Blair, Shadrick

Archive Tucson is the oral history project of Special Collections at the University of Arizona Libraries. This interview is with Shadrick Blair and covers the following themes:

• - Family and childhood in 1930s and 1940s Tennessee; school and work opportunities.

• - A brief stint at Tennessee State University followed by Air Force service.

• - Air Force experience in Philippines.

• - First impressions of Tucson: quiet segregation. Social life, music, and community. Employment discrimination. Churches, Meyer Street, dancing, neighborhoods.

• - The Civil Rights movement in Tucson during the 1950s and 1960s.

• - Hughes Aircraft and their hiring practices.

• - Tucson’s cotton industry in the 1950s.

• - Shad’s activism with the United Farm Workers in Yuma.

• - Work from the 1960s to 1980s, both independently and at Pima Community College; developing a form of instruction that utilized photography.

• - Urban Renewal and the destruction of Meyer Street.

• - Shad’s role in starting Pima College’s Aviation Technology program.

• - Starting the Afro-American Heritage Museum with Charles Kendrick.

• - Service on Tucson area boards.

• - Formation of UA steel drum club.

• - Racism in Tucson and beyond.

• - Suffering medical malpractice at University Medical Center in 1983.

This interview was recorded at the Afro-American Heritage Museum in Tucson, Arizona on March 26th, 2018.