A lifetime of civil rights activism
McKissick has been active in politics, and a political activist, his whole life, he says. He joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) when he was twelve, and since then has worked with the Progressive Party, led voter registration drives at historically black universities, and became the first African American student to enter the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Floyd B. McKissick Sr., December 6, 1973. Interview A-0134. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
I've been active in North Carolina politics I think since I
was about sixteen or seventeen, in high school. And shortly after high
school. I've just been involved in politics…I was
in the NAACP when I was twelve.
- JACK BASS:
-
You graduated from high school when?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
In 1939, in Asheville, North Carolina. And from that time on, I was in
politics in Asheville, North Carolina and wherever I went. I went to
school in Atlanta…Morehouse College and I was in politics
there and I was in the Progressive Party, the Wallace party and I worked
actively there and I think probably the first real politicalization came
when the city council of Asheville, North Carolina refused to permit
Paul Robeson to speak at the city auditorium, and this small delegation
of an integrated group went to the meeting of the city council in
Asheville to ask them to change the policy to permit Paul Robeson to
speak. And I ended up that…I just went there as one of the
group, but I ended up being the spokesman, practically the
spokesman, for the group.
- JACK BASS:
-
When was that?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
Oh, check your records…this is the same thing I was telling
you earlier…check your records during the Progressive
campaign at that time…
- JACK BASS:
-
This was during the Wallace campaign?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
Henry Wallace.
- JACK BASS:
-
Henry Wallace, yeah. [Laughter]
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
Yes, be sure, this is Henry Wallace in this campaign.
[Laughter] So, at any rate, I was
active up to that time in voter registration drives and working with the
Progressive Party and I was president of the Atlanta University
chapter…Atlanta University, of course, includes Morehouse,
Spelman and Morris Brown at that time. Now it includes Clark University
in Atlanta. And I ended up being elected president of that group of
Wallace for President people, where you had all five universities, well,
actually, the three major universities and two other schools, including
the Atlanta School of Social Work and the Atlanta School of Mortuary
Science at that time…anyway, I ended up having the presidency
at that time in Atlanta. We had voter registration drives and there was
another fellow by the name of Don West from Oglethorpe University who
was quite active in the movement and basically the politics was to bring
out a great number of blacks that could be calculated to influence the
Progressive Party at that time. Certainly young
people, and that was the movement that I was in at that day. I think we
had the first integrated party…to raise funds, we had the
first integrated party at the old Morehouse College gym and it was
predicted that hell was going to break loose because of it, because of
this integrated party in those days. This was in the '39,
'40 and '41 school years. During that period of
time. Some of these specific dates could be run down.
- JACK BASS:
-
Were you the first black student at the University of North Carolina law
school?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
Yes.
- JACK BASS:
-
And you brought suit to gain admittance, right?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
Right.
- JACK BASS:
-
And this was what?…you entered in…?
- FLOYD MCKISSICK:
-
I entered in 1951.
