- Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project
- Title:
- Maria Varela oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Pasadena, California, 2016 June 29
- Contributor to Resource:
- Varela, Maria, 1940- interviewee
Cline, David P., 1969- interviewer
Bishop, John Melville, videographer
Civil Rights History Project (U.S.) - Date of Original:
- 2016
- Subject:
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
Students for a Democratic Society (U.S.)
United States National Student Association
Chicano movement
Civil rights movements--Alabama
Civil rights movements--Mississippi
Civil rights movements--United States
Photography--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century
Poor People's Campaign
Women civil rights workers--United States--Interviews - Location:
- United States, 39.76, -98.5
United States, Alabama, 32.75041, -86.75026
United States, California, Los Angeles County, Pasadena, 34.14778, -118.14452
United States, Mississippi, 32.75041, -89.75036 - Medium:
- personal narratives
interviews
oral histories (literary genre)
video recordings (physical artifacts) - Type:
- MovingImage
- Description:
- Activist and MacArthur fellow, Maria Varela, recalls her role in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), discussing her work in organizing adult literacy programs in Mississippi and her role as one of SNCC's only female photographers. Offering a Mexican American perspective of the Civil Rights Movement, she identifies how SNCC embraced multiculturalism, extending its activism to include the Chicano Movement. She reflects on her transition from SNCC into the Chicano Movement, including her participation in the Land Grant Movement and the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.
Recorded in Pasadena, California, on June 29, 2016.
Civil Rights History Project collection (AFC 2010/039: 0143), 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.).
Maria Varela was born in 1940 in Newell, Pennsylvania. She attended college at Alverno College in Milwaukee, where she was student body president and became aware of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while attending the National Student Association Congress. She later joined SNCC and worked in Selma, Alabama and Mississippi as a photographer and media creator. In 1968, she moved to New Mexico where she worked with the Land Grant Movement and the Chicano Press Association. Varela received her M.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1982. She later became a visiting professor at Colorado College and then adjunct professor at University of New Mexico. She helped organize rural development and founded Los Ganados del Valle and helped found Tierra Wools co-op, which re-introduced native sheep stock to Hispano and Native American land-holders and small ranchers.
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_crhp0143
- 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:
- 15 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (1:40:46) : digital, sound, color.
transcript 1 item (.pdf) : text files. - Original Collection:
- Civil Rights History Project collection AFC 2010/039: 0143
- Contributing Institution:
- American Folklife Center
- Rights:
-
