Oral History of Anne Marie Gilliard, interviewed by Clarissa Wright, 2 October, 2011

Oral History of Anne Marie Gilliard, interviewed by Clarissa Wright, 2 October, 2011

Anne Marie Gilliard (b. 1928) was born in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Her father was a farmer and her mother a seamstress and washerwoman. Gilliard attended school until the fourth grade and soon after started working with her mother mending and ironing clothes. In this interview, she remembers going with her sick sister to the Cannon Hospital in downtown Charleston. The trip would take all day and the building was old and dilapidated, but the nurses were kind and professional. Gilliard reflects on the penury of living in Charleston and negotiating relationships with white residents but also with upper-class blacks. She states that people from the rural areas distrusted both white and black doctors and the medications they prescribed. Gilliard recalls she was a teenager when she discovered the places for dancing and drinking. She met a musician from Chicago and started singing in clubs, but when she got pregnant, he abandoned her. Later, she got married to another man and had another son. The family relocated on Awendaw and she rarely made it back to Charleston.

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English

Text

https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/761

Charleston (S.C.)

30 minutes

Clarissa Wright

Anne Marie Gilliard

Charleston, South Carolina