Lucy Simms oral histories

Access and use

Location of collection:
James Madison University
Second Floor Room 203, MSC 1704
Carrier Library
James Madison University
880 Madison Drive
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Tiffany Cole
Phone: (540) 568-3444
Phone: (540) 568-3612
Fax: (540) 568-3405
Restrictions:

Collection open to research. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the James Madison University Special Collections Library to use this collection.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have been transferred to the James Madison University Special Collections Library. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library Reference Desk (library-special@jmu.edu).

Preferred citation:

[identification of item], [box #, folder #], Lucy Simms Oral Histories, 2000, SdArch 0020, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.

Summary

Extent:
0.09 cubic feet 5 folders, 6 audiocassettes
Creator:
Getachew, Wondwossen, Getachew, Wondwossen, and Getachew, Wondwossen
Abstract:
The oral history collection includes the recollections of Carlotta Harris, Edgar Johnson and wife, Wilhelmina Johnson, Louise Winston, and Elon Rhodes, former students of Lucy Simms, and Ellen Walker, current owner of the Lucy Simms house.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[identification of item], [box #, folder #], Lucy Simms Oral Histories, 2000, SdArch 0020, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

The oral history collection includes the recollections of Carlotta Harris, Edgar Johnson and wife, Wilhelmina Johnson, Louise Winston, and Elon Rhodes, former students of Lucy Simms, and Ellen Walker, current owner of the Lucy Simms house. Topics discussed include Lucy Simms as an educator and her teaching style; local African American education more broadly; and social, economic, and demographic changes to Harrisonburg's African American neighborhoods.

Biographical / historical:

Lucy Frances Simms was born into slavery in 1856 at the Hill Top Plantation located along Harrisonburg's northeast boundary. After Emancipation, her family settled on the same land where they were formerly enslaved, known as Newtown. As a young girl, Simms attended the Whipple School, Harrisonburg's first African American schoolhouse near Blacks Run, and later enrolled at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia where she studied alongside Booker T. Washington. After graduating in 1877 with a teaching certificate, Simms returned to the Harrisonburg area, where she taught three generations of Black students over the course of five decades. She began her teaching career at Long's Chapel schoolhouse in Zenda where she taught for one year before taking a position at the Effinger Street School in Harrisonburg. Simms taught there for fifty-one years until her death in 1934. She is buried in Newtown Cemetery. Her advocacy and commitment to teaching was commemorated by the Lucy F. Simms School which was built in 1939 as the city's new school for Black students and named in Simms's honor. The school, now known as the Lucy F. Simms Continuing Education Center, was in operation until 1966 when the local schools desegregated.

Acquisition information:
Cassette tapes, transcripts, and background paper were donated to Special Collections by interviewer Wondwossen Getachew in January 2001.
Processing information:

At some point after their donation in 2001, the cassette tapes were reformatted into a digital format.

Arrangement:

Collection materials are arranged according to interviewee.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard