Excerpt Description: Donelle Boose details the need for students engaged in activism to find like-minded people with which to build a community and then to, together, create a clear set of goals organized around a set purpose.
Excerpt Transcript: “I think if you actually are really interested in activism and you’re a student at Carolina, you want to sit down and talk to people about, like, well, like, what are our aims? Like, I think, to me that’s one of the most important things that I’ve been learning is, like, you know—and I learned it actually from an Angela Davis quote. She’s, like, you know, “What is your goal? What is your political goal at the end?” Right? And then you figure out your methods. But start with the goal. So you want to figure out—part of the reason that I was in CHAT is because I felt, like, they had a similar goal to me, you know. The goal is racial justice and the goal is social justice, right? The goal is not economically or physically abusing or otherwise abusing people. The goal is being a community of people with people who are different. They were doing that, and so I was with them, and we were doing stuff in line with that goal, some things more effective than others, you know. But that’s what we were doing. That’s what we were trying to do. So if a person today is interested in activism, I say, “Find you some folks who have the same purpose, you know, and try to cultivate some good mentors in various ways.” Like, I feel like I benefited from the fact that, like, I had all these, like, mentors in various places, you know, intellectual mentors, activist mentors, graduate students who could tell me something about graduate school, you know, people in the community, you know, who invited me to be in that space with them.”
Excerpt Description: Donelle Boose details the need for students engaged in activism to find like-minded people with which to build a community and then to, together, create a clear set of goals organized around a set purpose.
Interviewee Name: Donelle Boose
Interviewer: Charlotte Fryar
Excerpt Transcript: “I think if you actually are really interested in activism and you’re a student at Carolina, you want to sit down and talk to people about, like, well, like, what are our aims? Like, I think, to me that’s one of the most important things that I’ve been learning is, like, you know—and I learned it actually from an Angela Davis quote. She’s, like, you know, “What is your goal? What is your political goal at the end?” Right? And then you figure out your methods. But start with the goal. So you want to figure out—part of the reason that I was in CHAT is because I felt, like, they had a similar goal to me, you know. The goal is racial justice and the goal is social justice, right? The goal is not economically or physically abusing or otherwise abusing people. The goal is being a community of people with people who are different. They were doing that, and so I was with them, and we were doing stuff in line with that goal, some things more effective than others, you know. But that’s what we were doing. That’s what we were trying to do. So if a person today is interested in activism, I say, “Find you some folks who have the same purpose, you know, and try to cultivate some good mentors in various ways.” Like, I feel like I benefited from the fact that, like, I had all these, like, mentors in various places, you know, intellectual mentors, activist mentors, graduate students who could tell me something about graduate school, you know, people in the community, you know, who invited me to be in that space with them.”
Organization: Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth
Excerpt Length: 1:36
Interview Date: 11/17/2017
Interview Location: Washington, D.C.
Campus Space: Saunders Hall
Citation: Interview with Donelle Boose by Charlotte Fryar, 17 November 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.