Oral history interview with George Simkins, April 6, 1997
Subtitle: interview R-0018, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Thomas, Karen Kruse, 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: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American dentists; African American civil rights workers; Civil rights movements; African Americans; Segregation; Civil rights; Discrimination in medical care; Race relations
Other titles: Interview R-0018, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with George Simkins, April 6, 1997; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Greensboro dentist George Simkins attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1944 to 1948, when only two dental schools accepted black students. He assumed that segregation would continue, but soon set about trying to undo it: he fought segregation at a local golf course but again lost the case before the Supreme Court, this time on a technicality; he sought to desegregate a swimming pool; and in what may have been his most significant civil rights achievement, he built a case against segregation in two Greensboro hospitals. The Supreme Court decided Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in the plaintiffs' favor, ending the legal segregation of medical care. In this interview, he describes his various civil rights efforts and the responses of his white opponents, who resisted desegregation by fighting it in court as well as with harassment and threats. While Simkins won a major civil rights victory in the early 1960s, he sees a return of segregation in public schools, and a lack of sympathy for civil rights among political and judicial leaders. This interview will provide researchers with insights into a motivated individual's efforts to undo segregation and the hostile response of the white community, a response that continues to resonate today.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 17, 2008).

Interview participants: George Simkins, interviewee; Karen Kruse Thomas, interviewer.

Duration: 01:11:13.

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: ca. 87.6 kilobytes, 130 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series R, Special research projects, interview R-0018, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Karen Kruse Thomas. Original transcript: 13 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.