Oral History

Jesse Harris, 1940-2015

In Community Organizing, Obituaries, Oral History, Parchman on 31 January 2015 with Comments Off on Jesse Harris, 1940-2015

Jesse Harris was one of the many Riders from Jackson, Mississippi, a newcomer to the movement who got his first education in nonviolence while locked up in Parchman with the likes of James Farmer, John Lewis and Bernard Lafayette. Civil Rights would become his life for the next ten years. After the Rides, Jesse worked […]

From the Holocaust to the Freedom Rides

In Oral History, Riders on the Rides on 7 May 2011 with 2 comments

At least three of the Freedom Riders arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961 had managed to survive or escape the Holocaust as children. Alex Weiss (above) was born in Vienna, Austria, in May 1936, and emigrated with parents and sister in 1940. In May 1940 they arrested my father. There was one line that said, […]

How Stokely Carmichael Betrayed the Movement

In Oral History on 21 May 2010 tagged Black Power, James Lawson, March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael with 3 comments

Stokely Carmichael’s cry for Black Power in ’66 was a cry of frustration. It did not have planning behind it, and in some ways I feel Stokely — whom I loved, whom I liked a good bit personally in 1960 when I first met him — betrayed the movement. That’s Rev. James Lawson on the […]