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Guide to the KZSU Project South Interviews
SC0066
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Table of contents
Call Number: SC0066
Creator:
KZSU (Radio station: Stanford, Calif.)
Creator:
Stanford University. Institute of American History
Title: KZSU Project South interviews
Dates: 1965
Physical Description:
7 Linear feet
Language(s): The materials are in English.
Repository:
Dept. of Special Collections & University Archives.
Stanford University Libraries.
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Email: speccollref@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-1022
URL: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html
Custodial History
Gift of Richard Gillam and KZSU, 1969.
The materials are open for research use.
Copyright transferred to Stanford University. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services
Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
KZSU Project South Interviews (SC0066). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
During the summer of 1965, eight students from Stanford University spent ten weeks in the southern states tape-recording information
on the civil rights movement. The eight interviewers -- Mary Kay Becker, Mark Dalrymple, Roger Dankert, Richard Gillam, James
McRae, Penny Niland, Jon Roise, and Julie Wells -- were sponsored by KZSU, Stanford's student radio station, and their original
intent was to gather material suitable for rebroadcasting in the form of radio programs. Much attention was focused on white
civil rights workers, although a great deal of other documentation relevant to black history was also obtained: the interviewers
visited over fifty civil rights projects in six states (see appendix) and secured three hundred and thirty hours of recordings,
including over two hundred hours of personal interviews. In addition to interviewing members of various, well-known civil
rights groups -- the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC or `Snick') -- the student interviewers also recorded the formal and the informal remarks of
those working with smaller, independent civil rights projects, of local blacks associated with the civil rights movement,
and of many others including Ku Klux Klansmen and Southerners connected with the Sheriff's Department of Clay County, Mississippi.
The interviewers, in addition, spoke with many white volunteers who participated in Snick's `Washington Lobby' (aimed at unseating
the all-white Mississippi Congressional Delegation) but who did not actually go south.
Several of the two-man interview teams recorded parts of the Jackson, Bougalusa, Greensboro, Crawfordsville, and West Point
demonstrations, and also gathered various other action tapes of civil rights workers canvassing voters, conducting freedom
schools, or participating in demonstrations. Finally, the interviewers recorded many mass meetings and gathered much material
on the orientation sessions of MFDP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and of SCLC in Atlanta, Georgia. All of these original tape
recordings are now housed in the Library of Recorded Sound, Stanford, California.
The following pages contain transcripts of the majority of recordings mentioned above. It is hoped that these volumes will
rescue from obscurity a body of information which we believe can be of great use both to scholars and to laymen interested
in the dramatic history of the civil rights movement during the past decade. This material may prove to be especially valuable
because it concerns a transitional period between the first `freedom summer' of 1964, the high tide of civil rights, and the
`Meredith March of 1966 during which Stokely Carmichael first voiced the compelling cry of `Black Power'. In fact, at least
one essay and a documentary history based on these recordings are already in progress, and it is expected that more will soon
follow.
Many of the interviewees are identified by name on the first page of the transcripts which follow. Because of the long time
which has already elapsed since the interviews were recorded, however, it is requested that these names not be used in print
unless the written consent of the interviewees concerned is first obtained.
In closing, we would like to express our thanks to the Stanford Institute of American History and to the Stanford Library
for financial support which made possible the transcription of the original recordings. We would also like to thank Mrs. Betty
Eldon of the Institute of American History who accepted the added burden of paperwork connected with this transcription project
with tolerance and good humor. Finally, we acknowledge a particular debt to Professor George Knoles for his unfailing encouragement
and support.
Richard Gillam
James D. McRae
Palo Alto
January 1969
This collection contains transcribed meetings and interviews with Civil Rights workers in the South recorded by several Stanford
students affiliated with the campus radio station KZSU during the summer of 1965. The project was sponsored by the Institute
of American History at Stanford. The collection includes information relating to black history; interviews of members of the
Congress of Racial Equality, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; transcripts of formal and informal remarks of persons working with smaller,
independent civil rights projects, of local blacks associated with the civil rights movement, and other people, including
Ku Klux Klansmen; transcribed action tapes of civil rights workers canvassing voters, conducting freedom schools, or participating
in demonstration; speeches by and/or interviews with Ralph David Abernathy, Charles Evers, James Farmer, Martin Luther King,
Jr., and Hosea Williams; and a Ku Klux Klan meeting and speech made by Robert Sheldon, its Imperial Wizard.
Abernathy, Ralph,, 1926-1990.
Congress of Racial Equality.
Evers, Charles, 1922-
Farmer, James.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
KZSU (Radio station: Stanford, Calif.)
McDaniel, Edward L., 1934-2011.
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Shelton, Robert M., 1929-2003.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.).
Williams, Hosea.
Civil rights--United States.
Alabama - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Demopolis
- Greensboro
- Greenville
- Luverne
- Marion
- Midway
- Montgomery
- Selma (also the SNCC project located there)
Arkansas - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
- Little Rock - state headquarters
Georgia - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Atlanta - Southern headquarters of SCLC & SNCC
- Crawfordville
- Macon
Louisiana - Congress of Racial Equality
- Baton Rouge - state headquarters
- Bogalusa
- Clinton
- Ferriday
- Greensburg
- Homer
- Jonesboro
- Minden
- Monroe
- New Orleans project
- New Roads
- Plaquemine - evaluation session
- Shreveport
- Southern Regional CORE office
- St. Francisville
- Tallulah
- Waveland, Miss. - orientation
Mississippi - Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Batesville
- Beasley
- Belzoni
- Biloxi
- Canton
- Clarksdale
- Cleveland
- Greenville
- Greenwood
- Hattiesburg - orientation
- Holly Springs
- Indianola
- Jackson - state headquarters
- Laurel
- McComb
- Mileston
- Mt. Beulah
- Natchez
- Phela
- Philadelphia
- Quitman
- Ruleville
- Shaw
- Vicksburg
- West Point
- Whites
South Carolina - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Columbia
- Orangeburg