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Film, Video Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, 2015 December 11

Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, 2015 December 11

About this Item

Title

  • Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia, 2015 December 11

Summary

  • Jennifer Lawson shares her experience throughout the Civil Rights Movement. She discusses her decision to leave college to join the movement, and her involvement with voter registration activities in Mississippi. She joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1966 and was elected to the organization's central coordinating committee. She shares her role in designing the Black Panther symbol and campaign materials for the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization (later the Black Panther Party). She reflects on the issues surrounding racial separatism and her decision to leave organizational efforts in search of other activist work, including joining the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). She recalls going to Cuba and being involved with art programs that celebrated African and Cuban heritage and moved to Tanzania from 1970-1972 and became part of a writer's group with Walter Rodney. She later attended Columbia University to merge her interest in civil rights activism and art, and pursued a film degree.

Names

  • Lawson, Jennifer, 1946- interviewee
  • Crosby, Emilye, interviewer
  • Bishop, John Melville, videographer
  • Civil Rights History Project (U.S.)

Created / Published

  • 2015.

Headings

  • -  Lawson, Jennifer,--1946---Interviews
  • -  Blackwell, Unita,--1933-2019
  • -  Cobb, Charles E.,--Jr
  • -  Cox, Courtland,--1941
  • -  Hamer, Fannie Lou
  • -  Mants, Bob
  • -  Oliver, Edmond Jefferson
  • -  Black Panther Party
  • -  Drum and Spear Bookstore
  • -  Mississippi Freedom Project
  • -  National Council of Negro Women
  • -  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
  • -  Tuskegee Institute
  • -  African American civil rights workers--Alabama--Interviews
  • -  Civil rights movements--Alabama
  • -  Civil rights movements--Mississippi
  • -  Civil rights movements--United States
  • -  Voter registration--Alabama
  • -  Birmingham (Ala.)--Race relations--History
  • -  Lowndes County (Ala.)--Politics and government

Genre

  • Personal narratives
  • Filmed interviews
  • Interviews
  • Oral histories
  • Video recordings

Notes

  • -  Recorded in Washington, District of Columbia, on December 11, 2015.
  • -  Civil Rights History Project collection (AFC 2010/039: 0131), Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
  • -  Copies of items are also held at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.).
  • -  Jennifer Lawson was born in June of 1946, in Fairfield, Alabama and encountered racial segregation as a young child. Lawson later attended Tuskegee College. In the summer of 1963 she moved to New York City to pursue an internship at Sloan Kettering Center and in the summer of 1964 pursued a Research Aide role, meanwhile attending demonstrations to protest Martin Luther King in Birmingham Jail. While at Tuskegee she was involved with the student group that worked on desegregating Macon County and mobilizing voting registration. After Freedom Summer 1964, she went to Jackson, Mississippi to work on voter registration, and later left school in the Spring of 1966 to join SNCC and work in Wilcox County. After she left SNCC, she worked at the National Council of Negro Women and worked with Dorothy Height and Fanny Lou Hamer. She was involved with designing the symbol of the Black Panther for the Lowndes County Party, and created political education material through art. Lawson was elected to the central coordinating committee of SNCC, and then moved to Atlanta. At the time when SNCC began to adopt racial separatism, she left the organization. She attended Columbia University to pursue art in formal education, and studied film, working in public television for the last thirty years. Lawson is active in volunteering with the SNCC Legacy Project today.
  • -  The Civil Rights History Project is a joint project of the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture to collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement.
  • -  In English.
  • -  Finding aid http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af013005

Medium

  • 17 video files (Apple ProRes 422 HQ, QuickTime wrapper) (4:09:19) : digital, sound, color.
  • transcript 1 item (.pdf) : text files.

Source Collection

  • Civil Rights History Project collection AFC 2010/039: 0131

Repository

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2016655422

Rights Advisory

  • Duplication of collection materials may be governed by copyright and other restrictions.

Access Advisory

Online Format

  • image
  • pdf
  • video

Additional Metadata Formats

Rights & Access

The individuals documented in these collection items retain copyright and related rights to the use of their recorded and written testimonies and memories.  They have granted the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution permission to provide access to their interviews and related materials for purposes that are consistent with each agency’s educational mission, such as publication and transmission, in whole or in part, on the Web. Their written permission is required for commercial, profit-making distribution, reproduction, or other use beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. See our Legal Notices and Privacy and Publicity Rights for additional information and restrictions.

The American Folklife Center, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the professional fieldworkers who carry out these projects feel a strong ethical responsibility to the people they have visited and who have consented to have their lives documented for the historical record. The Center asks that researchers approach the materials in this collection with respect for the culture and sensibilities of the people whose lives, ideas, and creativity are documented here. Researchers are also reminded that privacy and publicity rights may pertain to certain uses of this material.

Researchers or others who would like to make further use of these collection materials should contact the Folklife Reading Room for assistance. 

Credit Line

Civil Rights History Project collection (AFC 2010/039), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Lawson, Jennifer, Interviewee, Emilye Crosby, John Melville Bishop, and U.S Civil Rights History Project. Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia. 2015. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016655422/.

APA citation style:

Lawson, J., Crosby, E., Bishop, J. M. & Civil Rights History Project, U. S. (2015) Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016655422/.

MLA citation style:

Lawson, Jennifer, Interviewee, et al. Jennifer Lawson oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Washington, DC, District of Columbia. 2015. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2016655422/>.