The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Charleston and the long civil rights movement project

Repository: Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina

Collection Description (Extant): Modern day Charleston has been shaped profoundly by the 1960s African American and women's liberation movements, the Vietnam War, suburbanization, natural disasters, and the conservative revival. The Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement Project explores the continuously unfolding legacies of these movement through interviews with area grassroots political activists, public officials, community leaders, historians, and cultural workers.

Transcript of oral history interview, Charleston, S.C., 2009 March 5.
Interviewed by Captain Kerry Taylor, Director of The Citadel's Oral History Initiative and Assistant Professor in The Citadel History Department.
Transcript 43 p.

For over three months in 1969, four hundred African-American hospital workers from the Medical College of South Carolina and Charleston County Hospital walked off their jobs in protest over discrimination and the right to form a union. The state government and hospital boards argued that workers receiving pay from public funds could not engage in collective bargaining. The hospital strikers were mostly women, some of whom earned below the federal minimum wage; white hospital workers performing the same jobs were paid higher. This interview details the experiences of two women involved in the strike, Mary Moultrie and Rosetta Simmons, and a local civil rights activist who helped organize the strike, William Saunders. Moultrie and Simmons describe the working conditions before the strike and their demand for “respect as human beings.” Saunders remembers the racial tension in the city during the strike, detailing threats made by local officials and the false arrests of activists. All three interviewees report that African Americans at the hospital today are “afraid” to push for better pay and working conditions. Saunders also comments on the fact that “nothing is illegal in South Carolina,” referring to the fact that the state continues to deny public sector workers the right to collectively bargain. The session, which took place at the office of the union representing City workers (Local 1199-Charleston), was part of a Citadel graduate course on local history. Citadel history professor Kerry Taylor guided the initial portion of the conversation and various students followed with their own questions. For additional interviews related to the hospital workers strike, visit the Southern Oral History Program collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.

Collection URL: http://www3.citadel.edu/history/cohp/cohp_projects.htm

Date(s): 2008-

Finding Aid URL: http://www3.citadel.edu/archivesguide/index.php/CHARLESTON_AND_THE_LONG_CIVIL_RIGHTS_MOVEMENT

Language: English

Interviewees: Mary Moultrie, Rosetta Simmons, William Saunders

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

Subjects:

African Americans--Civil rights--South Carolina
Hospital Workers’ Strike, Charleston, S.C., 1969

Genres:

Interviews
Sound recordings