In 1963-1964, while Donald H. Smith, Chicago Teachers College, was working on his University of Wisconsin doctoral dissertation, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Rhetorician of Revolt, he went to the South to interview and acquire tape recordings concerning his subject. These fourteen tapes are copies of those which he made.
The recordings represent interviews Mr. Smith had with Dr. and Mrs. King and with members of the staff and other leaders in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). There are also copies of recordings made at meetings where Dr. King or his colleagues spoke, beginning with the meeting of December 5, 1955, which initiated the Montgomery, Alabama, boycott; and including part of the meeting which followed the March on Washington.
In addition, the collection includes a recording of the open Ku Klux Klan meeting held on the outskirts of Birmingham on May 11, 1963, and public reaction to the rioting that took place that night. Interviews with various Negro and white citizens and with teenage picketers are also recorded.
