Rodney L. Hurst Oral History

Object number2021.001.0104

Date11/10/2021

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Rodney L. Hurst

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

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

MediumBorn digital (.m2ts file), Born digital (.m4a file), Born digital (.mp4 file)

DimensionsDuration: 88 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Rodney L. Hurst. As president of the Jacksonville, Florida NAACP Youth Council, Hurst led a series of local sit-in demonstrations, which resulted in an attack by 200 white supremacists on August 27, 1960. Stationed at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth in 1963, he was part of the honor detail when President and Mrs. Kennedy departed for Dallas one hour prior to the assassination. Hurst is the author of several books, including an award-winning account of his civil rights activism, It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke (2008). Interview conducted over Zoom on November 10, 2021 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is one hour and twenty-eight minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

Rodney L. Hurst's first book, It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke (2008), has won multiple awards, including first place for multicultural nonfiction at the 2008 National Best Books Awards. It also received the First Annual Stetson Kennedy Award from the Florida Historical Society in 2009. Mr. Hurst continues to write and speak on civil rights activism. A seventy-five minute multimedia presentation about Ax Handle Saturday, recorded August 26, 2020, may be viewed on the YouTube channel of the University of North Florida Department of English: The Justice Sessions: Rodney Hurst on Ax Handle Saturday, 8/26/20 - YouTube. - Stephen Fagin, Curator