Interview with Beulah Crosby Johnson

2006 (Creation date: 1987-05-07)

Elwood, William A; Kulish, Mykola

Part one. Professor Beulah Johnson reviews being a teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama, living in a segregated society, what the "black" part of town was like, voter registration, her involvement with the NAACP, what the New South is, the Reagan Administration, and teaching history properly. Part two. Mrs. Johnson details the Tuskegee Civic Association, gerrymandering, the importance of economic power, William P. Mitchell, and community involvement meetings. She also recalls the African American boycott of businesses in Tuskegee when whites refused to vouch for potential African American voters. Part three. Shots of Beulah Johnson's Tuskegee house and neighborhood. At 3:40 change to William Elwood interviewing Mayor Johnny Ford outside Tuskegee municipal building about the impact of the Voting Rights Act, Gomillion v. Lightfoot case, Fred Gray, and being mayor for 15 years. At 12:05 change to Elwood interviewing civil rights attorney Solomon S. Seay, Jr., in Montgomery about Seay's background and education, his military service experience, and watching the top Brown v. Board of Education lawyers practice the case at Howard Law School.

Johnson, Beulah Crosby (Interviewee); Elwood, William A; Kulish, Mykola

African Americans -- Civil rights -- History; African Americans -- Education -- History; Discrimination in education -- Law and legislation -- United States; School integration -- United States -- History; Segregation in education -- United States -- History

William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project

Robertson Media Center

English

Road to Brown : the untold story of "the man who killed Jim Crow."; William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project

Source footage for the documentary, The road to Brown : the untold story of “the man who killed Jim Crow” (California Newsreel, 1990), about the life of Charles Hamilton Houston, his crusade for civil rights, and the events that led to Brown v. the Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared the doctrine of separate but equal to be illegal.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Recorded at Tuskegee, Alabama.
Creation/Production Credits
Digitized by: Cincinnati, Ohio : The PPS Group, 2006.