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Oral History Interview with Ruth Vick, 1973. Interview B-0057. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Ruth Vick joined the Southern Regional Council (SRC) in the 1940s, becoming its only black employee at the time, and rising through the ranks to become a board member at the time of the interview. In her lengthy conversation with two interviewers, Vick discusses decades of SRC history, describing its leadership, organizational details, internal politics, and the SRC's place in the growing civil rights movement. The SRC supported the direct action strategies of the civil rights movement that emerged in force in the 1950s and 1960s, but chose study over sit-ins as a means of change. Vick devotes a great deal of time to discussing the role of African Americans within the organization. The SRC was not immune to the pervasive racism of the segregated South, and African Americans struggled for recognition and equal treatment within the organization.
    Excerpts
  • The Southern Regional Council establishes state divisions
  • Southern Regional Council state divisions mimic their parent on a smaller scale
  • State divisions of the SRC face difficulties
  • Growing up in segregated Georgia
  • White SRC employee is uncomfortable around black SRC employee
  • Whites resist interracial gatherings in the segregated South
  • George Mitchell and Harold Fleming, SRC directors
  • George Mitchell and Harold Fleming, SRC directors
  • The SRC did not officially participate in sit-ins, but members did so on their own time
  • Payscale and hiring discrimination at the SRC
  • SRC's involvement with desegregation in Atlanta
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Southern States--Race relations
  • Southern Regional Council
  • 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.