Sure, um, I remember, so in the May issue of the Mary Washington, university of Mary Washington magazine, um that issue is going to be dedicated to Dr. Farmer, and I’m a feature in it. And one of the pictures that you saw on Instagram that I posed back in November, it was my mom, Dr. Farmer and I at his 77th birthday party that was January 12, 1997, and I remember being there and being in that room with him with my mom and us talking about things and then reading him his birthday cards because at that point he was blind. So, my mom and I were reading him his birthday cards from people you know from local to across the country, which was really cool to see the type of love he was being shown. And then, being there with Mrs. Sloan, who was his caretaker at the time, um his daughter, his granddaughter, and then another fellow scholar, Dwain K., who is reverend Dwain K. and…Ms. Sloan recently shared this with m, that he said that if the rest of the scholars could turn out like Chris and Dwain, I would’ve left a great legacy. And when she told me that I, she told me that this past summer, I was just like wow. So, I carry that with me too. You know just times, just visiting. Uh, Walking around, uh his home and outside of his home and you know, just spending time with him inside the house having various conversations about his role in the civil rights movement and he would often say I just hope that people don’t forget, not only what I sacrificed, but the many people who were with my at core and the other organizations that sacrificed so that we could be in the space that were in today. So, I also remember those things as well. KIMBERLY: So, you sort of have, um you know, like layers of perspectives on Dr. Farmer as both a younger student and as a faculty emmber today. Do you find that some of these values, um, that he embodied you are instilling in your students today? Or, do you see sort of like reverberations of what you’re doing today at UMW? CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely, one of the things, when I got hired, when I came on board in September of 2017 as assistant director of the James farmer multicultural center. The first thing that Dr. Sandford wanted me to do was to expand, um the social justice piece of our office. Because, in the interview process I told her that I was the main person who was organizing…so she had attended a couple events that I had organized, so she had no idea that I was the one who organized them, so after, so when I organized the town hall leading after the Travon martin verdict, about 300 people showed up that day. Of those 300 people, um, Jordan Davis’ brother, Jordan Davis was another young African American man who was killed in Jacksonville for playing his music too loud by a white man. Um so, his brother was there, and also Oscar grant’s god mother, Oscar Grant was killed in San Francisco out in Oakland, on the Bart, Bart system is kinda like New York subway system, but it’s called Bart in Oakland. Uh, a cop killed him for no reason. So, when I organized the event I had no idea those people were going to be there. They just happened to live in the area. So, and uh, Dr. Stanford was there that day. I didn’t know that because there were so many people there. So when the interview process, one of the questions was “what is your experience in social justice work?” and I told her that I organized that event, I organized the voting town hall event on UMW’s campus, tha tshe came to hahah. Then, uh, I also marched on Washington for wokers rights and union rights with reverend Sharpton and reverend Jessie Jackson, um, I know reverend ben Chavis who was our keynote speaker this past, MLK, who was like “man good to see you” when he pulled up. And then, yeah just a few other people Julian Bond, Dianne Nash, and people like that. So, I;ve had the pleasure of being in their company and they knew who I was, and you know, it’s just, you know, not to be too long winded, so yes, so, the work that im doing in the office today, I pull from the knowledge base of Dr. Farmer, of people like merle Evers, Williams, dianna nash, Julian Bond, Dr. Ben Chavis you know people that I know, and one of the reasons why I am so passionate about the social justice work and organizing not only just the teachings that we do, but the social justice leadership summit, and the social justice fall break trip. All those are components to get students understand why we still have social justice issues in the country today, and giving them the tools to effectively address and respond to those social justice issues, to improve those issues so they no longer are social justice issues. So, we’re not here 100 ears from now talking about the same things. KIMBERLY: right, Right. So, we’ve talked a bit about Dr. Farmer’s legacy, like farmer legacy 2020 that initiative that got placed this year. But how do you think that is being represented here on campus and furthermore, as a faculty member, and just as a general person in our community, how do you think we can better represent his legacy and him as a person? CHRISTOPHER: Well I think that the campus has done a really good job of, you know, acknowledging Dr. Farmer’s legacy on campus with the Farmer legacy 2020 initiative this year. It’s been nice walking around and seeing his face adorned on the light posts around our beautiful campus. I hope those stay up. That’s my hope. I hope they are not taken down after 2020 ends, or whenever we come back to campus haha. It’s been nice that the campus has also paid attention to the James Farmer multicultural center, being that it’s our 30 year anniversary, the 20th anniversary of the center being named after Dr. Farmer, uh and the work that we’re doing in our office, so that’s also been wonderful. I think that one of the things that we can do, moving forward, is just continuing to support, uh, the initiatives and the things and the issues that Dr. Farmer would have supported if he was still with us. Not to sound biased, but, you know, having the social justice piece or component integrated into the curriculum of UMW. We have a social justice minor, which is fantastic. I am thinking even more. You know, having different cultural studies as minors, so you have African American studies as a minor, uh, or major at UMW, because many of the students have asked to have that implemented and integrated into the curriculum on campus. I think that would be a step in the right direction for the campus as a whole to continue the work of Dr. farmer. You know, he taught in the history and American studies department at UMW. Uh, so, that would be a way to carry out this legacy a little bit more. You know, just more representation in terms of faculty, you know hiring more faculty of color, you know I think that would come a long way in the name of Dr. Farmer. Cause he was one of the few who were on campus at the time he was teaching while at UMW. So I think that would be a great way to acknowledge what he brought, not only to our campus but to our society. And you know, just continue to support the other initiatives, whether eit be te office of disabilities resource office, our office, you know, I think its just important for students to realy have a balance. It’s not just enough to, I know people are just coming to college to get into their major, but before they get into their major, you know having an understanding of how our society has worked. And so, you know, having that knowledge base, because it could change lives, because I can say that the social justice and leadership summit has changed the direction of a few student’s past because of the sessions we provide at the summit. So, that, all that could be something that continues the legacy of Dr. Farmer. KIMBERLY: Yeah those are all amazing points. To, I don’t know, end on a high note. Do you have any funny antic dotes about Dr. Farmer? I know you said he had a good laugh so… CHRISTOPHER [LAUGHING]: so, let me see. I remember he had a great sense of humor, I cant recall any like jokes he said or anything he said, but he had a really good sense of humor and a wonderful hardy laugh. I can tell you that I cant recall anything off hand now, but I remember the former director, the first director of the James farmer multicultural center, Forest Parker. We were at the Dr. Farmer tribute, when we first, that first Monday when we returned to campus, when we had the whole chandler ballroom packed. Afterwards him and I talked and he mentioned that “yeah me, me and dr. Farmer” I think he used to call him Jim and and he said “yeah, we used to go out for drinks and you know, he was so funny, charismatic” and I think that’s a side people didn’t get to see that often but… yeah he was great. KIMBERLY: Yeah, I agree with that, I think he was definitely painted as more of like a stoic figure, so its nice to know that he did chuckle a bit. CHRISTOPHER [LAUGHING]: haha yeah, right. I think that because of the…I think…I think about John Lewis and Dr. Farmer and Dr. King, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkens, Dorothy Hight, all these people, all they sacrificed, but they still had great sense of humor. Despite all the trauma they still found sense of Joy, so I think there’s a lesson in that. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christopher Williams Oral History Interview Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qr6_hadbD68" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 History and American Studies Department University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource This oral history, featuring Christopher Williams, tells the story of a James Farmer Scholar, friendship, and mentorship. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-20 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Eastridge, Kimberly Williams, Christopher Forest, John Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/f4fa136258208888ccf5389c6179822f.png be4ba76be7d4d0ec46dd6d9d04eec94d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource SNCC, The New Aboltionist Subject The topic of the resource Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (US) African Americans--Civil Rights Civil Rights--Southern United States Description An account of the resource The New Abolitionists influenced a generation of activists struggling for civil rights and seeking to learn from the successes and failures of those who built the fantastically influential Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It is considered an indispensable study of the organization, of the 1960s, and of the process of social change. Includes a new introduction by the author. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howard, Zinn Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2132483100003326&indx=1&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2132483100003326&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&query=any%2Ccontains%2CSNCC%2F+The+New+Abolitionsists+&search_scope=Everything&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vid=UMW&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&highlight=true&queryTemp=SNCC%2F+The+New+Abolitionsists+&institution=01UMW&tab=everything&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=SNCC%2F%20The%20New%20Abolitionsists%20&dstmp=1587391964703 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Boston, Beacon Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 246 p. 22 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E185.61 .Z49 Bibliography Book https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/087528f229623bc62cbaf16c670dbe87.gif fdb8557fedbfa5dba2fe96799c5dc374 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Autobiography of Malcolm X Subject The topic of the resource X, Malcolm, 1925-1965 Black Muslims-Biogrpahy African Americans-Biography Description An account of the resource The Autobiography of Malcolm X was intended to be a true autobiography, with the name of Alex Haley appearing not at all or as a ghostwriter or as a mere contributor or assistant. However, with the assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem, NY on February 21, 1965 it became necessary to reveal the important role of Alex Haley in creating this book. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Malcolm X Haley, Alex Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2131247830003326&indx=2&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2131247830003326&recIdxs=1&elementId=1&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&frbrSourceidDisplay=01UMW_ALMA&frbrIssnDisplay=&dscnt=0&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&frbrRecordsSource=Primo+Local&mode=Basic&vid=UMW&lastPag=&rfnGrp=frbr&frbrJtitleDisplay=&tab=everything&searchCDI=&dstmp=1587392693554&frbg=859871393&ac=O3%3D113%26O6%3D25%26O9%3D1%26&lastPagIndx=1&frbrSrt=date&frbrEissnDisplay=&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&tb=t&fctV=859871393&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&cs=frb&srt=rank&fctN=facet_frbrgroupid&vl(freeText0)=the%20autobiography%20of%20malcolm%20x%201965&dum=true Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, Grove Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource xvi, 455 p. illus., ports. 24 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E185.97.L5 A3 Bibliography Book https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/8db8c14ca548e2b1a3f0a71d5c643a18.jpg dd4767d76e686e689747dfa2671ffe90 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Right Movement Subject The topic of the resource African Americans-Civil Rights-History-20th Century Civil Rights Movement-United States-History-20th Century Description An account of the resource In this singe volume, Robert Weisbrot gives a vivid, admirably balanced history of the civil rights movement--from its rise with the Brown decision and the Montgomery bus boycott in the 1950s, through the dramatic sit-ins, freedom rides, marches, and great legislative gains in the 1960s, to its decline in the urban riots, disputes over leadership, and affirmative action in the late 1960s and 1970s. Black-and-white photos. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Weisbrot, Robert Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2129324530003326&indx=5&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2129324530003326&recIdxs=4&elementId=4&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=2&frbg=&&dscnt=0&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&tb=t&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&mode=Basic&vid=UMW&tab=everything&srt=rank&searchCDI=&vl(freeText0)=freedom%20bound&dum=true&dstmp=1587393145412 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York : Norton Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource xv, 350 p. : ill., map ; 24 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E185.61 .W394 1990 Bibliography Book https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/108f2bf373842c977f651bcc46d98d5c.jpg 714f3c4377d178efd230dae191c479d2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fire In The Streets: America in The 1960's Subject The topic of the resource Radicalism- United States-Case Studies Civil Rights-United States-Case Studies United States-Social Conditions-1960-Case Studies Description An account of the resource The most ambitious account of the disruptive decade yet--which encompasses almost all of the furor & conveys almost none of the excitement. Viorst has opted for a chronological scheme, keyed to salient figures, that both spotlights & questions the decade's events: John Lewis (Sitting In '60); James Farmer (Freedom Riding '61); Tom Hayden (Manifesto Writing '62), Bayard Rustin (Marching to Washington '63); Joseph Rauh Jr. (Organizing Mississippi '64); Clark Kerr (Igniting Berkeley '64); Paul Williams (Exploding Watts '65); Stokely Carmichael (Blackening Power '66); Allard Loewenstein (Dumping Johnson '67); Jerry Rubin (Assaulting Chicago '68) & two unknowns representing the Weathermen ('69) & Kent State ('70). On the plus side, almost every development is somehow fitted in & Viorst does attempt a balanced assessment of such controversial personalities as Rustin, Carmichael & Martin Luther King. (His introductory chapter on 'the other leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, community-organizer--& sleeping car porter--E.D. Nixon, is perhaps his best). On the debit side, he's a pappy, colorless writer with no knack for portraying individuals. His sections on Allen Ginsberg & Jerry Rubin are obtuse & humorless. Seldom do we get a sense of the decade's intense moral concern. But in the absence of a bona fide history of even the civil rights movement, this will do to clue in latecomers & refresh fading memories Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Viorst, Milton Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2139189190003326&indx=2&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2139189190003326&recIdxs=1&elementId=1&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&frbg=&&dscnt=0&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&tb=t&vid=UMW&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&mode=Basic&srt=rank&tab=everything&searchCDI=&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=fire%20in%20the%20streets&dstmp=1587393639483 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York : Simon and Schuster Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1979 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 591 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HN90.R3 V56 Bibliography Book