Found 2 collections related to Chavis, Ben, 1948-

Bill Strickland is a scholar, activist, and professor emeritus of the Department of Afro-American Studies at University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst. A native of Boston, Strickland graduated from Boston Latin School and Harvard University. After serving in the Marine Corps, he became active in civil rights and Black liberation work, serving as Executive Director of the Northern Student Movement; working in Mississippi for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; and serving as the Northern Coordinator of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's Congressional Challenge. He was a founding member of Malcolm X's Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964, and in 1969, he also was a founding member of the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta. Strickland was a key member of the faculty in Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst, teaching history and politics, and serving as Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Strickland consulted on various documentaries including Eyes on the Prize (1987), about the civil rights movement; Malcolm X: Make It Plain (1994), for which he also wrote the companion book, also published in 1994; and W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices (1996). He retired in 2013. This collection consists of the research files of William Strickland on various topics. These topics include the documentary Eyes on the Prize, for which Strickland served as a consultant, and Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/Push Coalition (now the National Rainbow Coalition); Strickland worked on Jackson's presidential campaign in 1988. Other topics include the Black Panther Party, Black Radical Congress, Arna Bontemps, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Benjamin Chavis and the NAACP, civil rights leaders and movements, Katherine Dunham, Maulana Karanga, racism, and Roots (television program). Most of the files include notes and some writing by Strickland, but the majority of the files consist of printed matter (clippings, articles, mailings, conference materials), correspondence, and writing by some of the previously mentioned individuals. Additionally, there is one folder of correspondence to and from Strickland, mostly unrelated to the research files. less

The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), founded in 1973 and still in existence today, seeks to raise awareness of America's political prisoners and prison conditions, police brutality, repressive legislation, and unfair labor practices. While most of the materials concern Black Americans, other minority groups, such as Native American activists, Puerto Rican nationalists, Chicanos, and the LGBTQ community do have a presence in this collection, as do cases involving oppression based on leftist political beliefs. The collection includes extensive correspondence with prisoners, as well as materials specifically related to executive board member Angela Davis, and materials dedicated to the NAARPR's management, conferences, and rallies, mostly from the 1970s through the 1980s. less