Oral history interview with George Esser, June-August 1990
Subtitle: interview L-0035, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Weaver, Frances A., interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2008
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Community development corporations; Employees; Social reformers; Community development; Economic policy; Economic conditions; Race relations; North Carolina Fund; University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Institute of Government; University of North Carolina (1793-1962)
Other titles: Interview L-0035, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with George Esser, June-August 1990; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: George Esser was the assistant director of the University of North Carolina's Institute of Government, executive director of the North Carolina Fund, project adviser with the Ford Foundation, and the executive director of the Southern Regional Council. He was born into a comfortable Virginia coal family in 1920, but the Great Depression plunged his family into poverty. Struggling to find a way to earn an income, Esser learned "the meaning of what a penny meant and a nickel meant" and what government programs could offer to needy Americans. Esser took advantage of one such government program, the G.I. Bill, to enroll at Harvard Law School, and he took his law degree south to the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill. In this interview, Esser describes the background and family history that shaped his philosophy and how he put that philosophy--a belief in the power of institutions to uplift communities--into action at the Institute. There, under the direction of Albert Coates, he studied issues like city-county consolidation and made connections that would eventually lead to the creation of the North Carolina Fund, a five-year community empowerment organization created with a grant by the Ford Foundation. Esser discusses the increasing role the Fund played in North Carolina's economic development in the 1960s, a story that reveals not only the importance of political influence in the development process, but also the operations and personalities that drove the Fund's initiatives. After discussing the North Carolina Fund, which closed in 1968, Esser remembers his efforts to reorient the Southern Regional Council (SRC) in Atlanta and his return to North Carolina in the 1980s. This interview offers not just an inside look at influential social justice organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, but also a portrait of a man who devoted his life to organizations dedicated to ameliorating poverty and social inequality.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: George Esser, interviewee; Frances A. Weaver, interviewer.

Duration: 07:31:55.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Kristin Shaffer.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 520 kilobytes, 827 megagabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series L, University of North Carolina, interview L-0035, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Jovita Flynn. Original transcript: 184 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.