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OH243 Betty Ann Crisp Oral History

Betty Ann Crisp Oral History

Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project – Schools and Education

Series Number: OH243

Interviewee: Crisp, Betty Ann

Interviewer: Ross, Steve

Date interviewed: October 16, 1995

Processed by: O’Daniel, Hannah

Date processed: February 11, 2014

Description: 1 sound disc (47 minutes)

Abstract: Betty Ann Crisp describes the physical conditions of the Kane School, an African American elementary school in Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky, in the late 1930s and 1940s. She details both the academic and recreational aspects of her elementary education, including the games that the girls played during recess, her teachers, the annual graduation ceremony and punishments received by mischievous students. She recalls how the town of Clinton did not have a high school for African Americans, so she and others from Clinton had to travel a complicated busing route to attend the segregated high school at Hickman, Kentucky. She mentioned school consolidation in Hickman County as a parent and describes the experiences of her son when he transferred to the desegregated Central School of Hickman County in the sixth grade.

Biographical / Historical note: Betty Ann Crisp was born in Clinton, Kentucky in 1933. She attended Kane Elementary School when she was six years old and continued through to the eighth grade. She graduated from the segregated Hickman High School in Kentucky. She married Earl Crisp Junior and had six children. Her husband died on October 15, 2009. As of February 2014, she is a board member of Hickman County Senior Citizens, Inc. and involved with the Hickman County Library.

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:

Crisp, Betty Ann, 1933-

Clinton (Ky.) – History.

Education – Kentucky -- Hickman County – History.

African Americans – Education – Kentucky.

Segregation in education – Kentucky.

Kentucky – Race relations.

Kane Elementary School (Clinton,Ky.)