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Oral history interview with Jean Fairfax, October 15, 1983 interview F-0013, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007). Cover Image E-book

Oral history interview with Jean Fairfax, October 15, 1983 interview F-0013, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Interview F-0013, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) (other title)
Interview with Jean Fairfax, October 15, 1983 (portion title)
Fairfax, Jean 1920-2019 (interviewee). Blanchard, Dallas A. (interviewer). Southern Oral History Program. (Added Author). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project) (Added Author). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. (Added Author).

Summary: Jean Fairfax was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Following her education in theology, Fairfax moved South where she served as the Dean of Women at both Kentucky State College and Tuskegee Institute. Fairfax resided in the South from 1942 until 1946; thereafter, she spent two years abroad doing missionary work, after which she moved to New England. Around 1957, she returned to the South, where she became actively involved in the civil rights movement. In this interview, Fairfax focuses primarily on her perceptions of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, paying particular attention to its goals and its leaders. According to Fairfax, the primary goal of the Fellowship was to promote universal Christian fellowship. Because of the emphasis on unity, the Fellowship was increasingly concerned with issues of race and desegregation. Fairfax recalls that challenging racism was a present theme in the activities of the Fellowship while she was associated with the organization, and she asserts that its views on gender and class were also progressive. In addition, Fairfax describes leaders within the Fellowship. While she focuses primarily on the leadership roles and styles of Nelle Morton and Reinhold Niebuhr, she also offers her thoughts on such leaders as Howard "Buck" Kester, Charles Jones, and Will Campbell. Fairfax concludes that her work in the civil rights movement was a natural outgrowth of her involvement in the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen and explains that the Fellowship gave her both confidence in herself and in others in the pursuit of challenging Jim Crow segregation.

Electronic resources

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Record details

  • Physical Description: electronic resource
    remote
    1 online resource
  • Edition: Electronic edition
  • Publisher: [Chapel Hill, N.C.] : University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2007.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Duration: 00:52:09.
Interview participants: Jean Fairfax, interviewee; Dallas Blanchard, interviewer.
Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.
This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.
Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 30, 2008).
Type of Computer File or Data Note:
Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 100 kilobytes, 95.5 megabytes.
Original Version Note:
Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series F, Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, 1983-1985, interview F-0013, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 22 p.
Funding Information Note:
Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.
System Details Note:
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
System requirements: Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.

Search for related items by subject

Subject:
Fairfax, Jean 1920-2019 Interviews
Fellowship of Southern Churchmen.
African American women civil rights workers Southern States Interviews
Civil rights movements Southern States
Civil rights workers Southern States
Civil rights Religious aspects Christianity
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