Physical Description: 52.47 Gigabytes
Biographical / Historical
Joan Guinses was born on January 10, 1949 in Los Angeles, the only child of Myrtice Johnson, a Registered Nurse and Jonathan
Johnson, a FreeMason, Medal Polisher, and Sergeant in the Army. Joan married Vernel "VG" Guinses on Cotober 1, 1966. VG was
a community activist and educator who founded "Say Yes" to deal with youth gang activity in South Los Angeles. They had three
children, Carmella Guinses Blackmon, Kathleen Myrtice Guinses, and Milton Leroy Guinses. Joan graduated from Manual Arts High
School and studied art design at West Los Angeles College. She designed and crafted musical instruments, jewelry, and prize-winning
dolls. She taught herself how to sew and play the instruments she made. She was a longtime member of Inglewood Guys and Dolls,
the largest African American square dancing group in the U.S.
Scope and Contents
Series includes both an interview with Joan Guinses and digitized image files. The series is organized into two folders, one
for audiovisual interview files and one for image files. The interview is organized into preservation (H.264, AAC) files and
compressed 2GB access files. Interview files also include a backup audio Wav file.