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Sidney Freeman oral history interview 1, 2003 May 21

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@ University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Freeman, Sidney L. (interviewee)

Description

Rev. Dr. Sidney L. Freeman, the longtime minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte (UUCC), recounts his involvement in the city's civil rights movement. Originally from Wisconsin, Dr. Freeman moved to Charlotte in 1957 to take the ministerial position at the socially progressive UUCC. That same year he was invited to join the faculty of Johnson C. Smith University as the second full-time white faculty member, and would continue to teach there until 1987. It was through his teaching position that he became a more active participant in the civil rights movement. Dr. Freeman explains how student Charles Jones invited him to participate in the first Charlotte sit-in, stressing that Jones and other student leaders managed and organized the sit-ins in such a way as to reassure the university faculty and also open a line of communication with the Charlotte Police Department. Dr. Freeman describes what the sit-ins were like, including the strategies of the the participants and the reactions of the lunch counter staff and patrons. He also describes how his congregation was active in supporting the protesters, and explains that it was through his role as a Unitarian minister that he was invited by President John F. Kennedy to participate in a meeting of civil rights leaders at the White House in 1963. Dr. Freeman goes on to discuss school integration, both as a member of the clergy and as a father who had children in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system at the time. He discusses Charlotte's transformation...
Type:
Sound
Format:
Spoken Word1 Audio File (1:21:54) : Digital, Mp3 + 1 Transcript (29 Pages : Pdf)Audio/Mpeg
Contributors:
Desmarais, Melinda (interviewer)
Rights:
The materials included on this web site are freely available for private study, scholarship or non-commercial research under the fair use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, United States Code). Any use beyond the provisions of fair use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publication, broadcast, redistribution or mounting on another web site always require prior written permission and may also be subject to additional restrictions and fees. UNC Charlotte does not hold literary rights to all materials in its collections and the researcher is responsible for securing those rights when needed. Copyright information for specific collections is available upon request.
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Record Contributed By

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Record Harvested From

North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

Keywords

  1. Civil Rights
  2. Civil Rights Demonstrations
  3. Civil Rights Movements
  4. Clergy
  5. College Teachers
  6. Discrimination
  7. Discrimination In Education
  8. Education
  9. Equality
  10. Freeman, Sidney L
  11. Johnson C. Smith University
  12. Jones, Charles, 1937
  13. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917 1963
  14. National Conference For Community And Justice
  15. Political Aspects
  16. Race Relations
  17. Racism
  18. School Integration
  19. Segregation
  20. Swann, James E
  21. Trials, Litigation, Etc
  22. Unitarian Church Of Charlotte (Charlotte, N.C.)
  23. Unitarian Churches

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