By Dan Nonte, University Relations
University Libraries at UNCG have unveiled a web site with transcripts of interviews documenting the civil rights movement in Greensboro and Guilford County.
The Greensboro VOICES web site – http://library.uncg.edu/greensborovoices – is a collaborative effort of the Greensboro Public Library and University Libraries. About 50 transcripts are on the site with more on the way.
The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro made the project possible with an initial grant of $10,000 and recently announced an additional grant of $7,500.
“The history of the civil rights movement is an integral part of Greensboro’s heritage. The Community Foundation is honored to play a role in the preservation of these priceless materials,” said Walker Sanders, president of the foundation.
More than 100 interviews were conducted between the late 1970s and the early 1990s by the Greensboro Public Library and the UNCG Department of History. The original interviews are housed in University Archives & Manuscripts at UNCG.
Interviewees talk about events that occurred between the early 1950s and the early 1980s. They describe specific sit-ins, marches and demonstrations, including the famous Woolworth’s sit-in that started Feb. 1, 1960. Other prominent topics include school desegregation, disturbances at Dudley High School, activities at North Carolina A&T State University, and the Klan-Nazi shooting on Nov. 3, 1979.
“These kinds of projects are particularly valuable because the civil rights movement was made by local people in communities all over the South,” said Chuck Bolton, chairman of UNCG’s Department of History, who worked on a similar oral history project when he was at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“The only way to truly understand these local struggles of the African-American freedom movement is to talk with the people who were involved. The library’s digital civil rights oral history project will give people all over the world a clearer picture of this area’s civil rights movement.”
The interviews also document the activities of various civic and activist organizations, including the Greensboro Community Fellowship, Greensboro Citizens Association, Greensboro Men’s Club, Chamber of Commerce, Greensboro Jaycees, NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Greensboro YWCA. The interviews are currently housed in the UNCG University Archives & Manuscripts.
The web site was created by UNCG employees Anders Selhorst, special projects archivist; Betty Carter, university archivist; Cat McDowell, digital projects coordinator; Justin R. Ervin, database consultant; Richard Cox, digital technology consultant; and Jeff Smith, archives intern.
Assistance was provided by Helen Snow, North Carolina librarian at the Greensboro Public Library.
The following people have contributed to the project by interviewing, transcribing, editing or reformatting the interviews: Michael Adams, Kathleen Carter, Sherry Chavis, Kevin Costello, Mark Dorosin, Cathy Hester, Kathleen Hoke, Glen Jordan, William Link, Jody McKay, Jan Pegram, Eugene Pfaff, Robin Welborn and Mark Wingerter.
For more information about the project, contact University Archives & Manuscripts at (336) 334-4045.
