Oral history interview with DeLois Jackson Wilkinson, 31 October 2002.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

The interview consists of a transcript and sound recordings in two formats: 2 original audio cassettes recorded in 2002; and a set of 3 data CDs containing MP3 files (a master, a copy master, and a use copy). The original cassettes were digitized during a conversion project in 2006.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: Oral history interview with Nashville Civil Rights Movement participant DeLois Jackson Wilkinson, conducted on 31 October 2002 by Kathy G. Bennett as part of the Nashville Public Library's Civil Rights Oral History Project. During the 1 hour and 16 minute interview, Wilkinson discusses such topics as her family, education, and growing up in Helena, Arkansas; Rev. Kelly Miller Smith and First Baptist Capitol Hill; her involvement in the civil rights movement; the International Ministers Fellowship; the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference; the Race Relations Institute at Fisk; civil rights leaders who came to Nashville during the movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, Medgar Evers, and Fannie Lou Hamer; Nashville's role as a model for movements in the rest of the South; raising money to fund the movement; social conditions in Nashville during the movement; non-violence training provided by NCLC; her physical therapy career and coming to work at Meharry Medical College; segregation in Nashville; participating in activities to desegregate the restaurant at Harvey's Department Store; boycotting downtown Nashville businesses; reporters who covered the movement in Nashville, including Wallace Westfeldt and David Halberstam; and the impact of desegregation and busing on education.

Cite as: Oral history interview with DeLois Jackson Wilkinson, Civil Rights Oral History Project, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library.

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code)

DeLois Jackson Wilkinson was born in 1924 in Helena, Arkansas, to John and Ava Murphy Jackson. She attended LeMoyne-Owen College and Northwestern University, where she received a degree in physcial therapy. Wilkinson worked at the Freedmans' Hospital at Howard University in Washington for one year, for the Department of Hospitals in New York for two years, and set up the physical therapy department for Parkview Hospital. Wilkinson served as Chief Physical Therapist at Meharry Medical College and worked as a consultant for the Tennessee Department of Public Health. Wilkinson died in 2005.

In English.

Transcript available in repository.

Forms part of: Civil Rights Oral History Project.