Constance Curry

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Constance Curry
Born(1933-07-19)July 19, 1933
Atlanta, Georgia
NationalityAmerican
Alma materAgnes Scott College
OccupationCommunity organizer, City government, author
Known forEducation segregation in the Mississippi Delta
Websiteconstancecurry.com

Constance Winifred Curry (July 19, 1933 – June 20, 2020) was an

civil rights activist, educator, and writer.[1][2] A longtime opponent of racial discrimination, she was the first white woman to serve on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[3]

Early life

Born to Hazle and Ernest Curry in

Fulbright scholarship to the University of Bordeaux.[3] After studying political science at Columbia University, her first job was as a field secretary for the Collegiate Council for the United Nations (CCUN), a member organization of the United States Youth Council.[5][6]

Civil rights era

Her introduction to civil rights advocacy came when a student at Morehouse College invited her to a meeting.[7] As the head of the National Student Association's Southern Student Human Relations Project, Curry quickly became involved with the Greensboro sit-ins that attempted to integrate whites-only lunch counters.[6] Curry worked closely with fellow SNCC member Ella Baker after they were chosen as "adult advisors" at the SNCC's founding conference.[1][6] She became an ally of Mae Bertha Carter and Mathew Carter during their successful 1965 fight to desegregate North Sunflower Academy in Mississippi.[8] Curry's 1995 book Silver Rights chronicles the events surrounding the Carters, and won the 1996 Lillian Smith Book Award for nonfiction.[7] She served as a field representative in the American Friends Service Committee from 1964–1975.[9][10][11]

Later life

In 1975 Curry became the City of Atlanta's Director of Human Services where she served under Maynard Jackson and then Andrew Young until 1990.[9][7] After retiring she turned to telling the stories of those in the civil rights struggles, starting with the Carter family in Silver Rights, followed by Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning, Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter, Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, and The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement (winner of a second Lillian Smith Book Award for nonfiction in 2009).[12] In 2003 she produced a film adaptation of Silver Rights, titled The Intolerable Burden. Her papers reside at Emory University in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.[5][13] She sought a law degree "just because I wanted to" and received her JD from the now-defunct Woodrow Wilson College of Law in 1984.[1][3] She died of sepsis in Atlanta, Georgia, on 6 June 2020.[1]

Selected works

  • Curry, Constance (10 January 1995). Silver Rights. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
    ISBN 978-1-56512-095-2
    .
  • Hudson, Winson; Curry, Constance (1 November 2002). Mississippi Harmony: memoirs of a freedom fighter. Palgrave Macmillan.
    ISBN 978-0312295530
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c d Kurutz, Steven (22 July 2020). "Constance Curry, 86, Author and Ally in Civil Rights Fight, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  2. ^ "Constance Curry". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 24 June 2020. Retrieved 25 Jul 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d "Curry, Constance, 1933-". crdl.usg.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  4. ISBN 978-1-56512-095-2
    .
  5. ^ a b Curry, Constance (11 March 2007). "Constance W. Curry papers, 1951-2002". findingaids.library.emory.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  6. ^ a b c "Connie Curry". SNCC Digital Gateway. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  7. ^ a b c "Remembering Constance Curry". Agnes Scott College website. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  8. ^ Rosengarten, Theodore (17 December 1995). "Mississippi Learning". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  9. ^ a b "SNCC Legacy - Constance Curry". sncclegacyproject.org. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  10. ^ Ravo, Nick (6 May 1999). "Mae Bertha Carter, 76, Mother Who Defied Segregation Law". The New York Times. Section C. p. 2. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  11. ^ Holmes, Steven A. (28 January 1996). "Conversations: Mae Bertha Carter;Deep in the Mississippi Delta, 1965, The Blues Was About Civil Rights". The New York Times. Section 4; p. 7. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  12. ^ Kennard, Jessica. "Constance Curry, author of Silver Rights and activist in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi". www.mswritersandmusicians.com. Mississippi Writers Project. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  13. ^ Quigley, Sarah. "Rose Library Blog | In Memoriam: On the Passing of Constance Curry". Emory University. Retrieved 26 July 2020.

Further reading

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