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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-075
Jim Brown served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from September 1962 to August 1964 as a secondary school teacher. Growing up in Chicago, he became interested in exploring the world at a young age. Brown applied to the Peace Corps during his senior year of college. His training was held at UCLA and covered a full range of topics: language, technical, culture, and health. In Nigeria, Brown was dropped at a remote secondary Catholic boys' school in the middle of the jungle where the nearest village was an hour away. The structured school day included some open time to talk about issues in the U.S. in comparison to Nigeria. Upon completing his service, Brown attended graduate school for African studies and gave lectures on his experience in Nigeria. He became a professor of African studies and also curated a museum of African art at his university. Interviewed and recorded by Randolph Adams, December 21, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-036
Stephen Clapp served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1962 to 1964. After attending Harvard College and working as a journalist for the New York Post, Clapp decided to join the Peace Corps. He trained at Columbia University Teachers College in the secondary education program, which included learning Hausu and Nigerian history and culture. In Nigeria, he taught boys from both Christian and Muslim families in a selective provincial boarding school located in Yola. He also discusses the Yolo Club, the center of social life for expatriates. Clapp later developed a successful career in food policy journalism, and also wrote a book about his Peace Corps experience, "Africa Remembered: Adventures in Post-Colonial Nigeria and Beyond" (2008). 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, July 31, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-031
Stephen Vincent served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1965 to 1967. After Peace Corps training at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Stephen was assigned to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he taught humanities, literature, poetry, and creative writing. The interview includes discussion of tensions at the university leading up to the Biafran War. Stephen recounts an incident in which he got into hot water for giving credit to the Peace Corps for funding a poetry recording project, and another in which his own poetry helped him gain permission to leave the war zone. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, June 3, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-030
Abdullahi Edward ("Ed") Tomasiewicz served in the Peace Corps in Nigeria from August 1966 to August 1967 as an agriculture and rural development volunteer. He was assigned to a small industries business loan grant project in Kano, a project funded by the Ford Foundation and administered by the regional Nigerian government. A few years later, Ed went back to Nigeria and discovered that the people whose projects he had helped fund had gone on to become successful businessmen. By the time of this interview, Ed (age 72) had spent a significant portion of his life in Nigeria and had also obtained Nigerian citizenship. Unfortunately, all but the first half-hour of this interview has been lost. 1 digital audio file. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, June 6, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-037-001
(PART 1 OF 2) Henry John Drewal served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1964 to 1966 in an education program. His training at Columbia University included study of the Yoruba language. In Nigeria, Drewal was assigned to teach French and English at the African Church Grammar School in Abeokuta, a city in the Yoruba-speaking western region. He was also assigned to be the school's sports master, and focused on volleyball and tennis. Among his accomplishments was the construction of the school's first tennis court. During school holidays, Drewal organized and ran vacation arts camps for the primary school children. In his spare time, he continued his study of Yoruba and apprenticed himself to a Yoruba sculptor, an experience which had a profound impact on the rest of his life. After the Peace Corps, Drewal returned to Columbia University graduate school in African art history and anthropology, earning a Ph.D. At the time of this interview, he continues to do research in the history of African art and the diaspora. He is active at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin, and is on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, September 11, 2014. 1 tape.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-001
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." Dr. Walter Agers served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1966 to 1968. Interviewed by phone, January 31, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-003
Karen Keefer served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1966 to 1968. She was part of an in-service teacher education program in Offa, in Kwara state. She also taught English and helped build a library that included a local Hall of Fame. Following her two years of service, Keefer worked as a Peace Corps trainer in Liberia in 1968 and then joined the staff of the Overseas Recruitment Task Force at Peace Corps headquarters (1977-1979). She started the "African Agenda" group for returned volunteers who had served in Africa, and the ACTION Alumni Association of Greater Washington. These were pre-cursers to the National Peace Corps Association on which she later served as a board member. Keefer also discusses being a founding member of the NPCA Shriver Circle of major NPCA donors, and her work on national Peace Corps reunions. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 14, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-037
Amelia "Mimi" Budd was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1965 to 1967. Her training at Western Michigan University included study of the Hausa language, along with preparation for teaching at the secondary level. When Budd arrived in Kaduna in the Northern Region of Nigeria, she was surprised to find that she was expected to teach in a primary school. After her first year of successful teaching, inter-tribal tensions began to mount as the country moved toward civil war. Romantic involvement with an Igbo military officer also placed Budd in a precarious situation. The Peace Corps moved her to a safer location in the Midwest Region where she taught in a secondary school during her second year. Along with other volunteers, she was evacuated when the Biafran army moved into the area. That harrowing experience did not deter Budd from involvement with the Biafra relief effort after the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 2 March 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-006
Mel Schnapper served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Nigeria 15 group from 1965 to 1967. His reluctance to follow the rules got him kicked out of the training program for Nigeria 13, but after reapplying he completed the first in-country training program in Nigeria. Schnapper taught English and math at an elite British-type vocational training school in Ilorin, in the northern region. After living on campus, he moved into town and was the only white resident. Schnapper believes that the main impact he had was developing individual relationships, and stresses the importance of nonverbal communication and immersing oneself in the local culture. After his time in Nigeria, he became a Peace Corps trainer in Ethiopia, Swaziland, and Somalia. Although Schnapper later worked extensively as an international development consultant, he is dismissive of USAID and Foreign Service officers who think that they can understand communities without living in them. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, October 20, 2016. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-003
John Fanselow served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1961 to 1963, and in Somalia from 1966 to 1968. He describes his work as a teacher trainer in Enugu, Nigeria, and how that informed his later career as a teacher trainer for Peace Corps headquarters, Columbia Teachers College, and worldwide. He says his use of teacher observation as an instructional technique in the Peace Corps later became a core method that he wrote several professional books about. Fanselow also tells a story of a fellow volunteer who was sent home due to the unflattering things she wrote about Nigeria on a postcard. He states that the Peace Corps transformed his life and he continues to be a mentor for many former volunteers and others he has met during his teaching career. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, 23 September 2016. 4 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-037-002
(PART 2 OF 2) Henry John Drewal served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1964 to 1966. His training at Columbia University included study of the Yoruba language. In Nigeria, Drewal was assigned to teach French and English at the African Church Grammar School in Abeokuta, a city in the Yoruba-speaking western region. He was also assigned to be the school's sports master, and focused on volleyball and tennis. Among his accomplishments was the construction of the school's first tennis court. During school holidays, Drewal organized and ran vacation arts camps for the primary school children. In his spare time, he continued his study of Yoruba and apprenticed himself to a Yoruba sculptor, an experience which had a profound impact on the rest of his life. After the Peace Corps, Drewal returned to Columbia University graduate school in African art history and anthropology, earning a Ph.D. At the time of this interview, he continues to do research in the history of African art and the diaspora. He is active at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin, and is on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin. Interviewed by Phyllis Noble, May 15, 2016 (3 digital files).
Photograph folder
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-1963-05-14-E
AR36, ST24
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-002
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." James Bartley served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1964 to 1966. Interviewed by phone, February 16, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-008
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." Dr. Collie Coleman served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1966 to 1968. Interviewed by phone, January 14, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-009
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." David L. Crippens served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1964 to 1966. Interviewed by phone, January 20, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-018
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." Charles Gray served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1966 to 1968. Interviewed in person, February 2, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-004
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." Yvette Burgess served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1961 to 1964. Interviewed by phone, June 8, 1996. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-014-013
Part of a series of research interviews conducted by Jonathan Zimmerman for his article "Beyond Double Consciousness: Black Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, 1961-1971." Gerald Durley served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1964 to 1966. Interviewed by phone, March 2, 1994. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2005-013-009
Phyllis Noble served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1965 to 1967 in a secondary education program. After graduating from Loyola University, she taught for one year in Chicago. During Peace Corps training at Michigan State University she learned the Ibo language, but was assigned to the mid-western region of the Niger Delta at a girls secondary school. Noble's time in Nigeria coincided with a civil disturbance and the Biafran War. The interview describes her school environment as well as her experience living on the edge of civil war in a town with a Shell-BP oil operation. Noble eventually had to evacuate with Shell-BP personnel to Lagos. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, August 1, 2004. 3 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2007-003-003
John Skeese served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1961 to 1963 as a teacher. His interest in other countries began with his military service and continued with American Friends Service Committee international work camps. After training at UCLA, Skeese taught science in a Catholic mission school near Onitsha. He describes his service, his many friends, and his motorcycle trips in and around Nigeria with Jack Finlay, culminating in a stay at Dr. Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Gabon. Interviewed and recorded by Frieda Fairburn, September 16, 2006. 3 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Collection
USPCPC
Photographs, 1961-1968 and undated. Black-and-white images of United States Peace Corps administrators and staff, both at headquarters and in the field, as well as images of volunteers working at their duty stations abroad. Photographers include Rowland Scherman, Paul Conklin and Abbie Rowe.
Photograph
White House Photographs
JFKWHP-AR7907-A
President John F. Kennedy (left) visits with Director of the Peace Corps in Nigeria, William Gurdon Saltonstall. West Wing Colonnade, White House, Washington, D.C.