Anderson, Edgar
Description
Edgar Anderson was born in Chicago in 1950, the second-oldest of six children. On his mother’s side, he has black, German, and Cree Native American ancestry; on his father’s side, he is descended from sharecroppers and former slaves from Mississippi. He attended high school in Chicago, and then went to the Military Academy at West Point in 1968, where he was one of ten black cadets in his class of 1200. He spent time in the Army as a basic training officer, and then received a graduate degree from Yale in business management and human resources. He moved to Portland, Maine, in 1985. He has one son from his first marriage, and two children from his second; at the time of this interview he also had three grandchildren. At the time of this interview, he worked in human resources for UPS. He served as the vice president of the NAACP New England Area Conference, as well as serving on the Portland NAACP’s executive committee.
In the interview, he discusses raising a biracial family in Maine, growing up in Chicago, his experiences as a black cadet at West Point, family reunions and traditions, an incident in South Carolina in 1975 where he was nearly killed for dancing with a white woman, and his active involvement in raising his children.
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Publication Date
6-6-2001
City
Portland, ME
Keywords
1950, Chicago, football, Military Academy, West Point, Dow Chemical, New York, Cummins Engine Company, Yale University, Hewlett-Packard, UPS, Kwanzaa, NAACP, civil rights movement
Recommended Citation
Panzella, Amber, "Anderson, Edgar" (2001). Home Is Where I Make It Oral History Project. 1.
https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/aa_hiwimi/1
