Articles of Incorporation, By-laws, Historical Sketch, Report, Plans, Budgets, Lists of Members, Cooperative Brochure, 1968-1969

Minutes of Meetings, April 1968-May 1969

Minutes of Area Team Meetings, July 1968-January 1969

Tufts-Delta Health Center, 1968; and Miscellany

Population and Income Data for the Area, 1967-1968

Tape Recordings

Interview, June 11, 1969, with Lucinda Young, Shelby, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Mrs. Young worked in the Cooperative office and was secretary of the NBC board. Became active in the movement about 3 years prior to the interview, and participated in the Shelby boycott, summer 1968, described by L. C. Dorsey. Described by the interviewer as 45-60 years of age, “volatile,” and somewhat frightened of the tape recorder.

Interview, June 12, 1969, with Rev. Levi Thomas, Duncan, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Discusses the early civil rights movement. Described by the interviewer as about 50 years of age, “generally considered a tom” (i.e. “Uncle Tom”), and as very ambiguous about the involvement of ministers in civil rights.

Interview, June 13, 1969, with Mary Johnson, Winstonville, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Mrs. Johnson was a board member of the Cooperative, a field worker for the Tufts-Delta Health Center, and a community leader in the Winstonville/Shelby area. Described by the interviewer as aged 50, “peppery,” and cautious on tape.

Interview, June 13, 1969, with Irene Williams, Mound Bayou, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Interview is primarily autobiographical, discussing her early marriage, life as a sharecropper, her sense of rural isolation, and work at Tufts-Delta Health Center as a nurses' aide. Described by the interviewer as about 30 years old, beautiful, and intelligent.

Interview, June 14, 1969, with David Caldwell, Symonds, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Made in a bar. Interview becomes a discussion between Lee Bankhead, a community organizer and Tufts employee, Charles and Zada Bowden, Bob Woods, and Caldwell. Caldwell was a laborer on a rice plantation, and on the tape is criticized for his caution and lack of militancy by Bankhead and Woods. On Side 1 Caldwell denies encountering difficulties with whites, but on Side 2 begins to discuss such troubles. On Side 2, Bankhead critiques federal programs for the poor.

Interview, June 18, 1969, with Barbara Ross, Mound Bayou, Mississippi
Scope and Content Note: Ross was a young nurses' aide at Tufts-Delta Health Center. Mrs. Ross was also a board member of NBC, and on tape discusses the cooperative and her life. Taped in her office at Tufts.

Interview, summer 1969, with L. C. Dorsey, director trainee of the Cooperative
Scope and Content Note: Dorsey became director in August 1969. Described by the interviewer as very militant, Mrs. Dorsey refuses to discuss the Cooperative's disagreements with the federal Office of Economic Opportunity, her vision of black politics, and her vision of herself (“I am a communist, anarchist, and insurrectionist”). She had been dubbed a communist by Mississippi Senator John Stennis. Early in the interview a local black teacher and bar owner, Samuel “Bubba” Jordan interrupts to ask for a job, and subsequently argues with Mrs. Dorsey. Jordan, who had been fired from his teaching position after organizing black teachers, wanted a job as assistant to Mayor Lukas of Mound Bayou. At one point, Mrs. Dorsey turns off the tape recorder to answer Jordan's charges and to give her vision of the future work of the cooperative -- to get all blacks to move onto its land, to cultivate thousands of acres, and to get all of the “pecker-woods” out.

Interview in the Cooperative's lunchroom with Jim Taylor, a professional social worker and organizer
Scope and Content Note: White and in his early 30s, described by the interviewer as very nervous despite his choice of the lunchroom for the interview, Taylor discusses his work as an organizer in rural areas and the problems he encountered as a white man.

Interview, June 16, 1969, with L. C. Dorsey
Scope and Content Note: Discussing her childhood, school experiences, marriage, sharecropping work, and civil rights, including the spring/summer 1968 boycott in Shelby, Mississippi. Mrs. Dorsey also discusses the Farm Cooperative, although with some reticence due to her fears of losing OEO funding for the organization. According to the interviewer, off the tape Mrs. Dorsey discussed her distrust of OEO, of the federal government, and of whites in general, and mentioned harassment by the FBI.

Interview, June 17, 1969, with John Brown
Scope and Content Note: Discusses his early life, mother and father's working life, and his own work sharecropping. Brown also talks about the quality of his life, dealing with whites, and problems blacks have with whites, including being cheated by whites.

June 1969, unidentified people
Scope and Content Note: An unidentified woman talking about living on Senator Eastland's plantation, her work experience and that of others, and problems of exploitation. Also, an unidentified man discusses life on the Eastland plantation, and a second unidentified man speaks about whites killing blacks and about life in the south.

People socializing