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Wisconsin Historical Society Home to Unusual Civil Rights Era Artifact
09/06/05
 | Simply put, toilet paper is not considered much of a keepsake, let alone an archival treasure. Yet well within the marbled hallways of the esteemed Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, rests a carefully-preserved, six-foot swathe of toilet paper. Its relevance in chronicling the civil rights struggle for African-Americans can best be told by Miriam Real, who used it as stationery while incarcerated in a Port Allen, Louisiana jail, in September 1963. |
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Real -- then Miriam Feingold -- was a U-W Madison graduate student in the 1960s. She was also among hundreds of people arrested during a voter registration drive and demonstration coordinated by the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. In today's feature, Real describes her fateful assignment in the Deep South. |  |
Note: This story contains some recreated audio elements -- and some descriptions of violence…
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