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 East Tennessee; her childhood and growing up on a farm; education and racial integration; her family’s political beliefs; being a working-class student at the University of Tennessee; protesters at the Billy Graham speech at Neyland Stadium; influential professors at the University of Tennessee; women’s studies at the University of Tennessee; courses in religious studies; becoming a member of Save Our Cumberland Mountains in 1977; activism with Save Our Cumberland Mountains; attending workshops at the Highlander Research and Education Center; women’s roles in Save Our Cumberland Mountains; anti-racism workshops; identity as a southern, working-class, white, feminist woman. This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program’s project to document the women’s movement in the American South.
Interview with Connie White by Jessie Wilkerson, August 16 2010 U-0497, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.