Jessie McKinstry

Jessie McKinstry

10/26/17

Jessie McKinstry was born in Fairfield County into a family of 12. Her father worked for a local stone cutting company, and her mother was a homemaker and stay-at-home mother. Prior to her attendance of Johnson C. Smith University, Jessie attended Fairfield High School for her entire elementary and secondary education. She remembers with fondness her teachers, different school classes and activities offered, and the close-knit community that she grew up in. After graduating from high school, she went to college and earned her teaching degree. During integration, she worked for Pageland High School, in Pageland, South Carolina, which integrated a year before Fairfield County schools did, so when she started work for Fairfield County Schools, she was already prepared. Jessie McKinstry retired from FCSD after thirty-four years, and lives in Winnsboro, South Carolina. This oral history interview with Jessie McKinstry on October 26, 2017 includes discussion of growing up in Fairfield County, South Carolina, memories of her grandparents, her school experience (all of if at Fairfield), becoming a teacher and working for thirty years for the Fairfield County School District, segregation and integration of the schools, the successfulness of integration from a teacher's perspective, the first white principal she worked for, some students' preconceived notions of her, things she did to make the white students feel more comfortable in the beginnings of integration, societal segregation in Winnsboro, South Carolina, the Phillips' and Phillips Granite Company in Winnsboro, a college fund set up for her by Lucille Phillips, working as an assistant administrator at the Fairfield Career Center (through the high school), how the career center works, going back to visit Pageland High School and seeing former students, her fiftieth college reunion, attending Johnson C. Smith College and the demographics of the student body there, a brief history of the college, attending the University of South Carolina for graduate school, working for the Fairfield County School District, and her ideas on race relations today, and changes she would like to see come about.

Fairfield High School (Fairfield, S.C.)--Alumni and alumnae--Interviews

Students--South Carolina--Fairfield County (S.C.)--Social life and customs

Segregation in education--South Carolina--History

Digital Library of Georgia

sound

https://digital.library.sc.edu/exhibits/fairfieldhighschool/jessie-mckinstry