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Interview with Katherine Mellen Charron 5/13/2015 Dr. Carron: Okay, so how can I help you guys today, what do you need to know from me? Caroline: Well, we were just looking at ways that we could step up our project so we thought about getting some insight from people who knew more about her than us. Dr. Charron: Yeah, how did you guys hear about Septima Clark? How did you come across her? Caroline: Well, if you want me to be honest Dr. Charron: Yeah Caroline: Our teacher told us that our first requirement was that we had to do someone from South Carolina, who showed leadership and left behind a legacy in the state. Just to keep it closer to us. So we could see the impact that person had on South Carolina. So we googled “leaders in South Carolina history, and there she was! Dr. Charron *laughs* Good! I’m glad she made it on the list. She was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame last year, you know? Caroline: Yes ma’am that’s what I’ve heard. Dr. Charron: The ETV folks interviewed me; they’re going to make a little movie about her because she won the award and got inducted. Caroline: That’s exciting. Dr. Charron: Okay, so you sent me a list of questions through email do you want to talk about those? Caroline: Yeah, that would be great to start off. Dr. Charron: Okay so the first one was, what do I think was her greatest legacy? Caroline: Yes mam

Interview With Katherine Mellen Charron

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Interview with Katherine Mellen Charron5/13/2015Dr. Carron: Okay, so how can I help you guys today, what do you need to know from me? Caroline: Well, we were just looking at ways that we could step up our project so we thought about getting some insight from people who knew more about her than us. Dr. Charron: Yeah, how did you guys hear about Septima Clark? How did you come across her?Caroline: Well, if you want me to be honestDr. Charron: YeahCaroline: Our teacher told us that our first requirement was that we had to do someone from South Carolina, who showed leadership and left behind a legacy in the state. Just to keep it closer to us.So we could see the impact that person had on South Carolina. So we googled leaders in South Carolina history, and there she was!Dr. Charron *laughs* Good! Im glad she made it on the list. She was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame last year, you know?Caroline: Yes maam thats what Ive heard. Dr. Charron: The ETV folks interviewed me; theyre going to make a little movie about her because she won the award and got inducted. Caroline: Thats exciting. Dr. Charron: Okay, so you sent me a list of questions through email do you want to talk about those?Caroline: Yeah, that would be great to start off. Dr. Charron: Okay so the first one was, what do I think was her greatest legacy? Caroline: Yes mamDr. Charron: Okay for having studied her life for 12 years and Ive learned a lot. Id say her greatest legacy was ability to adapt to how times changed because she was active since WW1. She kept learning and growing and applied her skills to benefit people and when the Civil Rights movement came along she had all these skills in place she had been building over her lifetime, and she applied them to that contextCaroline: Yes maam thats great. Dr. Charron: By the time the Civil rights movement came along she had organizing skills, she had educational skills and leadership skills. And she developed a program to pass these skills on to other people, and thats what caused the movement. People dont respond when they hear a speech, thats not going to make you want to risk your life. But if something inside of you changes and you get more confidence then youre willing to assume the risk. Caroline: Absolutely and thats what she was all about. Dr. Charron: Yes, so thats what Id say was her greatest legacy. Of course we could say that the citizenship schools were her greatest legacy but if we want to talk about the kind of work she did in the world beyond the education in the movement, didnt you guys talk about how she did it , you know what I mean?Caroline: Yes maamDr. Charron: That was the first question I asked myself when I was writing my book. Septima Clark was almost 60 years old by the time the movement gets really going, the classic phase. What did she bring to the movement from her lifetime of experience, and thats how I approached researching and writing my book. Caroline: What made you decide to write the book about Septima Clark?Dr. Charron: okay, so I was in graduate school so I went to UNC Asheville and I studied literature and I took an African American literature course .I got really interedted in African American literature and autobiography. So I went to University of Wisconsin Madison for graduate school and I was going to study African American Literature. I was in the African American studies Department and during that time I started learning more about history. And when it came time to choose a thesis topic my professor said to me, Why dont you do Septima Clark and Daisy Bates and women in the Civil Rights Movement. They both have autobiographies. So I read Daisy Bates and I read Septimas two, and I decided to just do Septima. Maybe it was because my mom was a teacher and I had grown up in a household with a teacher. But I knew I could spend a lot of time with her and there were primary sources right there at Wisconsin. That I didnt have to have money to go and travel to look at stuff, and I could still use her autobiographies. And then when I did the dissertation, which is what comes before the book when you get your Ph.D. I expanded it to her earlier life. So I could go look up stuff that I couldnt when I was doing the masters. So I think it was probably because she was an educator rand I grew up in a household with a teacher in the end, but I didnt know that going into it.Caroline: Yeah I think thats another reason why we chose her too because of her civil rights and education behind her and in English we had to write a paper about her. And then for social studies we had to construct the website, so that way we could split it off like you do Civil Rights Ill do her teaching, and then that also made the website easier. Dr. Charron: Yeah! So the website focuses on her Civil Rights years.Caroline: Well we have both (education and civil rights)Dr. Charron: Oh Nice! Yeah because education is so important. So yeah thats what I think her greatest legacy is. And also her ability to work with all different kinds of people. People of all ages, people from the country, people from the city, ordinary folks, fancy people, you know what I mean?Caroline: Yes maam.Dr. Charron: And thats a real skill to have, and she had patience with people that sometimes other people in the movement didnt have because were busy thinking about other things, but she understood. I guess you could call it psychology, human psychology. She understood, she was sensitive to other peoples needs and what they saidCaroline: Its like she knew how to reach every person and how they respond the best. Dr. Charron: Yes, she defiantly knew how to do that. So what else did you have?Caroline: Yes, What do you think her biggest accomplishment was with the Civil Rights movement?Dr. Charron: Like I said, I think it was her ability to reach all different kinds of people and work with all different kinds of people, and to create an education program that could be adapted to different places depending on the local context- to answer peoples needs, what they wanted to learn, so they could do things for themselves. Caroline: So they could then learn then teach other people but they could also keep that skill and it be something that could help them. Thats right and by teaching other people they applied what they had learned and they grew in that process too as people and as leaders. Her program helped spread leadership throughout the movement which is a much more democratic approach to change. The more people you get involved the better itll be at the local level particularly. You need somebody in the movement to be at the top like Martin Luther King, right?Caroline: Right.Dr. Charron: But if there hadnt had been any citizenship schools you would not have had people with the confidence enough to turn out and march with Dr. Martin Luther King. They had to get that confidence first, and that feeling in themselves. So theres all different roles for people to play in a movement; big leaders, music, feeding people, doing childcare, knocking on doors talking to people, all that stuff. But this educative process she trained people to train other people was a big part of it. The question Id ask you to think about is How come we dont get taught this Civil Rights movement? Erin: Yeah, they tell us about the big things that happenedDr. Charron: Yeah but they dont tell you how they happened. They say Rosa Parks was so tired she couldnt get up from the bus, really? I bet she was more tired from working all day. In terms of the Civil Rights movement its like everything that happens before people got in front of the TV cameras and marched down and were willing to get arrested, thats the part that matters, because thats the part that explains why people would risk their lives.Erin: This brings us to our next question, how do you think the Civil Rights movement would have been different or how do you think it would have changed if Septima Clark wouldnt have been involved in it?Dr. Charron: Well here I think you kind of have to look at the long term effect of the citizenship education that was going on in the citizenship education program. Are yall familiar with that you know what kind of materials they were using and what they were teaching?Caroline: Yes maam, were pretty familiar with it.Dr. Charron: On one hand it could be as simple as cashing a check at the grocery store, but for someone who had never done that had never written a check, that was a big deal. And in other ways it was like okay so you need trash collection in your neighborhood, how do you get it, you need a health center, a community center in your neighborhood, how do you get it? HO do you create organizations, institutions, practices that will serve the citizens of your community. After people learned how to register to vote and became registered voters they still had all these other things they had learned so they could apply what they had learned in their community to answer the problems affecting their daily lives. Erin: Yes maam and that makes a big difference between just generations because now they could teach their kids, and their kids could teach their kids, and that made life better. Dr. Charron: Yes it did. It was hard work and some people in the movement burned out, some people had mental health problems when it was all over because it was so traumatic, some people kept on going. What I couldnt do in my book about Septima Clark because I had to stay close to her, I could talk about how she kept on going but what really interested me was thinking about how all these people she trained kept on going and think of all the things they did that we will never know or that would take us a long time to trace all of that out but thats like another part of the movements legacy was to reach citizens at the community level. Some of them went on to run for office. So I think its the long term effect, one thing I like to say a lot is that voting g is not about the day you go to your polling place on the second Tuesday in November and cast your ballot. Thats the first step, what voting is really about and what citizenship is really about is how you willed the power of the ballot to bring improvement to your community. And thats what she taught people to do. Here again she is spreading leadership around its making more leaders at the grassroots level, at the state level at the national level. Caroline: You have to teach people what theyre voting for and what that voting can mean before theyre going to take it seriously and really step up and fight for their own rights. Dr. Charron: Right, how do you use the vote, how do you use your influence as a citizen or as a group of citizens? One thing that Andrew Young said to me when I interviewed him in Atlanta, he was one in the citizenship education when it was with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. Kings organization and he went on the work for Jimmy Carter and do all these things hes still around but one thing he said to me that I always remembered was he said politics is the art of dividing up the money, and when the money is divided you want to have a seat at the table. You have to have representation so that your voices are heard and your community gets its share of the taxes they pay. So we always talk about voting and of course voting is super important but being a citizen is not about voting on one day a year. Septima Clark knew that, she taught other people that too and thats how she expressed her leadership, by spreading it around. And that representation was very important then because they were a minority and they had been discriminated against so they needed that.Dr. Charron: Yes they had, for 400 years. But the conditions the people in the Civil Rights movement were fighting in had only been around for about 100 years towards the end of the Civil War. Caroline: We were also able to see how all these events ran parallel that everything Septima Clark was doing it was running parallel with the movement and how it went into today and what weve become. Dr. Charron: Is there anything else? You asked me about her childhood.Caroline: Yes, how do you think her childhood affected her as a leader?Dr. Charron: I think that when she saw her mother stand up to a white policeman back in the 1900s- 1910s she says that that gave her courage later on in the movement and that if her mother could do it way back then I could do that. So I think that was a really important thing for her and her mothers pride and her mothers not being intimidated and I think that was equally important for her that she saw her father stop and help people when he was walking down the street like if he saw a lady carrying a lot of bags he would say let me help you with that she talks about how that influenced her too. And I think growing up in Charleston, its such a special place and going to the churches she did and going to the schools she did , you had a lot of social and political and leadership training in church and at school back then, so Id say the influence of her parents because her parents made her go to church and they got her into good schools, they made sure she got a good education, made sure she got a job so she wouldnt have to work as a domestic servant in a white persons house because that wouldnt have been safe.Caroline: Yeah she knew how important it was and she knew what it meant, she knew to help people and she just got to embrace it all, the helping and not only helping people but standing up and getting others to help and make a change.

Dr. Charron: Right, and also at that time you have to realize that the government when Septima was growing up did not help black people and it didnt help poor white people either. At time she was growing up it wasnt like it was or is today or like it was in the 1930s or 1960s. They didnt even have laws regulating pure milk so you wouldnt get sick from drinking milk or eating food that you bought. You have to remember that with the structure of the government people were helping themselves a lot but working all the time not making money, come on. And black people were paying taxes but not getting any of that tax money returned to them in terms of investments in schools, investments in their community, getting their streets paved, getting street lights. Erin: Right, and I think when we were looking at an interview of Mrs. Clarks she just talked about how theyd be on their way back from church and shed pass the very poor part of the African American community and she saw how the white policeman treated them so bad. Dr. Charron: There you go know you see how this stuff is still happening today; its nothing new its got a long history.Erin: Yes and how she really noticed she didnt want her people living like that Dr. Charron: Thats right, and her whole thing was how do you help people themselves engage in the fight for dignity and respect and equal treatment under the law. And she was really concerned about black women too. Her political areas of activism prior to the 1950s were mostly in womens groups: teachers, civic organizers, civic women, club women, sorority women, all different kinds of places where she learned so-called politics and how to work with people were all in groups composed of women, and that matters too. Dr. Charron: Okay well is there anything else I can help you with? Caroline: No ma'am I think we're good. Thank you so much! Dr. Charron: You're welcome, keep being historical detectives out there when you can.Erin: We will. Alright, good luck! Erin and Caroline: Thank you! Dr. Charron: Bye bye. Erin and Caroline: Bye.