- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with George Simkins, April 6, 1997
- Creator:
- Simkins, George C., 1924-2001
- Contributor to Resource:
- Thomas, Karen Kruse
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1997-04-06
- Subject:
- African American dentists--North Carolina--Greensboro
African American civil rights workers--North Carolina--Greensboro
Civil rights movements--North Carolina--Greensboro
African Americans--Segregation--North Carolina--Greensboro
African Americans--Civil rights--North Carolina--Greensboro
Discrimination in medical care--North Carolina--Greensboro
Greensboro (N.C.)--Race relations - People:
- Simkins, George C., 1924-2001
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Guilford County, Greensboro, 36.07264, -79.79198
- Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Greensboro dentist George Simkins attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1944 to 1948, when only two dental schools accepted black students. He assumed that segregation would continue, but soon set about trying to undo it: he fought segregation at a local golf course but again lost the case before the Supreme Court, this time on a technicality; he sought to desegregate a swimming pool; and in what may have been his most significant civil rights achievement, he built a case against segregation in two Greensboro hospitals. The Supreme Court decided Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in the plaintiffs' favor, ending the legal segregation of medical care. In this interview, he describes his various civil rights efforts and the responses of his white opponents, who resisted desegregation by fighting it in court as well as with harassment and threats. While Simkins won a major civil rights victory in the early 1960s, he sees a return of segregation in public schools, and a lack of sympathy for civil rights among political and judicial leaders. This interview will provide researchers with insights into a motivated individual's efforts to undo segregation and the hostile response of the white community, a response that continues to resonate today.
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. - Metadata URL:
- http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/R-0018/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 17, 2008).
Interview participants: George Simkins, interviewee; Karen Kruse Thomas, interviewer.
Duration: 01:11:13.
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. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
