Collection Number: M364

Dates: 1964

Volume: 1 Folder

Provenance: Materials in this collection were donated by Dr. Jon G. Davies in 2001.

Restrictions: Available for research use by the serious student and scholar.

Copyright: This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by The Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code).

Biographical/Historical Sketch:

“…sociologist, social workers, and psychiatrists…
can’t hope to deal with any problems
as long as they think toilet-training
is more important than discrimination and poverty.”
-Jon Davies
(from an interview with Dot Zellner, 1964)

Jon G. Davies was born June 10, 1939. He is the son and the grandson of Welsh coal miners. From England, his parents immigrated to Kenya. Jon spent most of his adolescence in Mombassa, Kenya, Africa, which he listed as his home address when, at the age of 25, he applied for the Mississippi Summer Project on June 15, 1964. He served as a volunteer with the project in Holly Springs, Mississippi, until July 27, 1964.

Jon received his BA in Sociology at Exeter College in Oxford, England, his MA from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and his PhD from The University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom. His major fields of study were history and sociology. While in college he was a member of the Socialist Club and the Sociology Association. He was in the army in 1958 for six months, stationed in Kenya, and also worked in a British mental hospital briefly in 1961.

As of 2001 Dr. Davies was a senior lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at The University of Newcastle. His research interests were: Capitalism and religion, the family, theology and sociology of death and the remembrance of death, and contemporary moral issues. He has published many books and articles. Among them are Death, Burial, and Rebirth in the Religions of Antiquity [1999] and The Christian Warrior in the Twentieth Century [1995].

Sources:

Contents of the Collection
Internet Sources

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of Jon Davies’ application for participation in the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 and an evaluation of Dr. Davies written by Dot Zellner.

Related Collections:

As a Freedom Summer volunteer, many of the Freedom Summer and Civil Rights collections are related to the Jon G. Davies Freedom Summer Collection. Archive collections that relate directly to with Dr. Davies and the Holly Springs project are:

M362 Koenig (Ruth) Freedom Summer Collection [Jon Davies name appears on page 41 of Ruth’s 1964 Diary]

M357 Dahl (Kathleen) Freedom Summer Collection

Prepared and maintained by
The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries Special Collections
http://www.lib.usm.edu/spcol
118 College Drive #5148   Hattiesburg, MS 39406-5148


Last Edited: Aug 24 2015 02:38:30 PM