- Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project
- Title:
- Betty Garman Robinson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Baltimore, Maryland, 2015 December 08
- Contributor to Resource:
- Robinson, Betty Garman, interviewee
Crosby, Emilye, interviewer
Bishop, John Melville, videographer
Civil Rights History Project (U.S.) - Date of Original:
- 2015
- Subject:
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
United States National Student Association
Civil rights demonstrations--Washington (D.C.)
Civil rights movements--Mississippi
Civil rights movements--United States
Mississippi Freedom Project
Women civil rights workers--United States--Interviews - Location:
- United States, 39.76, -98.5
United States, District of Columbia, Washington, 38.89511, -77.03637
United States, Maryland, City of Baltimore, 39.29038, -76.61219
United States, Mississippi, 32.75041, -89.75036 - Medium:
- personal narratives
interviews
oral histories (literary genre)
video recordings (physical artifacts) - Type:
- MovingImage
- Description:
- Betty Garman Robinson shares her experience in the Civil Rights Movement. She discusses her early involvement with the National Student Association (NSA) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), before joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963. Of her many roles, she recalls serving as a Northern Coordinator in Greenwood, Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964 and her later efforts that focused on bringing federal programs into southern communities. She discusses the role of women in SNCC and emphasizes the openness the organization had to women taking initiative and the impact it had on her activism. Shedding light on the on the inner organizational tensions of interracial relationships, the attitudes of white communities, and her navigation of "white privilege" she offers a unique perspective on the experience of role of white women in the Civil Rights Movement.
Recorded in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 8, 2015.
Civil Rights History Project collection (AFC 2010/039: 0124), 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.).
Betty Garman Robinson was born on January 8, 1939 in New York City. She enrolled in Skidmore College in 1956 and became involved with NSA and attending National Student Congress meetings. In 1960 she became the assistant vice-president of the NSA, organizing the National Student Congress for the following summer where she first met members from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the fall of 1961 she attended graduate school to study Political Science in Berkeley, California. In November of 1963 she attended the Howard Conference in Washington, DC and was recruited to join SNCC, leaving graduate school for a position with the organization. Robinson then went to Mississippi for Freedom Summer in 1964 and became the Northern Coordinator in the Greenwood Office. In 1965, she moved to Washington, DC was involved in the Free DC Movement and the Bus Boycotts, and later the anti-war movement and women's movement of the 1970's. She is currently involved in Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), an organization in Baltimore that is committed to fighting structural inequity and racial injustice.
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 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af013005 - Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc2010039.afc2010039_crhp0124
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Collection is open for research. To request materials, please contact the Folklife Reading Room at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/folklife.contact
- Extent:
- 10 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (2:44:05) : digital, sound, color.
transcript 1 item (.pdf) : text files. - Original Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project collection AFC 2010/039: 0124
- Contributing Institution:
- American Folklife Center
- Rights:
-
