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Oral history interview with Matthew Jones, 2002

Creator: Jones, Matthew
Project: Sheila Michaels civil rights organization oral history collection
(see all project interviews)
Phys. Desc. :Transcript: 89 pages Sound recording: 2 sound cassettes
Location: Columbia Center for Oral History
Full CLIO record >>

Biographical Note

Matthew Jones was a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary and founding member of the Freedom Singers. He was born on September 17, 1936 and grew up in Littleton, North Carolina. After his father received threats from the Ku Klux Klan, five-year-old Matthew Jones relocated with his family to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father served at St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Jones attended Tennessee State University, a historically Black university, from 1956-1960. In 1960, Jones participated in the Nashville Student Movement, a three month campaign to end lunch counter segregation in Nashville. In the spring of 1963, Jones was invited by Avon Rollins, SNCC co-founder and Knoxville native, to work with SNCC in Danville, Virginia. Jones spent four months in Danville. He founded the Danville Freedom Voices and, in 1964, became a member and director of the Freedom Singers. Jones left SNCC in the late 1960s and, with his second wife, moved to New York City. He traveled the world performing his music and was devoted to liberation causes across the globe. He died at age seventy five on March 30, 2011

Scope and Contents

Matthew Jones begins this interview with a discussion of his upbringing in Littleton, North Carolina, describing his family's social position as well-educated African Americans. Jones recalls his father's confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan, who targeted him because he was a Black school principal. Jones describes the segregation within the Episcopal Church and his father's experience as a Black minister. Jones speaks about his participation in the Nashville Student Movement during his senior year at Tennessee State University in 1960. He describes the experience of his first arrest and his empowerment through direct action. Jones describes the inception of the Danville Freedom Voices, and the re-formation of the Freedom Singers in Atlanta, Georgia. He also discusses the gender dynamics of SNCC and Ruby Doris Smith; Freedom Singer fundraising tours; and the murder of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. In the last quarter of this interview, Jones provides general reflections on the personal and political aftermath of the civil rights movement, including the burnout of Civil Rights veterans; the strategies of Stokely Carmichael, who became SNCC Chairman in 1967; the alienation and abandonment of Southern Black leadership by Northern activists; books written about the civil rights movement; and the transition to Pan-Africanism

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