Oral History Interview with Mae Cora Peterson, July 25, 2012

Abstract

Interview with South Carolina-born African American resident of Fort Worth, Texas, Mae Cora Peterson, a non-profit administrator and educator. The interview includes Peterson's personal experiences of childhood on the South Carolina State College campus in Orangeburg, South Carolina, life under the Jim Crow laws, working at Border Mission, her move to and impressions of Fort Worth under Jim Crow laws, graduate school at the University of Michigan, and colorism. Peterson talks about her husband's job at Maxwell Steel in Fort Worth, taking a cruise to Havana, Cuba, on a Jim Crow passenger ship, other blacks' disbelief of privileged childhood and insulation from the full effects of segregation, education jobs at various colleges, working as Executive Secretary for the Fort Worth YWCA, and working as the dean of girls for Fort Worth ISD. Additionally, Peterson gives details on segregated Fort Worth high schools and desegregation, and her trip to London and Paris with her daughter. The interview includes an appendix with letters, contracts, job registration forms, yearbook excerpts, and an article about Mae Cora Peterson.