Oral history event will explore the civil rights movement

Published: February 1, 2010

By Sarah Brown

CLEMSON — Clemson’s Pan African Studies program and the history department will celebrate Black History Month with “Talking Through History: Oral History and the Civil Rights Movement” on Thursday. All events are free and open to the public.

Kicking off the day’s activities will be Ruth Ann Butler, founder of the Greenville Cultural Exchange Center; Lottie Gibson, member of the Greenville County Council; and Leola Robinson-Simpson, former head of Greenville’s chapter of the NAACP. This group will lead “Local History: Greenville and the Civil Rights Movement,” a discussion focusing on civil rights in our immediate area. The discussion begins at 10 a.m. in the Self Auditorium of the Strom Thurmond Institute.

“Talking Through History” continues with “How to Conduct an Oral History,” a workshop led by Converse College history professor Melissa Walker. Walker’s expertise in oral history led to her 2007 book “Southern Farmers and Their Stories,” which received a prestigious Outstanding Academic Title Award from “Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries” for its overall excellence in scholarship and value to undergraduate students.

Walker is the first faculty member at Converse College to hold the George Dean Johnson Jr. chair in history. Her workshop takes place at 1:30 p.m. in room 132 of the Fluor Daniel Building.

“Oral History and the Civil Rights Movement,” a roundtable discussion led by Clemson professor and director of Pan African Studies Abel Bartley, professor Irvin Winsboro of Florida Gulf Coast University and professor Paul Ortiz of the University of Florida, takes place at 3:30 p.m. in the Strom Thurmond Institute. Bartley, a specialist in race, politics and the civil rights movement, has taught at Clemson since 2004.

The event concludes with the 2010 Pan African Studies Black History Month Lecture “Remaking History: The Movement in the American Mind in the Age of Obama” presented by professor Hasan Jeffries of Ohio State University. Discussing the widening of origins, evolution and outcomes of the civil rights movement and public understandings of these movement elements since the election of Barack Obama, Jeffries will explore the causes and consequences of misinterpretations about the civil rights movement. Jeffries’ keynote address will be at 7 p.m. in the Self Auditorium of the Strom Thurmond Institute.

Jeffries specializes in 20th century African-American history and has a special interest in the civil rights and black power movements. He is the author of “Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt,” which details how local people and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organizers ushered in the black power era by transforming rural Lowndes County, Ala., from a citadel of violent white supremacy into the center of Southern black militancy by creating the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an all-black, independent, political party that was the original Black Panther Party.

The events are co-sponsored by Clemson’s Pan African Studies program, chief diversity officer, Office of Access and Equity, department of history and the Humanities Advancement Board.

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