Ellen Meacham Oral History
Object number2018.001.0069
Date06/18/2018
ClassificationsOral Histories
Oral history interview subject
Ellen Meacham
Oral history interviewer
Stephen Fagin
ObjectOral history
Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file)
DimensionsDuration: 49 Minutes
DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Ellen Meacham. A longtime journalist and professor of journalism at the University of Mississippi, Meacham is the author of Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi (2018).
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on June 18, 2018 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is forty-nine minutes long.
Curatorial CommentaryThe same day this oral history was recorded Ms. Meacham participated in a public program at the Museum. It may be viewed in full on the Museum's YouTube channel: Delta Epiphany: RFK In Mississippi - YouTube. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator
Sen. Robert Kennedy's visit to Mississippi in April 1967 had a profound impact on his vision for America. A few months later, in August 1967, Kennedy asked activist and civil rights lawyer Marian Wright Edelman to encourage Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "to bring the poor people to Washington to make hunger and poverty visible since the country's attention had turned to the Vietnam War and put poverty and hunger on the back burner." According to Edelman, King responded enthusiastically and began planning what became the 1968 Poor People's Campaign. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator