Civil Rights organizer and folklorist Worth Long passed away recently at the age of 89. Born and raised in Durham and a ...

Civil Rights organizer and folklorist Worth Long passed away recently at the age of 89. Born and raised in Durham and a sometime medic at Duke University, Long almost simultaneously became interested in civil rights activism and folklore circa 1956, starting work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee while documenting the folk and oral traditions of the movement at the Festival of American Folklife and a number of other gatherings. Despite their surface dissimilarities, for Worth the practices of civil rights organizing and folklore were profoundly linked in his vocation as one who helps others map out alternatives, whether they be aesthetic or social: “My role as an organizer—community and cultural—is basically to give people an option. Powerlessness is basically having no option.” As the Smithsonian’s Folklife pinpointed the linkage, “Worth’s passion for studying and presenting community organizing as occupational folklore was matched by his fervor for documenting the versatile repertoires of blues and gospel musicians.” RIP Worth Long, January 15, 1936 – May 8, 2025. Image 1: Worth Long at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Photo by Diana J. Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives; Image 2: Worth Long’s Alabama State Police file, undated, Alabama Photographs and Pictures Collection, ADAH