Gwendolyn M. Patton Oral History Interview: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

The oral history consists of eight digital files: 2011.174.20.1a, 2011.174.20.1b, 2011.174.20.1c, 2011.174.20.1d, 2011.174.20.1e, 2011.174.20.1f, 2011.174.20.1g, and 2011.174.20.1h.

Gwendolyn Patton discusses attending the Tuskegee Institute, where she became involved in many civil rights organizations and was elected student body president. She recalls hosting the Freedom Riders in 1961, and spending a year in a segregated sanitarium when she had tuberculosis. She recounts organizing Tuskegee students for the Selma to Montgomery March, occupying the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and registering voters in Lowndes County.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: June 1, 2011
• Created by: Civil Rights History Project, American, founded 2009
• Interview of: Gwendolyn M. Patton, American, born 1943
• Interviewed by: Joseph Mosnier Ph. D.
• Subject of: Tuskegee Institute, American, founded 1881
• Subject of: Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, American, founded 1877
• Type: video recordings
• Type: oral histories
• Type: digital media - born digital
• Medium: digital
• Dimensions: Duration: 1 hr., 51 min., 26 sec.
• Dimensions: Total: 185.43 GB
• Place collected: Montgomery, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
• Place depicted: Selma, Dallas County, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
• Place depicted: Lowndes County, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Activism
• Topic: American South
• Topic: Associations and institutions
• Topic: Baptist
• Topic: Civil Rights
• Topic: HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities)
• Topic: Medicine
• Object number: 2011.174.20.1a-h
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in partnership with the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture and The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.