Sheila Michaels civil rights organization oral history collection, 1998-2005

Biographical Note

Sheila Michaels was a civil rights activist and feminist. Michaels was born in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1939, and spent her youth split between Saint Louis and with her grandparents in the Bronx. She attended the College of William and Mary for two years, and was ultimately suspended for her support of civil rights while on the college newspaper's board. She moved to New York City and attended Columbia University. In 1959, Michaels began working with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in New York City. In 1962, she participated in CORE's actions in Mississippi. In 1963, she became a field officer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), ultimately working in Tennessee and Georgia. While in Tennessee, she was an editor at the civil rights newspaper The Knoxville Crusader. In the Freedom Summer of 1964, Michaels was a project manager for the Hattiesburg Project of the Mississippi Council of Federated Organizations. By the late 1960s, Michaels was active with the New York Radical Feminists. She is credited with bringing the honorific "Ms." to prominence, to give women a means to be addressed without reference to marital status. Her mention of the term while representing a feminist group on a WBAI broadcast helped bring the honorific to Gloria Steinem's attention, eventually leading to its use as the title of Ms. Magazine. Over the years, she also worked many other jobs including public relations, New York City cab driver, restaurateur, and Biblical studies teacher. At various points, she lived and worked in India, Japan, Singapore, and Laos. Michaels passed away in New York City in 2017. The collection started after Michaels contacted Columbia University's Oral History Research Office about the placement of an interview with Mary Hamilton. OHRO director Ronald Grele was interested in the possibility of a CORE collection, and a project was envisioned. OHRO's involvement was minimal. The initial plan was for OHRO to accept tapes and transcribe as funds became available. Given Michaels' involvement in other activism, the collection grew to encompass members of other groups engaged in nonviolent direct action. The tapes came to Columbia University, sometime before 2005. Columbia digitized the tapes in 2015 and completed transcription in 2021

Scope and Contents

The Sheila Michaels civil rights organization oral history collection documents the histories of 20th century activists who used nonviolent direct action to advocate for civil rights and peace. The interviews were taken by Sheila Michaels, a civil rights activist and feminist. The collection is particularly rich regarding the history of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). This was the initial focus of Michaels' interviewing, but she ultimately expanded the scope to other civil rights and peace groups. Michaels knew and worked with many of the subjects in the decades before the interviews, and interviews frequently have a conversational tone. Some narrators who were involved with CORE from the 1940s recall their activities with CORE's predecessor Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the founding of CORE, and early CORE leaders. Many interviewees speak to CORE's philosophy of nonviolence and their personal understanding of it. Narrators discuss CORE's structure, its national conferences, and activist factions. Major CORE initiatives in the South are discussed in detail. These include the Freedom Rides of 1961 to desegregate interstate travel and the Freedom Summer of 1964 to enfranchise Black voters. Narrators recall the training that they received from CORE, their participation in voter registration drives, organizing for local elections, and literacy campaigns. They also recall their experiences with intimidation, violence, and incarceration at the hands of white Southerners. They recall activities across the South, but some localities receiving particular attention include: Albany in Georgia; Hattiesburg, Jackson, Meridian, and Poplarville in Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Gadsden and Birmingham in Alabama. The collection also has considerable information about local chapters including New York (Harlem), Saint Louis, Brooklyn, New Orleans, Chicago, and many small chapters across the United States. Narrators describe actions in the North and Midwest such as Saint Louis CORE's demonstrations against Jefferson Bank, the 1964 New York City school boycott, and protests at the 1964 World's Fair. The desegregation of schools and narrators' personal educational experiences are discussed, as are picketing and sit-ins at restaurants and department stores. Another recurring topic is CORE's pivot to Black Power and Black nationalism in the late 1960s. Narrators analyze the leaders of this change, factional disputes, and changes in the organizational culture. Many of Michaels' narrators departed CORE with this shift. Additional activist organizations are discussed in the interviews as well. Other civil rights organizations discussed in detail include the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Many narrators had personal or familial ties to the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) or Progressive Party. Some New York City narrators also participated in various Democratic Party clubs. Campus activist groups are also referenced including the National Student Association, Northern Student Movement, and Students for Democratic Society (SDS). Pro-peace organizations such as American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) are discussed, as are labor groups such as SEIU 1199. Like Michaels, many narrators participated in second wave feminist movements, and they discuss women’s rights in detail. Other recurring topics include gender dynamics within the civil rights movement and interracial romantic relationships and families. The role of religion as inspiration for activism is another frequent theme for the collection. Well-represented denominations include Methodists, Unitarian Universalists, Quakers, and others. Jewish narrators discuss religious and cultural values leading to participation in the civil rights movement and experiences with anti-Semitism. Another major area of concentration of the interviews is anti-War activism, with a notable amount of narrators discussing World War II. Some major topics within this theme include conscientious objectors, incarceration, alternative service, and peace walks. Across the civil rights and peace interviews, narrators reflect on activism more generally: their initial attraction to activism; the activist persona; government repression and the legacy of McCarthyism; and the successes and failures of their movements in light of the social climate at the time of the interviews The collection's narrators are: Chude Pamela Allen, Maris Arnold, Elaine DeLott Baker, Robert Belton, Karin Berg, Elaine Bibuld, Karl Bissinger, Susan Brownmiller, Cathy Cade, Owen Cahill, Gordon Carey, Val Coleman, Tor Faegre, James Feely, Selma Friedman, Donald Gammon, Evelyn Gammon, Miriam Cohen Glickman, Arnold Goldwag, Buddy Goodman, Jan Goodman, Naomi Goodman, Albert Gordon, Percy Green, Ira Grupper, Prathia LauraAnn Hall, Allyce Hamilton, Mary Hamilton, Mary Hamilton and Frank Nelson, Ed Hamlett, Bruce Hartford, Judith Mohr Hochberg, George Houser, Joycelyn Boyd Jerome, Ina Sugihara Jones, Matthew Jones, Pat Jordan, Bobbie Brown Knable, Lucy Komisar, Joseph Kruskal, Richard Landerman, Kathy Lass, Michael Lesser, Edwin Ross Lewinson, Gretchen Lockett, Rudy Lombard, Ellen Lovell, William Lovell, Bradford Lyttle, Jane Douglas McCallister, Daphne McClean, Jane Bond Moore, Paul Myers, Frank Nelson, Juanita Nelson, Wally Nelson, Peter Nemenyi, Charles Oldham, David Owens, Alice Parham and Vera Rhiney, Joanne Shane Plummer, Mimi Feingold Real, Robert Reiss, Marvin Rich, James Robinson, Betty Rosemond, Nick Salvatore, Joseph Schwartz, Susan Wells Slater, Tamara Slobodkin, Patricia Smith, Joffre Lamar Stewart, Matteo "Flukie" Suarez, Marjorie Swann Edwin, Alice Thompson, Jean Thompson, Patricia von Yorck, Jean Wiley, and Arlene Wilkes

Subjects

• African Americans--Suffrage--Mississippi.
• Black power--United States--History--20th century.
• Civil rights demonstrations--Missouri--Saint Louis.
• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Civil rights workers--Mississippi--History--20th century.
• Congress of Racial Equality.
• Congress of Racial Equality. Brooklyn Chapter.
• Congress of Racial Equality. New York (Harlem) Chapter.
• Discrimination in employment--United States.
• Draft resisters.
• Farmer, James, 1920-1999.
• Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.)
• Freedom Rides, 1961.
• Houser, George M.
• Innis, Roy, 1934-2017.
• Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017.
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Pacifism.
• Peace movements--United States--History--20th century.
• School integration--United States.
• Second-wave feminism.
• St. Louis Committee of Racial Equality.
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.