J R Compton Oral History

Object number2006.001.0017

Date03/17/2006

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject J R Compton

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumHi-8 videotape

DimensionsDuration: 57 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with J R Compton. Editor of the student magazine at the University of Dallas at the time of the assassination, Compton went on to serve in the Vietnam War and later became a vocal anti-war critic. After working as a staff photographer at the Dallas Times Herald in the early 1970s, he was publisher of the left-wing underground newspapers Dallas NOTES and HOOKA. Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on March 17, 2006 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is fifty-seven minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

In December 1979, J R Compton founded Dallas Arts Revue as the first arts publication focused on North Texas regional art. The Revue went online in 2000 and was dubbed "Dallas's Oldest and Largest Online Art Magazine Of, By and For Dallas Artists." Compton remained active with the Revue until his passing on October 8, 2021. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

Curatorial Commentary

The Museum's Rev. Richard Deats Collection (2006.026) includes fourteen prints of photographs taken by J R Compton showing an anti-Vietnam War march that passed through Dealey Plaza on April 27, 1969. I wrote about this particular demonstration in an article about the Dallas activism of the Rev. Bill McElvaney, published in Legacies Dallas History Journal in Fall 2008. The full article, which includes two images of the march by a different photographer, may be accessed here: Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 20, Number 2, Fall, 2008 - Page 44 of 68 - The Portal to Texas History (unt.edu). -- Stephen Fagin, Curator