Gloria Xifaras Clark Papers

Interview conducted October 17, 2001 with Chude Pamela Allen in San Francisco, California. Chude Pamela Allen was born into an Episcopal family in eastern Pennsylvania. Though her parents were Republicans, their Christian ideology contributed to Allen's liberal foundation, as did exposure to children from more progressive families in school. Allen went to Spellman College, where she became politically active in her freshman year, and was recruited to volunteer for Freedom Summer by SNCC. She trained in Oxford, OH before being sent to Holly Springs, MS in 1964, where Allen became a teacher at the Freedom school in Holly Springs. During the summer, Allen encountered both racial violence and sexism. After Freedom Summer, Allen continued her political activism as part of the secular Left. She became active in the women's liberation movement in the mid-1960s and moved to San Francisco, CA in 1968 where she would organize women's liberation groups. Allen worked for The Guardian and continued her activism throughout the 1970s. Despite a decline in her political activity in the early 80s, Allen began writing about her experiences as a volunteer during Civil Rights Movement. She helped organize the 25th anniversary reunion for Freedom Summer in 1989, as well as the 30th anniversary reunion in 1994. Allen has since then worked to help volunteers of the Movement cope with any trauma they may have endured.

Interview conducted January 16, 2003 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Alva Beck was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi. After graduating high school, Beck attended Rust College and began volunteering for the advancement of civil rights in the area of voter registration. He met many of the major figures in the Civil Rights Movement, Stokely Carmichael among them. Beck was involved in protesting the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida. After graduating from Rust College with a B.S. degree in business administration, Beck went to work as an investment analyst in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; he would later move to Cincinnati, Ohio and continue expanding his business ventures. Beck moved back to Holly Springs to care for his mother.

David Caldwell was born in Lavaca, Arkansas where he stayed and worked on his uncle's farm, and attended segregated schools. He dropped out of school and worked in a number of jobs, including for a furrier. Caldwell joined the military and served in Japan during and after World War II. He also served in Korea and Germany. After being discharged from the Army, he came to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where he first experienced racist intimidation. He became involved with the civil rights workers in Holly Springs during the summer of 1964.

Ron Carver was born in 1946 in Boston and was in high school when he became aware of the struggle for civil rights going on in Mississippi. After graduation, he decided to get involved and he volunteered as an assistant to Julian Bond in the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) office in Atlanta, Georgia. At the end of the summer, he decided to go to Mississippi. Carver canvassed from door to door in black communities, working primarily in North Mississippi, assisting black citizens in registering to vote, organizing mass meetings, identifying issues deemed important by local people, recruiting for the Freedom Democratic Party, taking part in Freedom Days, and other civil rights activities. Carver left Mississippi to matriculate as a freshman at Columbia University.

Interview conducted December 14, 1995 in Blue Mountain, Mississippi, at Cobb's home. She discusses growing up during the civil rights movement, memories of Freedom Summer, and the battle over school integration. She also discusses her introduction to and continued involvement in civil rights activism.

Interview conducted on December 12, 1995 in Ripley, Mississippi, at the home of Gwendolyn Colom. He discusses coming of age during the civil rights movement and how he came to civil rights activism. In particular, he locates specific activist efforts, including integrating the Ripley Theatre and swimming pool. Colom discusses his continued involvement in activism and how it changed over time through the 1970s.

Robert Fullilove was an activist in SNCC in 1964 and 1965. Born into a middle class African American family, he attended college at Colgate University where he was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement. During his time in SNCC he travelled to several areas in Mississippi including Jackson, Marshall County, and DeSoto County where he spearheaded Freedom Day events to register voters. He developed close relationships with many of the activists of the time including Stokely Carmichael and Ivanhoe Donaldson. He later became a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University and worked as Associate Dean of Community and Minority Affairs.

Interview conducted on November 3, 2000. Reverend J. Q. C. "Alphabet" James was a Methodist minister and civil rights leader in Ripley, Tippah County, Mississippi from 1962 to 1968. Born in Jasper County, Mississippi, Reverend James was a graduate of Rust College and pastored churches in Grenada, Ripley, Columbus, and Greenwood. As pastor of St. Paul's Church in Ripley, James was a leader in the integration of the local hospital, schools, and restaurants. He also facilitated NAACP and civil rights movement meetings in Ripley, and he was also present at the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party meeting at Antioch Baptist Church in Blue Mountain the night before it was burned.

Interview conducted on October 29, 2000. Howard Jeffries was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on January 16, 1943. Jeffries was active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Initially, attending nightly meetings at the Freedom House in Holly Springs, Mr. Jeffries eventually participated in voter registration and school integration drives and other civil rights events including the March on Washington, the James Meredith March, and events that occurred during the Selma to Montgomery marches. While he was unharmed during the marches, Mr. Jeffries experienced an aggressive confrontation with a police officer in Senatobia, Mississippi. Other experiences with SNCC include work at field offices in Mississippi, and Alabama, and the print shop in Atlanta, Georgia. After SNCC disbanded, Jeffries relocated to Memphis, Tennessee.

David E. Kendall was born in 1944 in Camp Atterbury, Indiana. He was influenced by his Quaker upbringing and a desire for adventure to get involved in the civil rights movement. Kendall was trained by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Oxford, Ohio to participate in Freedom Summer. His roommate, Andrew Goodman, was killed while working in Mississippi. Before leaving for Mississippi, Kendall lobbied Congress in Washington, D.C. to provide more federal marshals to protect the civil rights advocates. Originally assigned to McComb, Mississippi, Kendall ultimately ended up in Holly Springs, Mississippi to register voters. Kendall supported and organized groups of African Americans to register to vote on Freedom Days. He worked primarily with Ivanhoe Donaldson and Cleveland Sellers. Kendall attended the Atlantic City Convention as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation in 1964. He then returned to Indiana, earned a law degree, and argued civil rights cases. He developed a relationship with President Bill and Hillary Clinton and later served as their attorney during the Whitewater case.

Interview conducted September 19, 2003 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Kunstler-Goldman was born in Tennessee and raised in New York, the daughter of prominent civil rights attorney, William Kunstler. Kunstler-Goldman recognized racial injustice from an early age, and decided in the early 1960s to contribute to Mississippi's civil rights struggle. She worked on voter registration and was a member of SNCC. She also participated in Mississippi Freedom Summer. Kunstler-Goldman also discusses her continued involvement in activism after the 1960s era of the civil right movement.

William A. McMillan was born in Winnabow, North Carolina in 1920. He attended segregated schools and recieved a scholarship to attend Johnson C. Smith University with the aspiration of becoming a doctor. He later decided on the field of the social sciences, graduating in 1942. He worked in Detroit, and Philadelphia before being drafted into the military where he spent 2 years during World War II. He went on to complete a master's degree at University of Pennsylvania, and then a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Psychology and History. He then taught at Wiley College in Texas. McMillan became president of Rust College in 1967.

Arvern Moore was born in Byhalia, Marshall County, Mississippi in 1936. He attended high school in Memphis, earned his college degree, and taught in Mississippi's black public schools. He was active in direct civil rights actions. When the federal government began funding Head Start, Moore was one of the leaders who fought for and grew the Head Start Program. He was involved in the NAACP, SNCC, COFO, the United League, Rust College, and cotton farming.

U.Z. Nunnally was born in 1945 and grew up in rural Mississippi. His civil rights activities took him out of rural Mississippi and around the southeast as well as to California and China. He grew up on a plantation, one of seven children in a sharecropping family. In high school he became involved in civil rights advocacy when Freedom Riders lived in his town. He spent time in COFO's Freedom House, in Freedom School, door-to-door canvassing for voter registration, was arrested many times for his activities, filed a lawsuit to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, and at the time of this interview was looking forward to retirement as one of San Francisco's bus drivers.

Interview conducted December 14, 1995 with Amos and Sammie Lee Rogers. This interview discerns some of the unique characteristics of the north Mississippi civil rights movement, particularly in voting and voter registration drives. The Rogers also discuss school integration in Ripley, Mississippi, and the church as a site of mass meetings.

Interview conducted April 28, 2001 in Takoma Park, Maryland, at Larry Rubin's home. Larry Rubin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A civil rights and social justice activist, Rubin worked in Albany, Georgia, and then in north Mississippi with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He describes his early activism, the importance of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service elections to the course of the movement in North Mississippi. He also describes police harassment in Holly Springs and the development of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

Ernestine Evans Scott was born in Benton County in 1947 to a land-owning African American family. She attended Old Salem School, and then Rust College high school and became active in civil rights work during the 1960s. She was recruited to attend a COFO meeting and began working on voter registration. Scott attended a Freedom School and her family hosted activists during Freedom Summer. In January 1965, Scott was involved in the production of the play Seeds of Freedom, and traveled to New York City for performances.

William Scott was on faculty at Ole Miss at the time of this interview, which describes his experiences as a black man, growing up in Mississippi. He paints a verbal picture of his education, his innate tendency to question why race relations were as they were in Mississippi, the many effects from Brown v. Board, sharecropping, racism, classism, civil rights activism, Freedom Summer 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, student activism at Rust College, his education, voter registration, desegregation of public schools, NAACP, and many of the leaders of the civil rights movement.

Interview conducted September 2, 2003 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Cleveland Sellers was born in 1944 in rural Denmark, South Carolina. Sellers organized a college chapter of the NAACP which then became instrumental in helping the Freedom Riders. He later attended Howard University and joined the SNCC, which led to his work in Holly Springs, Mississippi with the Mississippi Freedom Project.

Laura Seymour grew up in Blue Mountain on her grandparents' farm in Tippah County, Mississippi. Seymour was active in the civil rights movement in North Mississippi and Atlanta. She began advocating when she was a teenager in high school and continued doing so until the birth of her children. Seymour's activities included voter registration, protest marches, sit-ins, integrating public accommodations, and boycotting. She was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for marching without a permit, and she was held for several days in the Jackson Fairgrounds.

Frank Smith was born September 17, 1942 and raised in Newnan, Georgia. A Morehouse College Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader, Smith came to Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1962 as a volunteer and stayed in Mississippi for six years as field secretary. He worked on voter registration and challenged police brutality, in addition he organized the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union to strike for better wages. Smith went on to serve on the District of Columbia City Council, and as founding Executive Director of African American Civil War Memorial and Museum.

Interview conducted December 13, 1995 in Ripley, Mississippi at F.L. Spight's home. F.L. Spight was born in Ripley, Mississippi in 1919 and worked to bring expanded educational opportunities for African Americans to the area. He was the first principal of Ripley Colored School which later became Tippah County High School. He discusses education, Ripley Colored School, integration of schools, racial intimidation, church burning and the Ku Klux Klan. He further discusses his experience with civil rights workers from out of state, Freedom Riders, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Interview conducted December 11, 1995 with Ellie and Eugene Steward in Benton County, Mississippi, at the home of Genevera Reaves. Ellie B. Steward was born in Benton County in 1931. She is an educator and former director of Head Start. She was actively involved in the struggle for civil rights during the 1960s, housing out-of-state volunteers, and participating in meetings and efforts to achieve fair and equal treatment in education and public life. Her husband, Eugene Steward is a farmer, restaurant worker, and custodian, and also participated in civil rights efforts, which resulted in losing his job as school custodian due to his participation and support of a school boycott. The conversation also includes Genevera Reaves, in whose home it was recorded.

Marjorie Taylor is an elementary school teacher on Long Island, New York who was recruited by the National Federation of Teachers to come to Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964. Taylor stayed through 1965, working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and teaching local people in a Freedom School.

Brookline, Mass. Trimble was born January 8, 1945, the son of self-proclaimed socialists. As a child, his parents' radical political involvement encouraged his own involvement in civil rights activism later. He worked on voter registration in Holly Springs, Mississippi during Freedom Summer. He describes his experiences of the north Mississippi theatre of the movement.