Oral History Interview with Jerry Washington Ward Jr., June 2, 2006
Subtitle: Interview U-0261, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Guild, Joshua, 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: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American teachers; African Americans; Civil rights; Hurricane Katrina, 2005; Social aspects; Dillard University
Other titles: Interview U-0261, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Jerry Washington Ward Jr., June 2, 2006; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: English professor Jerry Washington Ward, Jr. was born in Washington, DC, and spent most of his childhood in Mississippi. He earned a PhD in English from the University of Virginia in 1978 and served in the army. He decided to become a professor because he came from a family of teachers and had always enjoyed education. He attended Tougaloo College, where he came in contact with civil rights activism, learning to be angry but also to hope for a better America. He returned to teach at the college in 1970, and he left there after thirty-two years to teach at Dillard. He decided to teach at historically black institutions because he felt he owed a debt to his community. He feels that Dillard's students and faculty should be in closer contact with other institutions. Though issues of safety sometimes became a problem, Ward feels Dillard had a good relationship with Gentilly, the surrounding neighborhood. He remembers Gentilly as being an enjoyable mix of income levels. He was in Vicksburg, MS, during the hurricane. Shortly after the storm passed, he connected with Dillard administrators who had relocated to Atlanta. They briefly discussed moving the campus there, but instead they made a deal with Hilton Hotels to use their buildings and so were able to return to New Orleans, a fact he thinks helped with the healing process.
Notes: Title from electronic title page of transcript (viewed on June 18, 2009).

Duration: 01:40:58

Interview participants: Jerry Washington Ward, Jr., interviewee; Joshua Guild, interviewer.

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 Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files : 121 kilobytes, 184 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series U, interview U-0261. Originals are in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Emily Baran. Original transcript: 33 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  QuickTime and JavaScript for audio clips embedded in transcript; MP3 player for download.