Oral history interview with Marjorie Swann Edwin, 2000

Biographical Note

Marjorie (nee Schaffer) Swann Edwin was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1921 and participated in the civil rights movement and various peace movements. She attended Northwestern University and joined the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Evanston, Illinois, in the late 1930s. Edwin was one of the first members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942. Edwin married Robert Swann in 1946. Together, Edwin and Swann were active in the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements. In 1958, Edwin was arrested for trespassing at a nuclear missile site in Omaha, Nebraska; she was sentenced to six months at the Alderson Federal Women's Prison. Edwin was involved with the pacifist group Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) and became a leader of the Quaker-founded American Friends Service Committee. Edwin and Swann divorced in 1978; Edwin later married Ghanaian Bishop John F. Edwin. She moved to Berkeley, California in 1996. In 2014, Edwin died at age 93

Scope and Contents

Edwin discusses her childhood, including: her father's service in World War I; generational attitudes towards war; her parents' abusive tendencies; her grandmother; Methodist Sunday school; encounters with racism; and the influence of Social Gospel theologian Dr. Ernest Fremont Tittle. Edwin describes her nonviolent and anti-war doctrine. She talks about her activism at Northwestern University, particularly with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and the Hull House. She discusses the origins of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and her introduction to the organization by George Houser. Edwin recalls: the War Resisters League; Bayard Rustin; her participation in the Quebec-Guantanamo Walk; her encounter with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a nonviolent vigil in response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; her work integrating restaurants, barber shops, Greyhound buses, and drugstores with CORE; her 22 month-long fast; and her time with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). She discusses the CORE chapter in Yellow Springs, Ohio, her work at Antioch College, and her relationship with Coretta Scott King. Other topic of discussion include: her time in prison and the reunion with her children upon release; her support of her husband's, Robert Swann's, ambitions to create interracial housing communities; Swann's work with Morris Milgram on the Concord Park community in Pennsylvania; and Swann's work with Ralph Borsodi to establish New Communities, a community land trust and farm collective of black farmers in Southwest Georgia. Edwin describes segregation in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and the experiences of Will and Daisy Myers. Edwin discusses American denial of racism; gender discrimination in the nonviolence movement; the treatment of Native Americans in the US; the impact of Dr. King's death; the controversial leadership of Roy Innis; and CORE's movement towards Black Power. Edwin also discusses her marriage to Robert Swann and its eventual end, as well as her marriage to John F. Edwin, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ghana. She characterizes her relationship with her children and their various career paths and involvements with activism. Edwin also discusses her work at St. Mary's Center in Oakland, California

Subjects

• African Methodist Episcopal Church.
• American Friends Service Committee.
• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Committee for Nonviolent Action.
• Congress of Racial Equality.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Pacifism.
• Swann, Marjorie--Interviews.
• Swann, Robert S.
• United Methodist Church (U.S.)
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.
• Young Women's Christian Association.