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Oral History Interview with Marion Wright, March 8, 1978. Interview B-0034. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Marion Wright describes his beliefs about racial justice and his membership in the Southern Regional Council (SRC). Wright was one of a group of white southerners who sought to tackle the entrenched racism of the twentieth-century South. As a member of the SRC, Wright sought to end legal segregation, although he and other members were sensitive to pushing for too much change too quickly. The group also stayed off the streets as protest mounted, seeking to maintain its authority as well as its tax-exempt status. As the civil rights movement reached new beginnings in the 1950s and 1960s, the SRC faded. This interview is a portrait of a civil rights leader in the era before the movement was defined by direct action.
    Excerpts
  • Developing a sense of racial justice and becoming a leader in the field
  • The formation of the Southern Regional Council
  • Anti-segregation support grew within the SRC
  • Remembering Guy Johnson and George Mitchell
  • SRC logistics
  • Remembering Harold Fleming and George Mitchell
  • Remembering Les Dunbar and Paul Anthony
  • Tensions over lack of black leadership at the SRC
  • Civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s robbed the SRC of its purpose
  • The Brown decision changed the SRC's strategy
  • Southern reaction to Brown decision surprised Wright
  • The SRC kept itself out of direct action
  • Reasons for staying out of politics
  • Concern for maintaining the Council's nonpartisan stance
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Civil rights movements--North Carolina
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.