Constance Winifred Curry (July 19, 1933 – June 20, 2020) was an American 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]
Constance Curry | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 19, 1933 |
| Died | June 20, 2020 (aged 86) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Agnes Scott College |
| Occupation | Community organizer, City government, author |
| Known for | Education segregation in the Mississippi Delta |
| Website | constancecurry |
Early life
editBorn to Hazle and Ernest Curry in Paterson, New Jersey, she grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina and graduated from Greensboro High School, now known as Grimsley High School.[4][3] She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Agnes Scott College in 1955, and received a 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
editHer 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
editIn 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 attended law school "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
edit- 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
edit- ^ 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.
- ^ "Constance Curry". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 24 June 2020. Retrieved 25 Jul 2020.
- ^ a b c d "Curry, Constance, 1933-". crdl.usg.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Curry, Constance (10 January 1995). Silver Rights. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-1-56512-095-2.
- ^ a b Curry, Constance (11 March 2007). "Constance W. Curry papers, 1951-2002". findingaids.library.emory.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b c "Connie Curry". SNCC Digital Gateway. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b c "Remembering Constance Curry". Agnes Scott College website. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ Rosengarten, Theodore (17 December 1995). "Mississippi Learning". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ a b "SNCC Legacy - Constance Curry". sncclegacyproject.org. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Quigley, Sarah. "Rose Library Blog | In Memoriam: On the Passing of Constance Curry". Emory University. Retrieved 26 July 2020.