Custodial History note
Information about Access
Ownership & Copyright
Cite As
Historical Note
Scope and Content
Appendix: Projects Visited
Existence and Location of Originals
Existence and Location of Copies
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: KZSU Project South interviews
Identifier/Call Number: SC0066
Physical Description:
7 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1965-1976
Custodial History note
Gift of Richard Gillam and KZSU, 1969.
Information about Access
The materials are open for research use.
Ownership & Copyright
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the
documents or their heirs. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the
Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Cite As
KZSU Project South Interviews (SC0066). Department of Special Collections and University
Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Historical Note
During the summer of 1965, eight students from Stanford University spent ten weeks in the
southern states tape-recording information on the civil rights movement. The eight
interviewers -- Mary Kay Becker, Mark Dalrymple, Roger Dankert, Richard Gillam, James McRae,
Penny Niland, Jon Roise, and Julie Wells -- were sponsored by KZSU, Stanford's student radio
station, and their original intent was to gather material suitable for rebroadcasting in the
form of radio programs. Much attention was focused on white civil rights workers, although a
great deal of other documentation relevant to black history was also obtained: the
interviewers visited over fifty civil rights projects in six states (see appendix) and
secured three hundred and thirty hours of recordings, including over two hundred hours of
personal interviews. In addition to interviewing members of various, well-known civil rights
groups -- the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(MFDP), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC or `Snick') -- the student interviewers also recorded the formal and the informal
remarks of those working with smaller, independent civil rights projects, of local blacks
associated with the civil rights movement, and of many others including Ku Klux Klansmen and
Southerners connected with the Sheriff's Department of Clay County, Mississippi. The
interviewers, in addition, spoke with many white volunteers who participated in Snick's
`Washington Lobby' (aimed at unseating the all-white Mississippi Congressional Delegation)
but who did not actually go south.
Several of the two-man interview teams recorded parts of the Jackson, Bougalusa,
Greensboro, Crawfordsville, and West Point demonstrations, and also gathered various other
action tapes of civil rights workers canvassing voters, conducting freedom schools, or
participating in demonstrations. Finally, the interviewers recorded many mass meetings and
gathered much material on the orientation sessions of MFDP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and
of SCLC in Atlanta, Georgia. All of these original tape recordings are now housed in the
Library of Recorded Sound, Stanford, California.
The following pages contain transcripts of the majority of recordings mentioned above. It
is hoped that these volumes will rescue from obscurity a body of information which we
believe can be of great use both to scholars and to laymen interested in the dramatic
history of the civil rights movement during the past decade. This material may prove to be
especially valuable because it concerns a transitional period between the first `freedom
summer' of 1964, the high tide of civil rights, and the `Meredith March of 1966 during which
Stokely Carmichael first voiced the compelling cry of `Black Power'. In fact, at least one
essay and a documentary history based on these recordings are already in progress, and it is
expected that more will soon follow.
Many of the interviewees are identified by name on the first page of the transcripts which
follow. Because of the long time which has already elapsed since the interviews were
recorded, however, it is requested that these names not be used in print unless the written
consent of the interviewees concerned is first obtained.
In closing, we would like to express our thanks to the Stanford Institute of American
History and to the Stanford Library for financial support which made possible the
transcription of the original recordings. We would also like to thank Mrs. Betty Eldon of
the Institute of American History who accepted the added burden of paperwork connected with
this transcription project with tolerance and good humor. Finally, we acknowledge a
particular debt to Professor George Knoles for his unfailing encouragement and support.
Richard Gillam
James D. McRae
Palo Alto
January 1969
Scope and Content
This collection contains transcribed meetings and interviews with Civil Rights workers in
the South recorded by several Stanford students affiliated with the campus radio station
KZSU during the summer of 1965. The project was sponsored by the Institute of American
History at Stanford. The collection includes information relating to black history;
interviews of members of the Congress of Racial Equality, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Non-violent
Coordinating Committee; transcripts of formal and informal remarks of persons working with
smaller, independent civil rights projects, of local blacks associated with the civil rights
movement, and other people, including Ku Klux Klansmen; transcribed action tapes of civil
rights workers canvassing voters, conducting freedom schools, or participating in
demonstration; speeches by and/or interviews with Ralph David Abernathy, Charles Evers,
James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Hosea Williams; and a Ku Klux Klan meeting and
speech made by Robert Sheldon, its Imperial Wizard.
Appendix: Projects Visited
Alabama - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Demopolis
- Greensboro
- Greenville
- Luverne
- Marion
- Midway
- Montgomery
- Selma (also the SNCC project located there)
Arkansas - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
- Little Rock - state headquarters
Georgia - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Atlanta - Southern headquarters of SCLC & SNCC
- Crawfordville
- Macon
Louisiana - Congress of Racial Equality
- Baton Rouge - state headquarters
- Bogalusa
- Clinton
- Ferriday
- Greensburg
- Homer
- Jonesboro
- Minden
- Monroe
- New Orleans project
- New Roads
- Plaquemine - evaluation session
- Shreveport
- Southern Regional CORE office
- St. Francisville
- Tallulah
- Waveland, Miss. - orientation
Mississippi - Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Batesville
- Beasley
- Belzoni
- Biloxi
- Canton
- Clarksdale
- Cleveland
- Greenville
- Greenwood
- Hattiesburg - orientation
- Holly Springs
- Indianola
- Jackson - state headquarters
- Laurel
- McComb
- Mileston
- Mt. Beulah
- Natchez
- Phela
- Philadelphia
- Quitman
- Ruleville
- Shaw
- Vicksburg
- West Point
- Whites
South Carolina - Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Existence and Location of Originals
Original audiotapes are held in the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound.
Existence and Location of Copies
The transcripts and audio recordings have been digitized and are available for online
review by clicking on the hyperlinks under each interview.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Civil rights movements -- United States.
African Americans -- Civil rights -- United States.
Audiotapes.
Interviews.
Civil rights -- United States.
Evers, Charles
Abernathy, Ralph David, 1926-1990
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
KZSU (Radio station : Stanford)
Williams, Hosea.
Shelton, Robert M.
Congress of Racial Equality.
McDaniel, Edward L.
Farmer, James.
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (U.S.)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference.