Oral history interview with Asa T. Spaulding, April 14, 1979
Subtitle: interview C-0013-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Weare, Walter B., 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; African American executives; Race relations; African Americans; Civil rights; Segregation; Politics and government; African American business enterprises; North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company
Other titles: Interview C-0013-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Asa T. Spaulding, April 14, 1979; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Asa T. Spaulding, longtime actuary at the historically black North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company--and its president from 1959 to 1968--recalls his efforts to prepare Durham, North Carolina, for desegregation. Spaulding grew up in an environment relatively free from discrimination, so after his education at New York University and the University of Michigan, he brought to Durham a determination that racial barriers were artificial and needed to be dismantled. He did so not with overt activism, but by using his influence to bring together white and black business leaders at North Carolina Mutual. These business meetings not only brought together creative thinkers, they also modeled successful integration before the civil rights movement had scored its victories in the early 1960s. In this interview, Spaulding reflects on how his growing influence as a business leader allowed him to make unique contributions to dismantling segregation in Durham. Researchers and students might also consult the two other interviews with Spaulding in this collection, C-0013-1 and C-0013-3. Those interested in learning more about the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and black business in the South might turn to the interviewer's book, Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on June 2, 2008).

Interview participants: Asa T. Spaulding, interviewee; Walter Weare, interviewer.

Duration: 02:01:39.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH 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. 137.0 kilobytes, 222 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series C, Notable North Carolinians, interview C-0013-2, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Dorothy M. Casey. Original transcript: 35 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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