This is the 3rd part of a series celebrating the 50thanniversary of the Hyde County school boycott, a remarkable chapter in the history of America’s civil rights movement and the subject of my first book, Along Freedom Road. Today-- an elderly teacher named Letha Selby launches the school boycott
civil rights movement
“In Our Blood from Way Back:” The History of the O. A. Peay School
This is the 2ndpart of a series celebrating the 50thanniversary of the Hyde County, N.C., school boycott, a remarkable chapter in the history of America’s civil rights movement and the subject of my first book, Along Freedom Road
Remembering the Hyde County School Boycott– A 50th Anniversary Celebration
This is the 1st part of a series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Hyde County, N.C., school boycott, a remarkable chapter in the history of America’s civil rights movement and the subject of my first book, Along Freedom Road
Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. in Rocky Mount
Friday night, February 23. I am writing these words at the old Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, N.C. A very special event is happening here tonight. More than half a century ago, on November 27, 1962, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a historic speech in this school’s gymnasium, only a few feet from where I am sitting now.
The Menhaden Fishermen’s Strike
My conversation with folk singer and social activist Guy Carawan had gone in surprising directions. When I called him, now almost a decade ago, I had really just wanted to know more about his pilgrimage to his father’s homeplace in Pamlico County, N.C. in the summer of 1953.
Pauli Murray’s World
Tomorrow night-- Thursday, Nov. 9-- the Pauli Murray Prjoject's exhibit “Finding Jane Crow in Pauli Murray’s Contacts” opens at Duke University! If you’re in the area, I sure hope you get the chance to see it! It's free and open to the public. Curated by my daughter Vera Cecelski, the exhibit explores the life and times of one of the most extraordinary human rights activists in 20th-century America....
The Klan Last Time- Part 7: None of Their Cars Came Back Out
According to the KKK papers, things began to change in 1967. Attendance at Klan rallies plummeted. Many white people walked away from the fiery cross never to return. SHP agents began to report that state Klan leaders were finding it difficult to convince local people to lease them land for rallies.
Eddie McCoy’s Struggle for Freedom
I don’t know whether or not Eddie McCoy would agree with me, but I suspect that the African American oral history project that has become his life’s passion began on a beautiful spring day, the 11th of May, 1971, to be exact, when a black army veteran named Henry Marrow was shot dead for talking sweet to a white woman.
David Cecelski 