The oral history consists of six digital files: 2011.174.78.1a, 2011.174.78.1b, 2011.174.78.1c, 2011.174.78.1d, 2011.174.78.1e, and 2011.174.78.1f.
Rick Tuttle, Ph. D. describes his family background and when he first became aware of the sit-in movement and the Freedom Rides when he was a student at Wesleyan University. As a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he was recruited to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963 and went to Greenwood, Mississippi, to work on voter registration drives. He also briefly spied on white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan meetings. After being driven out of Mississippi by threats, he joined the Chatham County Crusade for Voters in Savannah, Georgia. Tuttle describes being arrested in Savannah for disturbing the peace and the subsequent trial. Tuttle discusses the work he did after leaving the Movement: as the comptroller in Los Angeles he helped to bring an end to segregation at private clubs and participated in the anti-apartheid movement.
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in partnership with the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress