Dorothy Foreman Cotton Oral History Interview

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

The oral history consists of eight digital files: 2011.174.40.1a, 2011.174.40.1b, 2011.174.40.1c, 2011.174.40.1d, 2011.174.40.1e, 2011.174.40.1f, 2011.174.40.1g, and 2011.174.40.1h. Dorothy Foreman Cotton discusses growing up in rural North Carolina, attending Shaw University and Virginia State College, working as a housekeeper for the president of these colleges, Dr. Robert Prentiss Daniel, and meeting her husband, George Cotton. She discusses attending the Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia, working with pastor Wyatt Tee Walker on organizing civil rights protests and meetings, and meeting Martin Luther King, Jr. She moved to Atlanta to assist Walker in his work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where she became Director of Education for the organization. At the Highlander Folk School, she met Septima Clark and Esau Jenkins and led the Citizenship Education Program. She also discusses the impact of King's assassination on the movement and the philosophy of nonviolence.

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