Junie Edna Kaylor Aaron remembers her long working life in the clothing industry in North Carolina.

Frederick Douglas Alexander served as a city council member who worked to consolidate Charlotte-Mecklenburg County from 1969 to 1971. He discusses the failures of the consolidation movement.

4 pages, 5 page images.

Eunice Austin remembers her life in Catawba County, NC, focusing on her many years working in the textile and furniture industries.

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David Burgess discusses how his religious faith fused into his life work of social activism. In particular, he explains his involvement in labor organizing in the South.

Josephine Dobbs Clement talks about her various civic roles, including her activity as a member of the League of Women Voters, the Durham City-County Charter Commission, the Board of Education, and the Board of County Commissioners. She also discusses her efforts on behalf of social justice and her views on race, gender, and environmental issues.

Former mechanic and streetcar foreman Loy Connelly Cloniger recalls the 1919 Charlotte Streetcar Strike by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Though five strikers were killed, the strikers soon returned to work without the raise they demanded.

Mill owner Caesar Cone reflects on the textile industry and what he views as the pernicious influence of government in business and society.

Willie Mae Crews, the daughter of a sharecropper, was a teacher at Hayes High School, an African American school in Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1960s and 1970s. Crews describes Hayes as an excellent segregated school that did not benefit from the desegregation that began during the 1970-1971 school year.

3 pages, 4 page images.

Flossie Moore Durham fondly remembers mill work, the mill community, and her long life as a wife and mother in Bynum, NC.

Kathrine Robinson Everett recalls a career as a trailblazing female lawyer and women's rights activist.

J. Carlton Fleming, who was on a Chamber of Commerce committee pushing for consolidation in Charlotte, NC, in the 1960s, discusses the demise of the issue in this interview.

Alester G. Furman Jr. was born and raised in South Carolina, where his family had lived for generations. He describes his family's involvement in the founding of Furman University in the early 1800s, his father's role in the establishment of the textile industry in Greenville, and the evolution of the textile industry over the course of the early twentieth century.

Alice Grogan Hardin remembers her early years in the rural Greenville County, SC, on the farm and at the mill.

Evelyn Gosnell Harvell recalls growing up on a South Carolina farm and the more than three decades she spent as a weaver in a textile mill.

Jean Cole Hatcher became president of Cole Manufacturing Company, her family's business, in 1953. Hatcher describes her family's history in the Piedmont, the establishment and evolution of the Cole Manufacturing Company in the industry of agricultural technology, and she illuminates life in Charlotte, North Carolina—both for workers and as an economic center of industry.

North Carolina Republican Chairman Jack Hawke outlines the evolution of the party from the 1960s through the 1980s. Hawke especially focuses on divisions, various leaders, and organization limits and successes within the Republican Party.

William Dallas Herring, longtime chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Education, discusses the ins and outs of education in his state.

Junior Johnson became a stock car racer during the early 1950s and participated in the exponential growth of that industry. He describes growing up in Wilkes County, North Carolina, his role in the evolution of NASCAR, and his business endeavors in poultry farming.

Socialist and Christian activist Howard Kester describes his work in various organizations committed to social justice in the South during the 1930s and 1940s. In particular, Kester focuses on his work in promoting equality for African Americans and working people in the South, including his efforts to bridge gaps between those two groups.

Howard Kester was a pacifist and social reformer in the South from the early 1920s through the 1960s. In this interview, he focuses on his adherence to pacifism, Christianity and the Social Gospel, and Socialism. He describes his work to end injustices associated with race and labor, and assesses the work of prominent social justice leaders in the South during the 1920s and 1930s.

Academic and Carter cabinet member Juanita Kreps describes her career as an economist and as an early proponent of women's rights.

3 pages, 4 page images.

Longtime Charlotte politician Charles Lowe discusses the county-city consolidation issue in Charlotte, NC, and offers his thoughts on the broad, impersonal trends that dominate the political process.

2 pages, 3 page images.

John Broadus Mitchell grew up in a family that held to liberal politics and believed in community involvement. Educated as an economic historian, Mitchell conducted extensive research on the establishment of the cotton textile industry in the South following the Civil War. In the 1920s and 1930s, he advocated for worker rights, spoke out against racial violence, and socialist politics.

2 pages, 3 page images.

Lawyer William Patrick Murphy describes his 1950s battle against segregation and his struggle to keep his job after his beliefs became public in Oxford, Mississippi. Murphy, who taught constitutional law at the University of Mississippi, used journal articles and his classroom to speak out in favor of the Brown decision. He recalls this tumultuous time and downplays his accomplishments in this interview.

Patricia Neal settled in Durham, North Carolina, during the 1950s and became an active member of the community. Having served on the County Board of Education from the late 1960s through the 1980s, Neal describes the process of integration and its impact on Durham schools and on the community.

Nancy Kester Neale remembers her father, Howard "Buck" Kester, who founded the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and held leadership positions in the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen and the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice.

7 pages, 8 page images.

Edward L. Rankin served as private secretary to North Carolina Governors William Umstead (1952-1954) and Luther Hodges (1954-1961). In this interview he describes their political leadership, the Pearsall Plan, and the spectrum of political responses to the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

African American photojournalist Alexander M. Rivera describes the civil rights movement and its aftermath. In particular, he describes some of his photographs, as well as the impact of the Brown decision (and the demise of legal segregation) on African American businesses and African American schools, including North Carolina Central College.

African American photojournalist Alexander M. Rivera describes the civil rights movement from his perspective as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier. He focuses on the nature of race relations and racial violence and describes the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education decision on the changing social landscape.

2 pages, 2 page images.

Jefferson Robinette recalls a lifetime of labor in textile mills, furniture factories, and a dairy. He got his first job when he was twelve and worked until he was eighty-three.

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Robert W. (Bob) Scott, former governor of North Carolina and the state's community college system president, describes his tenure as governor and discusses North Carolina politics

Ernest Seeman offers a critical assessment of life in Durham, North Carolina, during the late nineteenth century. Seeman spent his early career as a printer, first as his father's apprentice and later as sole proprietor of the Seeman Printery, and he discusses interactions between his family and the Duke family. In addition, Seeman explains his increasing radicalization as head of the Duke Press (1925 to 1934) and briefly discusses his decision to become a writer in later years.

John Raymond Shute Jr. looks back on a century of growth in Union County, North Carolina. For years active in politics there, he shares his considerable knowledge about the agricultural and industrial development in the area.

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Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia offers concluding remarks in this final interview of a three-part series. He reflects on contemporary political issues of the mid-1970s, including civil rights, Vietnam, and abuses of power on the part of the CIA and the FBI. Finally, he reflects on his political legacy in the state of Georgia.

In this interview, the first in a three-part series, Herman Talmadge discusses his political career as Governor of Georgia and his decision to run for the United States Senate. The son of Eugene Talmadge, Herman Talmadge recalls his involvement in his father's gubernatorial campaigns during the 1930s and 1940s. He explains in detail his perception of the 1947 "three governors controversy" (referred to by Talmadge here as the "Two Governors Row"), which arose after he was appointed governor by the legislature, only to be removed following a ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court. Talmadge also discusses his own political campaigns, his relationship with his political rivals and colleagues, and the growing importance of race in Southern politics during the mid-twentieth century.

Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia recalls his years in the Senate from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s. He discusses changes in the Democratic party; assesses the leadership styles and accomplishments of presidents and other major political figures during his tenure in the Senate; explains his views on civil rights, environmentalism, consumerism, and the impact of television on national politics; and he offers his thoughts on problems facing America during the 1970s, particularly in relationship to the Watergate scandal.

J. Randolph Taylor pauses to reflect on his participation in the Civil Rights Movement, the reunification of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, and various other social justice campaigns.

Herman Norton Truitt describes running a grocery store from the 1920s to the 1940s. The store was patronized primarily by mill workers in Burlington, NC.

Phyllis Tyler first moved to North Carolina during the 1940s in order to join the Blessed Community of Quakers in Celo. In the 1950s, she moved with her family to Raleigh, where she became increasingly involved in the civil rights movement. Throughout the interview, she emphasizes the changing nature of race relations from the 1950s into the 1980s.

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In this lengthy interview, Ruth Vick describes her tenure at the Southern Regional Council (SRC), an interracial organization committed to racial justice in the South. The SRC supported the direct action civil rights movement that emerged in force in the 1950s and 1960s, but chose study over sit-ins as a means of change. This interview addresses this decision as well as decades of internal disputes.

3 pages, 4 page images.

Emma Whitesell recalls a lifetime of work in North Carolina textile mills.