{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"noa_sohpcr_f-0006","title":"Oral history interview with David Burgess, August 12, 1983","collection_id":"noa_sohpcr","collection_title":"Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement","dcterms_contributor":["Blanchard, Dallas A.","Southern Oral History Program"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Southern States, 33.346678, -84.119434"],"dcterms_creator":["Burgess, David S., 1917-"],"dc_date":["1983-08-12"],"dcterms_description":["Born in New York City and educated at Oberlin College and Union Theological Seminary, David Burgess spent his life living his religious convictions through a devotion to economic and racial justice. In this interview, he recalls his involvement with some vanguard rights organizations, such as the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, and early rights activists like Buck Kester. Burgess argues that groups like the Fellowship not only helped put the civil rights struggle in a religious context, but set the stage for the dramatic movement that would dominate the South in the 1950s and 1960s. This interview is useful for, among others, students of the early civil rights movement as well as researchers interested in the contribution of white Christian southerners.","NOTE: Please also refer to another interview with David Burgess in this collection, E-0001. Poor transcription can make this a difficult interview to read. Listening recommended.","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."],"dc_format":["text/html","text/xml","audio/mpeg"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":["Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection."],"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":null,"dcterms_subject":["Southern States--Race relations","Fellowship of Southern Churchmen","Civil rights movements--Southern States","Social reformers--Southern States","Social movements--Southern States","Social justice--Religious aspects--Christianity","Social reformers--Southern States--Attitudes"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview with David Burgess, August 12, 1983"],"dcterms_type":["Text","Sound"],"dcterms_provenance":["University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/F-0006/menu.html"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":null,"dlg_local_right":null,"dcterms_medium":["transcripts","sound recordings","oral histories (literary works)"],"dcterms_extent":["Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 30, 2008).","Interview participants: David Burgess, interviewee; Dallas A. Blanchard, interviewer.","Duration: 01:11:26.","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."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Burgess, David S., 1917-","Kester, Howard, 1904-1977"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"noa_sohpcr_e-0001","title":"Oral history interview with David Burgess, September 25, 1974","collection_id":"noa_sohpcr","collection_title":"Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement","dcterms_contributor":["Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd","Finger, William R.","Southern Oral History Program"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, South Carolina, 34.00043, -81.00009"],"dcterms_creator":["Burgess, David S., 1917-"],"dc_date":["1974-09-25"],"dcterms_description":["Following his early life in China as a child of missionary parents, David Burgess returned to the United States to attend Oberlin College and Union Theological Seminary, where he cultivated a social activist worldview. His religious beliefs dovetailed with his social activism: Burgess explains how his educational background initially led him to conscientiously object to World War II. However, his ideological intimacy with Union Theological Seminary professor Reinhold Niebuhr caused Burgess to enter the military draft. For health reasons, however, he was not admitted to the military. Burgess's relationship with Niebuhr also had a profound impact on his later labor activism. Burgess and his wife, Alice Stevens, eventually moved to south Florida to focus on southern labor issues. He worked tirelessly to improve the working conditions, political options, and housing status of southern workers. Burgess discusses obstacles to labor organizing he faced in the South, including charges that he was a communist. He discusses his organizational and administrative work with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), largely in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During this time, Burgess began to alter his perception of larger labor groups like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CIO. Working as a CIO administrator placed him in a difficult position as an enemy to both black and white workers. Burgess blames the lack of organizational strength of the CIO on Walter Reuther's leadership. As the CIO and AFL merged, Reuther failed to maintain labor organizing as the central focus of the labor group. Burgess came to view the AFL-CIO merger as the beginning of further racial and inter-union frictions and a decline in idealism. In 1955, Burgess requested a labor ambassadorship to Burma. Despite being rejected because of his affiliation with communist groups, Burgess conducted international labor work until the late 1970s. Burgess assesses the racial and social changes in the South following his return in 1977.","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."],"dc_format":["text/html","text/xml","audio/mpeg"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":["Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection."],"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":null,"dcterms_subject":["Southern States--Race relations","Trade-unions--Southern States","AFL-CIO","Fellowship of Southern Churchmen","Labor movement--South Carolina","Labor unions--Southern States--Officials and employees","Labor unions--Organizing--Southern States","Labor unions--Southern States--Political activity","Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.)","Labor unions--Southern States--Religious aspects","Church work with the working class--Southern States","Labor unions and communism"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview with David Burgess, September 25, 1974"],"dcterms_type":["Text","Sound"],"dcterms_provenance":["University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 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