Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project – Schools and Education
Series Number: OH231
Interviewee: Amos, Eloise Broady
Interviewer: Peyton, Bill
Date interviewed: August 3, 1979
Processed by: O’Daniel, Hannah
Date processed: January 21, 2014
Description: 1 sound disc (39 minutes)
Abstract: Eloise B. Amos discusses what education was like for African Americans in the public schools of McCracken County, Kentucky during the 1930s and 1940s and her struggle against the racist status quo to gain admittance to Paducah Junior College (presently West Kentucky Community and Technical College. She described her family’s experiences during the flood of 1937. She also details the chaos and riots against desegregation following the court imposed 1975 Louisville busing program.
Biographical / Historical note: Born in 1929 to James and Mary Broady, Eloise Marie Broady Amos grew up in Paducah and attended all black schools. After she graduated from high school in 1946, Amos worked at a Paducah general store and later a hospital. She was the first African American to attend Paducah Junior College, which originally banned the acceptance of African Americans. She obtained employment as a clerk at various institutions in Paducah before moving to Louisville with her new husband. She worked at the University of Louisville and attended night classes in Secretarial Science. From 1968 to 1970, she taught high school business classes before obtaining two sequential positions with the Louisville Board of Education. She returned to teaching high school due to the need for African American teachers as a result of the desegregation of Louisville public schools and required bussing in 1975. She obtained two more graduate degrees from Western Kentucky University, a Master of Arts in Secondary Guidance and Counseling in 1976 and another in Administration Supervision in 1979. She continued teaching business at the high school level in Jefferson County until her retirement in 1989.
General information: No user access to original recordings. Use audio user copies, digital derivatives, transcripts, and/or tape indexes. This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Permission for reproduction must be requested from Murray State University.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
Amos, Eloise Broady, 1929-
Segregation in education – Kentucky.
African Americans – Kentucky – History – 20th century.
Kentucky – Race relations.
Paducah (Ky.) – Flood, 1937.
McCracken County (Ky.)
Paducah Junior College – History.
