John M. Smith Interview, 1969

In 1969, Harrison Cornell, a reporter for WILL, the University of Illinois radio station, interviewed John M. Smith, an 84 year old black farmer from Broadlands, Ill. Smith described prejudice against blacks in Champaign and Danville, voting rights, farming techniques, and showing horses, among other reminiscences of his life in Champaign County.

After the Civil War, Smith's father, George W. Smith, had come to Springfield, Ill., from the South. He then had moved to Homer, Ill., where he raised grain, cattle, and horses.

The collection, donated to the Library by WILL, includes three reel-to-reel tapes, two cassette copies of those tapes, a four-page outline of the interview, and two obituaries.