Cultural Anthropologist Terry Buffington interviewed Mr. Brooks on November 18, 2010 in Tupelo Mississippi about his involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s as a teenager.
In 1964 Eddie Brooks was a young black male, age 17 who was born in the Mississippi Delta town of Marks and grew up on the southside of Chicago. That same year Brooks was a high school student member of the Friend of, the Student Non-violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), based at the University of Chicago, and was enrolled in the city of Chicago Public school system. During the 1964 Freedom Summer Campaign he was a Freedom Summer SNCC field organizer, a Freedom Summer teacher who worked and lived in West Point, Mississippi. Freedom Summer, or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive aimed at increasing the number of registered Black voters in Mississippi. Over 700 mostly white volunteers joined the blacks in Mississippi to fight against voter intimidation and discrimination at the polls.
Join us February 17-19, 2023 at the Gladish Centre for the Arts, for the stage reading of a fascinating journey into the revelations of Eddie Brooks civil rights contributions as told through his words in the 21st century!
Friday, February 17 – 7:30PM
Saturday, February 18 – 2:00PM & 7:30PM
Sunday, February 19 – 2:00PM
Tickets on sale at the Gladish Centre for the Arts115 NW State St
Pullman, WA 99163
https://gladishcommunity.org/tickets/born-under-jim-crow-the-eddie-brooks-tapes-stage-reading
Audiocassette 1: Eddie Brooks tape 1: Side 1 https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/07ddd/id/86/rec/1
Audiocassette 2: Eddie Brooks tape 2, 18 November 2010: Side 1
https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/07ddd/id/73/rec/1
Audiocassette 2: Eddie Brooks tape 2, 18 November 2010: Side 2 https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/07ddd/id/74/rec/2
Audiocassette 3: Eddie Brooks tape 3: Side 1 https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/07ddd/id/85/rec/1
https://terrybuffingtonproductionsllc.com/
https://terrybuffingtonfoundation.org/
Hi Terry,
Interestingly, my mother, who was born and raised in Pullman WA, went to Chicago and then to the South to participate in the voter registration drive mentioned in the Eddie Brooks story. She went as part of her work as the regional director of the student YWCA. There is a great video she made where she tells her story of this trip. You may know that Dr Johnetta Cole was a prof in anthropology at WSU here in Pullman around this same time… All part of the local civil rights history!
Kristine, good morning, my apology for my long delay in responding to you. Your message about your mother’s experiences in the 1960s. was inspiring. I am always delighted to hear from my neighbors about social justice issues and events in Pullman during the 1960s – 1970s. I would love to meet you and hear everything about your mother’s experience. About, Dr. Cole, I am aware of her work in the 1960s – 1970s during WSU student unrest. Dr Cole is active and heads the Johnetta Cole Institute.
February 10, 2024, the Terry Buffington Foundation will present its second annual Southern Fried Dinner and silent auction at the Gladish Center’s View Room from 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm. The evening includes a formal talk about the Terry Buffington Papers, a digital civil rights movement collection gifted to and sponsored by the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. Wilson Library. Southern Historical Collection The collection contains my anthropological work with Black men who came of age during the 1960 civil rights movement and were influenced by Stokley Carmicheal and Ralph Featherstone in my hometown of West Point, Mississippi, https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/70107/#d1e49
The evening’s menu includes buttermilk fried chicken, collard greens, hoping Jons’ buttermilk cornbread, shrimp and grits, Louisiana iced sweet and unsweetened tea, and Red Devil Cake for dessert.
Tickets are $100.00 for individuals and $175.00 for couples (includes appetizers and two bar tickets), and tables for six are $1,000.00 including wine, an assigned server, hors d’oeuvrve, and the best seats in the house. Tickets are on sale starting January 1, 2024, and can be purchased via the Gladish Box office, and at the event’s registration table.
We are seeking auction items and if you have an item that you would like to donate, please, let me know. All contributions are tax-deductible. Proceeds will benefit the 2025 two-day symposium: The American South, Culture, History, Folklore, Southern Identity, and, the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, WSU campus, Pullman.
I may be reached via email. terrybuffingtonfoundation@gmail.com
My best
Professor Buffington, MA