Duke University hired Goodwyn as a professor in 1971. There, he and his colleagues, William Chafe and Ray Gavins, created Duke’s oral history program. According to the New York Times, the program “employed many black graduate students, in part because Dr. Goodwyn insisted that whites should not have sole possession of Southern history.” Not only did Goodwyn teach his students anti-racism, but he heavily emphasized that he, as a white man, constituted “part of the problem of authority,” radically owning his own privilege.
