noa_sohpcr_r-0301 r-0301 sohpcr noa yes Oral history interview with MaVynee Betsch, November 22, 2002 Betsch, MaVynee, 1935-2005 Taylor, Kieran Walsh African American environmentalists--Florida--American Beach African Americans--Florida--Jacksonville--Social life and customs African Americans--Florida--Jacksonville--Social conditions Sopranos (Singers) Betsch, MaVynee, 1935-2005 Lewis, A. L. (Abraham Lincoln), 1865-1947 Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch removed the letter R from her first name to protest what she saw as Ronald Reagan's disregard for the environment and expunged her middle name, Elizabeth, when she learned that Queen Elizabeth I nurtured the British slave trade. In this interview, she describes her childhood in the 1930s and 1940s in Jacksonville, Florida, a childhood spent in a vibrant black community peopled by pioneering professionals who created institutions to support one another. She remembers her travels in Europe after graduating from Oberlin College in the mid-1950s. And she describes the decline of the African American neighborhood of her youth, a stronghold of economic and cultural independence divided and destroyed by an interstate and chain stores. But if Jacksonville reveals the predatory relationship between development and the black community, Betsch's life in the resort founded by her great-grandfather, American Beach, represents the potential for black Americans in a changing South. The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata. [Chapel Hill, N.C.] : University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. Southern Oral History Program University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library Oral histories of the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)) 2007 Transcripts Sound recordings Oral histories http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/R-0301/menu.html Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 116 kilobytes, 104 megabytes. Mode of access: World Wide Web. System requirements: Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player. MP3 format / ca. 104 MB, 00:56:48 Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 2, 2008). Interview participants: MaVynee Betsch, interviewee; Kieran Taylor, interviewer. Duration: 00:56:48. This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South. Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection. 2002-11-22 Jacksonville (Fla.) Duval County (Fla.) 20090729 154215