Oral history interview with Ira Grupper, 2000

Biographical Note

Ira Grupper was born January 4, 1944 in Brooklyn, New York. Grupper began his involvement in the civil rights movement participating in the Woolworth's Boycott in 1959. Grupper continued by joining Brooklyn CORE and college chapters of CORE, NAACP, and SNCC. He attended Brooklyn College before traveling to Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1965. He was one of nine hundred and fifty civil rights activists arrested in Jackson and held at Mississippi State Fairgrounds in June of 1965. After his release, Grupper went to Columbia, Mississippi work with Curtis Styles and W.J. McClinton, who founded Columbia's Freedom House. After meeting Anne and Carl Braden, Grupper moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 1969. There, Grupper became immersed in the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM), for which he served as shop steward for eight years. In 1980, the mayor appointed Grupper to the Louisville and Jefferson County Human Relations Commission. Grupper was also a part of New Jewish Agenda, a progressive Jewish organization which he chaired from 1991 to 1993. Grupper traveled to Jerusalem from November 1999 until April 2000 to investigate human rights violations

Scope and Contents

This interview begins with a description of Ira Grupper's upbringing. Grupper describes his parent's religious and occupational backgrounds. Grupper recalls picketing Woolworth's with his father at age sixteen. Grupper briefly discusses his involvement in Brooklyn CORE, college chapters of CORE, SNCC, and NAACP. Grupper participated in the New York school boycott of 1964 and left college for Mississippi in 1965. Grupper recalls his experiences with civil rights work in Hattiesburg and Jackson. He names his hostess Mrs. Johnnie Mae West, John Henry Gould, and John Fawcett as friends from his time in Mississippi. After being released from prison, Grupper traveled to Washington, DC, where he worked for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). Grupper returned to Mississippi in fall 1965. He describes the origins of the Columbia, Mississippi Freedom House. He goes on to name activities organized through the Freedom House and mentions an attack on the house by the Laurel Klu Klux Klan. Grupper concludes his reminiscences on Columbia with a discussion of sexual politics in the movement and his experience attending church in the South. Grupper then explores his involvement with the New Jewish Agenda (NJA), a progressive Jewish organization with which he was involved. This includes a description of his experience studying human rights violations in Israel and the occupied territories from November of 1999 to April of 2000. Grupper also details being invited to Louisville, Kentucky by Anne and Carl Braden in 1969 to run printing operations for the Southern Conference Educational Fund there. He also mentions filing a lawsuit against Phillip Morris for disability discrimination. He describes his involvement with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Union (BCTGM) and discusses his experience in city politics while working at the Human Rights Commission in Louisville. Grupper then discusses the 1966 Meredith March from Memphis, Tennessee to Hernando, Mississippi, naming Martin Luther King, John Hurt, John Lewis, and Lloyd McKissick as participants. The interview concludes with reflections how the civil rights movement is taught in schools

Subjects

• Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union
• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Civil rights workers--Mississippi--History--20th century.
• Congress of Racial Equality. Brooklyn Chapter.
• Grupper, Ira--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.