The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Interview of Jean Kidwell Pestana

Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Center for Oral History Research

Collection Description (Extant): Family background, including father's trade union activities; education at University of California, Berkeley; early work in carpet plant; marriage to Frank Pestana; development of political beliefs; decides with attorney Rose Rosenberg to participate in Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) freedom rides testing equality of access to facilities involved in interstate travel, 1961; CORE orientation sessions in nonviolent resistance techniques; bus ride to Jackson, Mississippi; contact with student nonviolent movement in New Orleans; arrest in Jackson bus station; confined in Jackson city jail; transfer to Parchman Penitentiary; prison conditions; community feeling among imprisoned freedom riders; relationship to prisoners other than freedom riders; response of Jackson's black community to released freedom riders; later return to Mississippi for trial; travel to Mexico and Cuba; social and economic conditions in Cuba.

Date(s): 1965

Extent: 1 transcript

Finding Aid URL: http://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0008zcwz&title=Interview%20of%20Jean%20Kidwell%20Pestana

Language: English

Interviewees: Jean Kidwell Pestana

Rights (CRHP): Contact the repository which holds the collection for information on rights

Subjects:

Civil rights demonstrations--Louisiana--New Orleans
Civil rights movements--Mississippi
Congress of Racial Equality
Freedom Rides, 1961
Lawyers
Mississippi--Race relations
Prisoners
Women civil rights workers

Genres:

Interviews
Sound recordings
Transcripts