
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010274
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

WHITE ACTIVIST WRITES OF AID TO BLACKS

Constance Curry, a white Southerner who traveled the back roads of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi working to wipe out racial prejudice, will begin chronicling her many journeys this week.

Curry, who helped blacks stand firm in the face of harsh opposition to their attempts to vote and attend integrated schools, will begin today writing her story at the University of Virginia as part of a biography of the civil rights movement's "ordinary people."

"I don't think too many people realize the kind of courage that a lot of these families had when they registered to vote or when they enrolled their kids in previously all-white school systems," said Curry, who was subjected to threats and harassment for her work.

"It's really a wonderful opportunity to get this story told."

Director of Atlanta's Bureau of Human Services since 1975, Curry was a field representative of the American Friends Services Committee.

But her involvement in the civil rights struggle began years before her work with the AFSC.

An Agnes Scott College graduate, Curry worked overseas and in New York until returning to Atlanta in 1959.

When the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee was founded in Raleigh, N.C., in 1960, Curry was there. She was the first white woman on the SNCC executive committee.

by CNB