ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Corneal A. Davis, member of the Illinois House of Representatives 1943-79, discusses his years as a member of the Illinois General Assembly: legislative reform, legislative technique, and his work on legislation involving public aid, welfare, education, the Equal Rights Amendment, and taxation. Also discusses his work on the Advisory Commission on Public Aid, Fair Employment Practices Commission, Appropriations Committee, and the Commission on the Status of Women. He also recalls his childhood and farm life near Vicksburg, Mississippi as an African-American, segregation and conditions for blacks in the South, and his service during WWI. He also discusses his involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a court case over higher salaries for black teachers in Cairo, Illinois, civil rights, and discrimination encountered in Springfield. He recalls Chicago politics, black politicians, his retirement from the legislature, and his service on the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

20 tapes, 934 mins., 2 volumes, 229 pp., plus index Interview by Horace Q. Waggoner, 1979 and 1982 OPEN See collateral file: interviewer's notes, photographs and photocopies of pictures, voter registration and election judge pamphlets.