Constance Curry
Constance Curry | |
---|---|
Born | (1933-07-19)July 19, 1933 Paterson, New Jersey |
Died | June 20, 2020(2020-06-20) (aged 86) Atlanta, Georgia |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Agnes Scott College |
Occupation | Community organizer, City government, author |
Known for | Education segregation in the Mississippi Delta |
Website | constancecurry |
Constance Winifred Curry (July 19, 1933 – June 20, 2020) was an American civil rights activist, educator, and writer.[1][2] A longtime opponent of racial discrimination, she was the first white woman to serve on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[3]
Early life
Born to Hazle and Ernest Curry in Paterson, New Jersey, she grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina and graduated from Greensboro High School, now known as Grimsley High School.[4][3] She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Agnes Scott College in 1955, and received a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Bordeaux.[3] After studying political science at Columbia University, her first job was as a field secretary for the Collegiate Council for the United Nations (CCUN), a member organization of the United States Youth Council.[5][6]
Civil rights era
Her introduction to civil rights advocacy came when a student at Morehouse College invited her to a meeting.[7] As the head of the National Student Association's Southern Student Human Relations Project, Curry quickly became involved with the Greensboro sit-ins that attempted to integrate whites-only lunch counters.[6] Curry worked closely with fellow SNCC member Ella Baker after they were chosen as "adult advisors" at the SNCC's founding conference.[1][6] She became an ally of Mae Bertha Carter and Mathew Carter during their successful 1965 fight to desegregate North Sunflower Academy in Mississippi.[8] Curry's 1995 book Silver Rights chronicles the events surrounding the Carters, and won the 1996 Lillian Smith Book Award for nonfiction.[7] She served as a field representative in the American Friends Service Committee from 1964–1975.[9][10][11]
Later life
In 1975 Curry became the City of Atlanta's Director of Human Services where she served under Maynard Jackson and then Andrew Young until 1990.[9][7] After retiring she turned to telling the stories of those in the civil rights struggles, starting with the Carter family in Silver Rights, followed by Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning, Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter, Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, and The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement (winner of a second Lillian Smith Book Award for nonfiction in 2009).[12] In 2003 she produced a film adaptation of Silver Rights, titled The Intolerable Burden. Her papers reside at Emory University in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.[5][13] She sought a law degree "just because I wanted to" and received her JD from the now-defunct Woodrow Wilson College of Law in 1984.[1][3] She died of sepsis in Atlanta, Georgia, on 6 June 2020.[1]
Selected works
- Curry, Constance (10 January 1995). Silver Rights. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-1-56512-095-2.
- Hudson, Winson; Curry, Constance (1 November 2002). Mississippi Harmony: memoirs of a freedom fighter. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0312295530.
References
- ^ a b c d Kurutz, Steven (22 July 2020). "Constance Curry, 86, Author and Ally in Civil Rights Fight, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ "Constance Curry". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 24 June 2020. Retrieved 25 Jul 2020.
- ^ a b c d "Curry, Constance, 1933-". crdl.usg.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Curry, Constance (10 January 1995). Silver Rights. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-1-56512-095-2.
- ^ a b Curry, Constance (11 March 2007). "Constance W. Curry papers, 1951-2002". findingaids.library.emory.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b c "Connie Curry". SNCC Digital Gateway. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b c "Remembering Constance Curry". Agnes Scott College website. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Rosengarten, Theodore (17 December 1995). "Mississippi Learning". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b "SNCC Legacy - Constance Curry". sncclegacyproject.org. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Ravo, Nick (6 May 1999). "Mae Bertha Carter, 76, Mother Who Defied Segregation Law". The New York Times. Section C. p. 2. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Holmes, Steven A. (28 January 1996). "Conversations: Mae Bertha Carter;Deep in the Mississippi Delta, 1965, The Blues Was About Civil Rights". The New York Times. Section 4; p. 7. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Kennard, Jessica. "Constance Curry, author of Silver Rights and activist in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi". www.mswritersandmusicians.com. Mississippi Writers Project. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
- ^ Quigley, Sarah. "Rose Library Blog | In Memoriam: On the Passing of Constance Curry". Emory University. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
Further reading
- Curry, Constance – Civil Rights Digital Library
- Constance W. Curry papers, 1951-2002
- v
- t
- e
(timeline)
groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Negro Voters League
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- John H. Calhoun
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Josephine Dobbs Clement
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Bell Robinson Devine
- John Wesley Dobbs
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Pete Seeger
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- A. T. Walden
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Q. V. Williamson
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians