Oral history interview with Joseph Schwartz, 1999

Biographical Note

Joseph Schwartz was born in 1938 to parents who were part of New York City’s trade union and Communist Party culture. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and studied physics before transitioning into a career as a psychoanalyst. Schwartz volunteered in Hattiesburg, Mississippi during the civil rights movement, in the fall of 1964

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Joseph Schwartz discusses his early years and the political influences he encountered from his family, his education, and fears growing up in a Communist household during the McCarthy Era. He also discusses his father's background as a Yiddish-speaking immigrant from Russia and a Depression-era labor organizer for the International Fur and Leather Workers Union. Schwartz describes the campus climate at the University of California Berkeley when he arrived in the 1950s. The university had recently been purged of its most progressive faculty members and the campus student population had undergone a shift as well. Schwartz describes how he became involved with activism and the civil rights movement during this chilled period and discusses how left-wing activism eventually returned to campus in the 1960s. Schwartz then moves into a discussion of his work in the civil rights movement, particularly in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He talks about how racial tension varies by place and the constant fear in Mississippi at the time. He discusses the lack of direction in the movement after voter registration efforts were successful, as well as the tensions within the movement. Schwartz briefly talks about his studies and work with psychiatry after the movement, which leads back into a discussion of the psychological effects that movements have on activists

Subjects

• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Civil rights workers--Mississippi--History--20th century.
• Hattiesburg (Miss.)--History.
• Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories.
• Schwartz, Joseph--Interviews.
• Student movements.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.
• University of California, Berkeley.