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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Mildred Price Coy, April 26, 1976. Interview G-0020. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

The limits that the South placed on the YWCA's work

Coy remembers some of the other people she had contact with through the YWCA. She also believes that, given the social circumstances in the South at the time, the YWCA did as much good as it could have.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Mildred Price Coy, April 26, 1976. Interview G-0020. 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.

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MARY FREDERICKSON What about your own political activity during that time? Had you kept in contact with any of the groups you'd met in New York? There wasn't a socialist local or anything like that in Lynchburg, was there?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
No, I wouldn't have gone to it anyway. MARY FREDERICKSON So you sort of broke off that political contact that you'd had for a while.
MILDRED PRICE COY:
I didn't really have any political contact. MARY FREDERICKSON I mean when you'd been introduced to political groups in New York, you didn't continue.
MILDRED PRICE COY:
I didn't know any of them, and I never heard of them again. MARY FREDERICKSON When you were working for the YWCA, in addition to Louise Leonard, did you have contact with any other people who were particularly important or interesting to you, any of the other secretaries who you remember? Did you meet Katharine Lumpkin at that time?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
She was a friend of Louise and Lois; I met Katharine Lumpkin. I don't know whether she was a Trotskyite or not, but she was sort of that persuasion. I can't remember how long ago it was. I knew Katharine, and I liked her. I remember later on when I lived in New York, I think she was with the Trotskyites. Not that I had so much against the Trotskyites—I didn't know too much about them—but I think she was. MARY FREDERICKSON So she was never working in the South at the same time you were?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
Oh, this is Katharine. Well, I don't know about Katharine. I was thinking about Grace. I met Katharine and I remember how nice she was, but I don't remember anything much about her. MARY FREDERICKSON What about Lois MacDonald? Did you continue to have contact with her?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
Yes. Until they moved out in the country we used to see them. They lived right across the hall from us there when we first went to New York. MARY FREDERICKSON What about when you were in the South working for the Y? Did you see her then?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
She came down and gave a series of lectures on cotton mills at the YWCA conference. Louise asked her to come down, and she gave a series of talks. MARY FREDERICKSON Do you remember at the time feeling any kind of disillusionment with the YWCA? Did it go far enough? Did you think it was a worthwhile organization?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
I did. I never was disillusioned with the YW, and I'm still not. MARY FREDERICKSON So you thought that, given the social situation, they did everything that they could?
MILDRED PRICE COY:
I think so.