- Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project
- Title:
- Worth W. Long oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Jackson, Mississippi, 2015 December 06
- Contributor to Resource:
- Long, Worth W., interviewee
Crosby, Emilye, interviewer
Bishop, John Melville, videographer
Civil Rights History Project (U.S.) - Date of Original:
- 2015
- Subject:
- African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Freedom Singers (SNCC)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
Selma to Montgomery Rights March (1965 : Selma, Ala.)
African American civil rights workers--Interviews
Civil rights demonstrations--Arkansas--Little Rock
Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama--Montgomery
Civil rights movements--Alabama
Civil rights movements--Arkansas
Civil rights movements--Mississippi
Civil rights movements--North Carolina
Civil rights movements--United States
Civil rights movements--United States--Songs and music
College integration--Arkansas
Folk music festivals--Mississippi--Greenwood
Folk music festivals--Political aspects--United States
Folklorists--United States--Interviews
Little Rock (Ark.)--Race relations - Location:
- United States, 39.76, -98.5
United States, Alabama, 32.75041, -86.75026
United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Montgomery, 32.36681, -86.29997
United States, Arkansas, 34.75037, -92.50044
United States, Arkansas, Pulaski County, Little Rock, 34.74648, -92.28959
United States, Mississippi, 32.75041, -89.75036
United States, Mississippi, Hinds County, Jackson, 32.29876, -90.18481
United States, Mississippi, Leflore County, Greenwood, 33.51623, -90.17953
United States, North Carolina, 35.50069, -80.00032 - Medium:
- personal narratives
interviews
oral histories (literary genre)
video recordings (physical artifacts) - Type:
- MovingImage
- Description:
- Worth W. Long largely discusses experiences growing up in a household strongly connected to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Long discusses churches as important aspects of community building and as meeting spaces for the African American civil rights activists. He recalls personal experiences participating in protest and other forms of activism during the 1950's and 60's, including his participation with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and other organizations involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He discusses some of his community-based political philosophies, and ends with a discussion of a powerful experience in the Kilby prison in Alabama.
Recorded in Jackson, Mississippi, on December 6, 2015.
Civil Rights History Project collection (AFC 2010/039: 0122), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Copies of items are also held at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.).
Worth W. Long was born in 1936 in Durham, North Carolina. He joined the Air Force around 1953. In 1959, he was a student at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, he worked as a medic at the Little Rock Air Force base, served on the executive board of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, and worked at Duke University Bale Research Lab in Durham, North Carolina. He became involved with organizing events in the civil rights movement as early as 1956, continuing through the 1960s, including participation in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After the height of the civil rights movement, he was involved in folk music programming through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Delta Blues Festival, Louisiana Zydeco Festival in South Carolina, Penn Center Heritage Festival in Florida, and Zora Neale Hurston Festival. In 1977 he was funded by the Ford Foundation Leadership and Development program to study folklife and community empowerment with Alan Lomax at Columbia University. He joined the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads Board in 1980.
The Civil Rights History Project is a joint project of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture to collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement.
In English.
Finding aid https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af013005 - Metadata URL:
- https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc2010039.afc2010039_crhp0122
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Collection is open for research. To request materials, please contact the Folklife Reading Room at https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.contact
- Extent:
- 15 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:42:13) : digital, sound, color.
transcript 1 item (.pdf) : text files. - Original Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project collection AFC 2010/039: 0122
- Contributing Institution:
- American Folklife Center
- Rights:
-
