The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Arizona Historical Foundation oral history collection

Repository: Arizona Historical Foundation

Collection Description (CRHP): The interviews of the Phoenix Civil Rights Movement project include Eugene Grigsby Jr., Thomasena Grigsby, Bill Mahoney, Lincoln Ragsdale, and Fran Waldham.

Collection Description (Extant): This collection is comprised of oral histories from a variety or unrelated sources, the majority resulting from three projects. These oral histories are not part of an existing manuscript collection and are arranged to allow for further additions. The Arizona Way project, created in 1977 as part of a project that examined the traditional values of Arizona, focused on the Anglo, Hispanic and Native American cultures through oral histories. It was funded by a grant from the Arizona Humanities Council and conducted by Alan Kite. These 29 interviews of both prominent and ordinary individuals were intended to become radio shows, but the project was never completed due to problems with copyrights. Those interviews from the Arizona Way Revisited project contain updated interviews in 1997 with those interviewed in the original Arizona Way, where possible. In 1997, Mary Melcher, an Arizona State University doctoral graduate, received a grant from the Arizona Humanities Council to finish the original project by securing releases from those interviewed. The interviews were also to be indexed and made more accessible to researchers. The records from the Phoenix Civil Rights Movement were funded by the Lillian Theobald Award in 1990, and the interviews were conducted by Mary Melcher. The main subjects of these interviews were segregation, social life and customs in Phoenix. These interviews were utilized in Melcher's piece, "Phoenix Civil Rights Movement: Black and White Collaboration, 1950-1970." Mary Melcher graduated from Arizona State University in 1994. She was an associate faculty member at Arizona State University and taught primarily Arizona history. Melcher has conducted over 100 oral history interviews. She was most recently a history curator at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tempe and now serves as a research consultant.

Date(s): 1968-1998

Existing IDs: MS FM MSS 141

Finding Aid URL: http://www.ahfweb.org/download/OH_MSS_141.pdf

Language: English

Interviewees: Eugene Grigsby Jr., Thomasena Grigsby, Bill Mahoney, Lincoln Ragsdale, Fran Waldham

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

Subjects:

African Americans--Arizona
Civil rights movements--Arizona
Civil rights workers--Arizona

Genres:

Interviews
Sound recordings