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

Terms

Collections

Civil Rights Movement
All Online Objects
Oral History Collection

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 Commentary

Penny 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