T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Maxine Crump

COLLECTION: 4700.0117

IDENTIFICATION: [1946 - ] native of Maringouin, Louisiana; LSU Alumnae; first African American to live in a dorm

INTERVIEWER: Pamela Dean

PROJECT: LSU History

DATES: 8 July 1992

FOCUS DATES: 1950s - 1970s

ABSTRACT:

Tape 202 & 203

Background information; physical description of women in her family; compares and contrasts her mother and her grandmother; describes her appearance as a child; mother's obsession with making their home germ-free; describes the house that she grew up in; chores; describes her elementary school and her teachers; discusses importance of school; corporal punishment at school; cruelty of some of the teachers; building a new school for black children; contempt of teachers from urban areas for their "country" students; describes the beatings that her principal gave; discusses her parents desire for her and her siblings to receive an education; interest in acting; influence of television on her views of race relations; brother contracting spinal meningitis; summer school for Catholic children; impact of having an African American priest in an racially mixed parish; describes neighbors; African American voting in Iberville parish; parents' educational backgrounds; discusses segregation and her family's refusal to comply with it; decision to enroll at Louisiana State University; family's role in the civil rights movement; dating

T204 & T205

Registering for courses; Louisiana Education Association President J. K. Haynes; naivety about white resentment for black students at LSU; impressions of LSU campus; discusses her dorm room assignment and the steps the university took to keep her separate from white women in the same dorm; failed attempt to get a white roommate; describes the white women who lived on her floor; desire to "fit-in" at LSU; reaction of black cafeteria workers to her; white students eating with her; rejection by black students because she had white friends; discusses her white friends; white southerners refused to associate with her; membership in the Newman Club; passing in order to go places with her white friends; segregated bars and restaurants near LSU campus; Black Power movement at LSU; Harambe; dress codes for female students; radicalism of Catholic Student Center priest Michael Cody; liberalization of the Catholic mass; describes discussions with white liberal students about race; feelings of inferiority about her appearance; white liberals taking pride in having black friends; discusses dorm rules and dress codes; David Duke and Free Speech Alley; LSU administration using delaying tactics to kill student activism; institutionalized racism on campus; election of Kerry Pourciau as the first black student government president; discusses flunking out of LSU; racism of sororities and fraternities; increase in employment opportunities for black secretaries in Baton Rouge in the early 1970s; discusses her most and least favorite classes; sexual harassment on campus

TAPES: T202; T203; T204; T205

TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 3.75 hours

PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 150

RESTRICTIONS: None