Dimow, Joe, 2004 November 15

Joe Dimow moved to New Haven in 1945 after being discharged from the army and became involved in political activism and community programs in the late 1950s and 1960s. Dimow and his wife first lived in the Hill section of New Haven and he worked in an automotive machine shop. Dimow had been the chair of the Communist Party in Hartford Connecticut and later became involved in the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He discusses how the McCarthy era and the subsequent rise of the New Left at the end of the 1950s changed the political climate in 1960s New Haven. The interview focuses on Dimow's experiences with African American politics and his community activities with the West Hills Neighborhood Corporation. He talks a great deal about the Black Panthers, whom he had mixed feelings about. While he admired their activities, he worried that they were too militant. Dimow also describes the relationship between the Black Panthers and the New Haven Jewish Community and discusses the issue of black anti-Semitism in the 1960s. He talks about the New Haven Black Panther trials, the administrations of Richard Lee and Edward Logue, and the liberal political activities of Rabbi Bob Goldburg and lawyer John Williams. He also discusses the ways that Yale University contributed to the "liberal stmosphere" of 1960s New Haven.

Interviewer: Stubert, Lee

Length (min): 63