- Collection:
- Fairfield High School Oral History Collection
- Title:
- Elizabeth Martin
- Contributor to Resource:
- Jingtong Dou
- Publisher:
- Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina. Department of Oral History, University Libraries
- Date of Original:
- 2017-10-26
- Subject:
- Fairfield High School (Fairfield, S.C.)--Alumni and alumnae--Interviews
Students--South Carolina--Fairfield County (S.C.)--Social life and customs
Segregation in education--South Carolina--History - Location:
- United States, South Carolina, Fairfield County, 34.39511, -81.12123
- Medium:
- oral histories (literary works)
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mp3
- Description:
- Elizabeth Martin was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1928. Although Nashville was segregated, the Martin family lived in an integrated neighborhood on the campus of Fisk University, where her father was the alumni secretary. After college, she and her husband, a World War II veteran, finished their educations and settled in Fairfield County, South Carolina. She became a teacher at Fairfield High School in 1968. She later became principal at Mt. Zion Intermediate School after integration. It was from this position that she retired. She is still actively engaged in her community, advocating inter-racial harmony and working together as a means to build community and foster leadership skills in others. This oral history interview with Elizabeth Martin on October 26, 2017 includes discussion of teaching at Fairfield High School from 1968 through integration, growing up in an integrated neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, living on the Fisk University campus, her father was alumni secretary at Fisk University, HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), graduates of HBCUs (specifically FIsk University) finding employment in South Carolina, her grade school experience and school facilities, learning both at school and at home, her parents' educations, attending Fisk University as a Foreign Language major, getting married, deciding to become a teacher, Siena Heights University, her husband's education, her family's ideas on race and religion while she was growing up, race relations in Fairfield County when she arrived in 1968, community relations through the lens of organized religion and social status in Fairfield County, her memories of the Civil Rights movement, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, The Orangeburg Massacre, she and her husband's perspectives on the Civil Rights struggles in the South, her experiences with a Japanese foreign exchange student, her thoughts on integration, Jenkinsville, South Carolina and 'Freedom of Choice' schools, parents and teachers deciding on where to send students to school, the principal of Fairfield High School and teacher paydays compared with the white high school, VC Summer Nuclear plant, the Savannah River Site, Fairfield County and economic depression due to plant and business closures, 'white flight', Richard Winn Academy, and race relations today.
- Metadata URL:
- https://digital.library.sc.edu/exhibits/fairfieldhighschool/elizabeth-martin
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- University of South Carolina. The transcript and audio are provided for individual research purposes only; for all other uses, including publication, reproduction, and quotation beyond fair use, permission must be obtained in writing from: Department of Oral History, University Libraries, University of South Carolina.
- Extent:
- 58:23
- Original Collection:
- Accession # EDPL 019
Fairfield High School Oral History Collection - Contributing Institution:
- South Caroliniana Library
- Rights: