Eighty-one year-old Brooklyn, N.Y. native, Marie Cirillo has spent the last forty-two years of her life as a community organizer in Appalachia. There she has worked closely with natives to the area to create independently run nonprofits, land trusts, women’s organizations, and living/learning centers. She spends this interview discussing how her background led her to …
Overview of work at Rural Advancement Fund; 70s at Oberlin College; overview of history and content of Agricultural Marketing Project in Tennessee; overview on farmers market organizing and environmental organizing in the 70s; background on Health fairs in Tennessee – Center for Health Services, Vanderbilt begun by Bill Dow; experience at Cornell for a Masters …
Suzanne Kurth is a professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Dr. Kurth was interviewed about her experiences as a professor and feminist at the University since the 1970s. Topics discussed in this interview include: gendered differences in treatment of faculty members in the 1970s; the women’s movement in Knoxville, Tenn. and …
June Rostan is a long time community and labor activist in east Tennessee. She was born on May 8, 1947, in Valdese, North Carolina. Rostan received her B.A. from Maryville College in 1969 and her M.A. in Special Education from Appalachian State University in 1970. In the early 1970s Rostan went to Italy with the …
Mary Herr was born in Springfield, Ill. in 1940. In 1978 she moved to Cherokee, N.C. where she has worked on many community development projects, primarily in legal aid services. Herr begins the interview by discussing her family history; a history of suicide on her mother’s side of the family; memories of growing up on …
Neil McBride was born on December 12, 1945 in Dallas, Texas. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1970. After graduating, he worked for a year as the Southern Director of the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council in Atlanta, GA. He then worked for a year as a staff attorney on …
Melody Reeves grew up in California in the 1960s, with many childhood trips back to the South to visit extended family. She moved to east Tennessee in 1979 to work with Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM), then with the Tennessee Valley Energy Commission, and moved in and out of the artistic community in Knoxville in …
Susan Williams grew up in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and she received her degree in Biology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1979. From 1979-1989, she worked as a community organizer for Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM). She then went to work for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN where she …
Linda Smotherman is from the Piney community in Van Buren County, Tenn.. She became president of Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM) in 1983. She started college at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in 1968. She finished at the Medical Laboratory School at MTSU in 1972. She worked at River Park Hospital in McMinnville, Tenn., until …
Connie White was born on December 8, 1954 in Loudon, Tenn. She became active in the environmental justice organization Save Our Cumberland Mountains in the 1970s and later served as President. She is currently the Associate Director of the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee. Connie White discusses her family’s history in …
