Nan Pendergrast Oral History Interview 1992 June 24.

Abstract

Among topics discussed: Family background; social consciousness; education; Walter White; 1906 Atlanta race riot; Leo Frank lynching; Ralph McGill; Barry Goldwater; met Britt Pendergrast; Britt Pendergrast's educational and career background; pacifist reaction to WW II; Atlanta's American Friends Service Committee in 1940s; YWCA and race issue; Dorothy Tilly; Josephine Wilkins; League of Women Voters; Republican Party; Jewish women and the League; Bea Haas; Jo Heyman; Rebecca Gershon; Judge Elbert Tuttle; state Republican Party and desegregation; John Calhoun; the Atlanta Daily World; Dean Josephine Murphy of Atlanta University; Council on Human Relations; lack of black/white relationships in Atlanta; Whitney Young; mid‑1940s registration drive; Morris Abram; Georgia Republican delegation split in 1952; Judge Tuttle; Dwight Eisenhower as Pendergrast political idol; family attitude toward Franklin D. Roosevelt; strike at Southern Spring Bed Company; desegregation; the Urban League; 1956 desegregation crisis of League of Women Voters; George Goodwin; how liberals interacted with Atlanta power structure; Pendergrast articles; HOPE; the Tower Theater desegregationist meeting; people who inspired Pendergrast; Sibley Commission hearings; John Sibley; HOPE; Maxine Freedman and Judy Nieman; Muriel Lokey; Lanier Randall; Harry Boyte controversy; Hamilton Lokey and HOPE's pragmatic approach to desegregation; Friends Meeting House; business community and desegregation; Helen Bullard; Ivan Allen; Muggsy Smith; Lester Maddox; restaurant desegregation; Partners for Progress; Dick Rich and Rich's Department Store; Bob Coles and black transfer students; Grace Hamilton and the Urban League; Sadie Mays; Jessie Hill; Journal and Constitution quote from Pendergrast, October 1961.

Nan Pendergrast (b. 1920) has been involved in civil rights and social justice activities in Atlanta since the 1940s. She was a leader of HOPE (Help Our Public Education) during Georgia's desegregation crisis.