Oral history interview with Jean Wiley, 2002

Biographical Note

Jean Wiley was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she attended high school and Morgan State College (now Morgan State University). She is the oldest of three children; the family includes two younger sisters; her father, a painter; and her mother, who worked as a saleswoman and a cashier. Wiley earned a Master's degree in English from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with the financial assistance of a Woodrow Wilson National Foundation Fellowship. Wiley was a member of the faculty at Tuskegee Institute, the University of the District of Columbia, the Center for Black Education, and the University of California at Berkeley. She also worked at Howard University’s radio station, WHUR-FM. She is the founder of Collage Literary Studio

Scope and Contents

In this interview with Sheila Michaels, Jean Wiley discusses Baltimore's Black community, her activism, and her early teaching career. Wiley recalls the decision process of attending a "Black" high school after Baltimore desegregated schools; her family's belief that she, as the first college graduate in the family, would be a "race woman"; her undergraduate studies at Morgan State University; and her attendance at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor for graduate school. Wiley recounts the significance of Baltimore's Black newspaper, the Baltimore Afro American, and national periodicals Ebony and Jet. She discusses the discrimination and segregation experienced by Baltimore's Black community, including her father's exclusion from union participation. Wiley recollects her involvement in sit-ins as an undergraduate in Baltimore, her arrest, and the conditions and treatment while in jail. Additionally, Wiley talks about the Freedom Rides; her involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Northern Student Movement (NSM); and her activism as a faculty member at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. She discusses the demographic makeup of Tuskegee's student body, her difficulty adjusting to the norms and expectations of young women in the Deep South, and the violence inflicted on Black citizens who protested segregation. Additionally she recalls the death of Sammy (Samuel) Younge, a veteran and Tuskegee student; her interactions and work with students outside the classroom. Wiley connects the effects of the Gomillion v. Lightfoot trial in Alabama with the notion of Tuskegee as an oasis for Black citizens in the South. Additionally, she reminisces about key figures in the civil rights and Black Arts movements including, Bayard Rustin and Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones).She also addresses her work with school decentralization in New York City and its Freedom Schools and her work with the United Nations

Subjects

• African American college teachers--Interviews.
• Baltimore (Md.)--Race relations.
• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories.
• School integration--Maryland--Baltimore.
• Tuskegee Institute.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.
• Wiley, Jean--Interviews.