Leroy Beavers Jr. recalls segregation and integration in Savannah, Georgia. Beavers walks the reader through a history of the city, from its golden years in the 1950s, when African Americans thrived in a self-contained community, to the decay of the 1960s and the damage he sees as having been brought about by integration. Beavers condemns integration, calling it "a genocide of a social life . . . where people had just a pure natural respect for each other." Beavers maintains that the closely-knit black community unraveled because new opportunities tempted African Americans and the spirit of self-reliance faded. A proud community slumped as drugs and crime infested black neighborhoods, and African Americans began to discriminate against one another. This crowd of social pathologies gathers on Martin Luther King Street, a name choice Beavers bitterly condemns. A bristling attack on integration, this interview provides an interesting perspective on the legacy of integration in a southern city.

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Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 28, 2008).

Interview participants: Leroy Beavers, interviewee; Leroy Beavers Sr., interviewee; Kieran Taylor, interviewer.

Duration: 00:45:55.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection.