Connections between the sit-in movement and the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen
Grantham draws connections between the civil rights sit-in movement and the activities of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. Although she does not explicitly identify what that connection was, Grantham recalls that she always thought it was the same people involved in both movements. Moreover, she asserts here that her own motivation for becoming involved was the Fellowship was because of her interest in and support of desegregation.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Virginia Grantham, March 6, 1985. Interview F-0017. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
-
Do you know of any relationship between the Fellowship and the sit-in
movement in the sixties, in 1960?
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Well, I always assumed there was some connection, but I can't
put my finger on it.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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You don't know any of the people in it who actually
participated in it or anything like that?
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Participated in?
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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Sit-ins.
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Oh well, yeah, I saw a lot of the people here that we talked about were
involved in the sit-ins. I think so because I always thought it was more
or less the same group of people.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
-
They were the kind of folks that would do that kind of thing.
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Yeah, right. And I was involved in them, so to a sort of fringe extent if
you are talking about, let me think about dates here, you are talking
about around 1960.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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Yes, February 1960, Jim Lawson.
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Yes, well it seems to me that a little bit after that there was some
other sit-ins. And I think was the ones that I was somewhere in
there.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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I left here in the sixties, so I am familiar with what went on in
Nashville.
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Lunch counter sit-ins that is what I am talking about.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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Yeah, that's the ones I am talking about. A
lot…
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Yeah, I was involved in that and my memory is of these people that we
talked about were involved in it to.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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What do you think was the significance of the Fellowship?
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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Well for me, I will just have to speak for me, because I am sure a lot of
things just passed over my head. For me, it was getting involved in some
kind of desegregation movement, where you know we had contact crossed
radical lines as well as economic lines, that's what.
- DALLAS BLANCHARD:
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Do you think it had an impact on the South?
- VIRGINIA GRANTHAM:
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That's really hard for me to say, since I'm white.
I remember the only place I knew about were Greensboro and here and so I
don't think I can speak for being just here and
Greensboro.
