Geneva Johnson Blasingame discusses the Lindentown community and black neighborhoods in Athens, Georgia. She recalls the University’s efforts to push out black communities in 1962. Blasingame comments on the children attending the Union Institute, working in the garden before school, and making soap with her mother. She describes how the neighborhood has changed from “the place to be,” to a bad neighborhood, and presently to a good neighborhood. Blasingame recalls picking cotton with her mother and buying shoes from the kurd (flea) market. She recalls attending the Honor Grove Baptist Church, meeting her first husband on a dare, and finishing high school in 1964. Blasingame reflects on demonstrating in downtown Athens when the University of Georgia was integrated, and going to jail as a result. She discusses the jobs she’s held, including at a sewing factory, the poultry plant, and at a Creation Windows off of Cleveland Road.

FPP-0014, Geneva Blasingame interviewed by Renee Donnell and Laura Duvekot, July 12 2013, Athens, Ga.

This interview is part of the First Person Project, archived at the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.

To learn more about the First Person Project and browse other interviews, see bit.ly/1iLKjG0

First Person Project, Geneva Blasingame

FPP-0018, Bennie Tillman, Sr., interviewed by Renee Donnell and Laura Duvekot, July 12, 2013, Athens, Ga.

This interview is part of the First Person Project, archived at the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries.

To learn more about the First Person Project and browse other interviews, see bit.ly/1iLKjG0

First Person Project, Bennie Tillman, Sr.

Under pressure (doo doo doo doot doot doo doo)

The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia focuses on the dynamic relationship of politics, policy, and culture—generated wherever public interest intersects with government. 

The Russell Library's oral history program consists of active, ongoing oral history projects administered by Russell staff (such as the Georgia Environmental Oral History Project and the First Person Project), as well as oral history collections donated to the library by researchers, such as the Dean Rusk Oral History Collection. On our SoundCloud page, we'll be posting excerpts from various oral history recordings and archival audio recordings in our collections.

First Person Project, Geneva Blasingame

RussellLibraryOralHistory

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