Oral history interview with Joanne Shane Plummer, 2000

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Name: Plummer, Joanne Shane (Interviewee); Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017 (Interviewer)
Title: Oral history interview with Joanne Shane Plummer, 2000
Other Titles: Reminiscences of Joanne Shane Plummer, 2000; Oral history of Joanne Shane Plummer, 2000
Abstract: Plummer begins this interview by discussing the events of her youth and her parents' careers and Communist political leanings. She explains her experience growing up in the McCarthy era and encounters with anti-Semitism and bullying. She discusses the racial makeup and demographics of her Sunnyside, Queens community. She shares stories about the 1949 Peekskill riots, where locals attacked attendees of a Paul Robeson concert. She compares anti-Black racism to anti-Semitism and looks at the involvement of Jews in the civil rights movement. She discusses her early background and relationship to the International Lady Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). She discusses her experience at Queens College and the NAACP chapter there. She characterizes her time working as a ghostwriter and relays how she became involved in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) through interviewer Sheila Michaels decades prior. She shares her interactions with and impressions of Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Malcolm X. Plummer also discusses her experience with arrest, the Freedom Highways Project, and reflects on conflicts leading to her exit from the civil rights movement. She shares details of her professional and political life after leaving and how she eventually transitioned into a career of social work. Plummer discusses Roy Innis' leadership of CORE and Black Nationalism. She talks about her biracial son Robert and how he has understood racial identity. She also examines well as her experiences as a single mother. Lastly, Plummer discusses the importance of civil rights activism to both her career and her identity
Collection Name: Sheila Michaels civil rights organization oral history collection
Subjects: Civil rights movements--History--20th century.--United States; Civil rights workers--History--20th century.--United States; Anti-communist movements--History--20th century.--United States; United States Race relations 20th century; Sunnyside (New York, N.Y.); Plummer, Joanne Shane; Innis, Roy, 1934-2017; Congress of Racial Equality
Format: oral histories
Genre: Interviews
Date: 2000

Physical Description: 200 pages
Note (Biographical): Joanne Shane Plummer was born on September 17, 1939 to a secular Jewish family in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, New York. Plummer's family was very politically active, and she grew up among family friends such as anarchist Emma Goldman and fem inist labor leader Rose Pesotta. Plummer attended Queens College and became involved with the NAACP chapter on campus; She later joined New York Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In CORE, Plummer became one of the leaders of the Freedom Highways project, which sought to investigate racial segregation in Howard Johnson's restaurants along the Southeastern Seaboard. After the civil rights movement, Plummer entered a career in social work. Her work included placing patients who had been mistreated at the Pennhurst State School and Hospital into group homes, and she later worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare
Note: Interviewed by Sheila Michaels on March 8, 2000
Note (Provenance): Sheila Michaels, Gift circa 2000-2005
Language: English
Library Location: Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
Browse Location’s Digital Content
Catalog Record: 11604444
Also In: Oral History Archives at Columbia; Time-Based Media; Time-Based Media
Persistent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-6h0j-hr58
Related URLs: Available digital content for this interview.