Who Speaks for the Negro, Heard Library, Vanderbilt University

Detailed Description

File #1 RRTP29a.rm (35:28) File #2 RRTP29b.rm (27:18) File #3 RRTP28a.rm (34:18) File #4 RRTP28b.rm (29:47) [Note: RealPlayer is required to listen to the audio files. Download now for Windows, Mac, or Linux.]	Title:	Interview with Gloria St. Clair Hayes Richardson
	Interviewer:	Robert Penn Warren [bio] Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) was an American poet, novelist and literary critic born in Guthrie, Kentucky. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and was a member of the Fugitives group of poets. He contributed to the Agrarian manifesto I'll Take My Stand, published in 1930. In the 1950s he became a supporter of racial integration. In 1964 he conducted interviews with various African American leaders and other relevant persons for the purpose of a book, Who Speaks for the Negro?, which was published in 1965. Warren won Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and for his novel All the King's Men. In 1986, he was named the first Poet Laureate of the United States. [close]
	Interviewee(s):	Gloria Richardson [bio] Gloria Richardson (born 1922) was the leader of the Cambridge Movement, in Cambridge, Maryland, in the 1960s. Although the Movement began as a civil rights effort, with activists from outside the region and black Cambridge residents sitting in at segregated movie theaters, bowling alleys and restaurants, it evolved into a battle for the economic rights of Cambridge citizens, many of whom were faced with low wages and unemployment. She helped organize the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, the only non-student-led affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She collaborated with Malcolm X and others in the creation of the civil rights organization ACT. The Cambridge Movement's focus on social justice and its use of armed self-defense tactics have been cited as signaling the beginning of the Black Power phase of the civil rights movement. [close]
	Recording Date:	2 March [1964]
	Originating Library:	Historical Sound Recordings Collection, Yale University Music Library
	Audio Files:	RRTP29a.rm (35:28) RRTP29b.rm (27:18) RRTP28a.rm (34:18) RRTP28b.rm (29:47)

	Abstract:	Gloria Richardson discusses the history of blacks in Cambridge, Maryland, where she is originally from, and their current economic situation. Richardson cites some appalling statistics, including 15% overall unemployment in Dorchester County, which is where Cambridge is located. Richardson recounts how African Americans who live in Cambridge experience employment discrimination in that they are usually “the last hired and first fired.” As a result, many black workers are unable to achieve any kind of seniority in their jobs. When Warren recounts overhearing a conversation in which one white Cambridge citizen blamed his unemployment on blacks' employment, Richardson remarks that this sort of feeling is mostly due to self-preservation on the part of whites who aren’t used to having to compete with African Americans for jobs, especially when jobs are so scarce. Richardson, whose grandfather was on the Cambridge City Council for 50 years, does not attribute her involvement in the civil rights movement to her personal heritage. Instead, she says that unemployment, poverty and hunger are problems that need to be solved whether they are seen as African American problems or white ones. She wants to be a part of that solution, which is why she majored in sociology in college. She hopes that both whites and blacks can come together to solve this problem, although she readily admits attempts at forming biracial unions in Cambridge have been largely unsuccessful. When Warren asks her about “the basis of resentment for federal food aid” (of which Cambridge residents have been recipients since these spikes in unemployment), Richardson remarks that “the resentment comes from the power structure which wants to maintain an image of everyone being well-fed and working [in Cambridge].” Richardson discusses the split between the African American middle class and the laboring class in Cambridge. In fact, Richardson laments that all too often middle class African Americans in Cambridge will use the same rationale as the white power structure to justify not getting involved—poor blacks are lazy, uneducated, and “don’t know how to act.” The rest of the interview deals primarily with questions of “Negro identity,” her beliefs about nonviolence, and the destructive effects of segregation. She discusses how she handled the random violence during the St. Ann demonstrations in Cambridge when rocks were thrown at protesters. It is important to note that she disagrees with non-violence as a philosophy but not as a tactical device. She believes that “loving your enemy is unnatural” and not a necessary component of nonviolence when it is used as a tactical device. She doesn’t advocate non-selective or selective reprisals to racial violence, however, but she does uphold the right of self-defense—“defending one’s property, person, and family from immediate danger.”

	Subject(s):	African Americans -- Employment -- Maryland -- Cambridge Discrimination in employment -- Maryland -- Cambridge African Americans -- Maryland -- Cambridge -- Economic conditions Unemployment -- Maryland -- Cambridge Middle class African Americans African Americans -- Race identity Nonviolence Civil rights workers -- Violence against -- Maryland -- Cambridge Violence in the civil rights movement Self-defense Cambridge (Md.)

	Notes:	Gloria Richardson is very faint at times while Warren is intelligible throughout.

	Resource Type:	Sound
	Format:	application/vnd.rn-realmedia
	Related Work:	Who Speaks for the Negro? by Robert Penn Warren, 1965
	Record Number:	45