Oral history.; Interviews conducted on May 11 and 12, 1992 with James C. Simpson (1930-1994). Simpson was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives from Harrison County in 1964. He served six more consecutive terms covering more than 20...
Oral history.; Miss Eleanor Sinclair was born and reared in Pass Christian, Mississippi. She completed the eighth grade, which was the highest grade a black student could complete in public schools at Pass Christian at that time. She worked at...
Oral history.; Two interviews conducted on April 8 and 13, 1982 with Mr. E. Hammond Smith at his home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Smith was born on December 17, 1894 in Bladen Springs, Alabama. His family moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and...
Oral history.; Interview conducted on May 14, 1996 with Frances Thornton Smith (born 1916). In 1971, the year that elementary schools were integrated, Smith volunteered to teach at Fair Elementary School, an African-American school in Pascagoula,...
Oral history.; Mr. Edward Sternberg was born on October 22, 1901, in Louisville, Kentucky. He was educated in private schools and graduated from Grady School, Louisville, in June 1915. He worked in a variety of jobs as a boy and began his first...
Oral history.; Interview conducted on March 23, 1977 with Mr. Jimmy Swan. Swan was born in Cullman County, Alabama. He ran away from home when he was thirteen or fourteen and ended up in Wayne County, Mississippi. Swan sang in nightclubs and...
Oral history.; Mrs. Leila Lyle Wilkinson Underhill was born in Shelby, Mississippi, on July 29, 1919. She grew up during the Great Depression and remembers the flood of 1927. During World War II, Mrs. Underhill's brother was killed. Mrs....
Oral history.; Mrs. Clara Griffin Watson was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 15, 1933. During the 1960s, Mrs. Watson helped the COFO workers in Mississippi, marched on the Federal Building, and housed some of the civil rights activists in...
Oral history.; Mr. Wesley C. Webb was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on April 2, 1938. After his graduation from high school, Mr. Webb entered the Navy, boarding the U.S.S. Helena for Japan. For two years and nine months, Mr. Webb served in the...
Oral history.; Mr. Ray William (Buck) Wells was born August 21, 1916, on a dairy farm three-fourths of a mile southwest of Mississippi Normal College (now The University of Southern Mississippi). Sometime around 1920 or 1921 he moved into...
Oral history.; Mr. Roberts Wilson Jr. was born July 6, 1941, in Rosedale, Mississippi. After attending both Vanderbilt University and the University of Mississippi, he went to Washington. D.C., during the mid 1960s where he worked in the office of...
Oral history.; Dr. Forest Kent Wyatt was born on May 27, 1934, in Berea, Kentucky. He graduated from Delta State College (now Delta State University) with a double degree in mathematics and health, physical education, and recreation. He then began...
Oral history.; Mrs. Sarah Harris Ruffin was born on April 15, 1914. Her parents came to Hattiesburg in the early 1900s. When young, Mrs. Ruffin did domestic and warehouse work. In 1949, she began working at the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital as a nurse's...
Oral history.; Interview conducted on March 26, 1977 with William Joel Blass (born 1917). As a lawyer in 1952, he successfully prosecuted the Boyce Holleman case by proving that voter fraud had kept Holleman from winning. Beginning in 1953, he...
Oral history.; Interview conducted on May 8, 1971 with the Honorable Ross Robert Barnett in Jackson, Mississippi. Barnett was born on January 22, 1898 in Leake County, Mississippi. He graduated with his B.A. from Mississippi College in 1924. In...
Oral history.; Interview conducted on July 22, 1981 with Mr. Charlie Parker at his home in Laurel, Mississippi. Parker was born in the early 1890s in Enterprise, Mississippi. After his family moved to Laurel around the turn of the century, Parker...
Oral history.; Two interviews conducted on April 1, 1993 and January 6, 1995 with Ariel Barnes (born 1917). Mrs. Barnes was born in Forest, Mississippi, but moved to Hattiesburg shortly after. She attended Alcorn University, where she earned a...
Oral history.; Two interviews conducted on August 23 and October 30, 1974 with Mr. Joe Reyer at his home in Poplarville, Mississippi. Reyer was born in 1893 in Pearl River County, Mississippi. He attended an agricultural high school, now Pearl...
Oral history.; Dr. John Paul Quon was born June 11, 1942, in Moorhead, Mississippi. His parents emigrated from China to Mississippi to participate in a family-owned grocery store. Dr. Quon was in the first public school class in Mississippi that...
Oral history.; Mr. Lee Owens, Jr. was born on May 7, 1921, in Natchez, Mississippi. As a child, Mr. Owens worked in a cotton field for half a day while attending school for half a day. Because his parents could not afford to send him to school, he...