Penny Patch Oral History
Object number2022.001.0020
Date04/01/2022
ClassificationsOral Histories
Oral history interview subject
Penny Patch
Oral history interviewer
Stephen Fagin
ObjectOral history
Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumBorn digital (.m4a file), Born digital (.mp4 file), Born digital (.vtt file)
DimensionsDuration: 61 Minutes
DescriptionVideotaped oral history interview with Penny Patch. As a college student, Patch participated in civil rights protests on U.S. Route 40 in the early 1960s. After leaving college to focus on her activism, she worked full time for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee from 1962 to 1965 and became the first white woman assigned to a SNCC field project. Patch worked in Georgia and Mississippi, interacting with numerous sharecroppers and their families, and she once had a live snake thrown at her feet while acting as an election poll watcher in Panola County, Mississippi.
Interview conducted over Zoom on April 1, 2022 by Curator Stephen Fagin. The interview is one hour and one minute long.
Curatorial CommentaryPenny Patch contributed the essay, "The Mississippi Cotton Vote," to the book, Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (2010).
A 2019 audio oral history recorded by StoryCorps, Inc. with Ms. Patch may be accessed here: Penny Patch’s experience during the civil rights movement – StoryCorps Archive. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator
