Walter Tillow 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 seven digital files: 2011.174.92.1a, 2011.174.92.1b, 2011.174.92.1c, 2011.174.92.1d, 2011.174.92.1e, 2011.174.92.1f, and 2011.174.92.1g. Walter Tillow discusses how he joined the Civil Rights Movement as a college student and how that led him into labor and leftist movements. He describes his childhood in New York City and the leftist politics of his parents, as well as how he learned about the Movement as a college student at Harpur College and as a graduate student at Cornell University. In 1963, he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and moved to Fayette County, Georgia where he worked on voter registration drives. He later worked in the SNCC communication office in Atlanta. He describes in detail the movement for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1965, he left the Movement to work for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and he later worked for the Communist Party.

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