Oral History

Joan Mulholland: The Dean of Women Made Me Call Mom

In Oral History on 24 April 2008 tagged sit-ins with 3 comments

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was a freshman at Duke in the spring of 1960, and was actively involved in the local sit-in movement, something that she hadn’t shared with her parents until the university’s Dean of Women got involved. In Durham in 1960, we picketed pretty regularly, almost daily, and I was arrested twice at sit-ins. […]

Kredelle Petway: Correcting the Insurance Man

In Oral History on 18 April 2008 tagged childhood with Comments Off on Kredelle Petway: Correcting the Insurance Man

Several of the black Freedom Riders who grew up in the south told me similar stories about childhood protests. These were usually small incidents, unplanned — drinking from a white water fountain, sitting in a white seat on a bus — with little if any repercussions. In the book, Hank Thomas, who grew up in […]

Hank Thomas: My First Arrest

In Oral History on 18 April 2008 tagged childhood, sit-ins with 6 comments

Like several black Freedom Riders who grew up in the south, Hank Thomas began protesting the status quo as a child. “Rebellion came natural to me,” he says in Breach of Peace, and goes to recount his earliest efforts, growing up in St. Augustine, FL. At around 9 or 10 he corrected the white insurance […]