Found 15 collections related to African Americans -- History

Scholar of African-American culture and history and an analyst of how African Americans are portrayed. Taught at the University of Massachusetts for 31 years and helped found its African-American Studies Dept. He died in 1993. Collection documents part of an exhibition on Afro-American history organized by the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution on African-American musicians. Papers consist of research material gathered by consultant Sidney Kaplan and his assistant, including sheet music, research notes, subject file of clippings and printed matter on various Adrican musicians, and correspondence with Alberta Hunter, Middleton Alexander "Spike" Harris, Caterina Jarboro, Noble Sissle, and several African-American university museums and archives. less

Printed material relating to the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) including programs and playbills from NANM and other small groups; and annual breakfast, convention and conference materials, and other records of the New York and New Jersey chapters of NANM and the National Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. Other material relating to concert performances by black artists consisting primarily of programs and playbills, scrapbooks, and news clippings. Also programs, playbills, news clippings, newsletters, and financial reports pertaining to the Thomas Music Study Club, founded by Blanche K. Thomas, which was affiliated with NANM since 1946. Papers of Glover and his wife, Martha Seabrook Glover, contain personal and professional correspondence, and documents concerning the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Free-Masonry, the Oddfellows, the Republicans and Democratic parties, church groups, the A. Philip Randolph Leaders of Tomorrow Scholarship Fund, the Patriotic American Society, the Harlem Cultural Council, and news clippings about Glover. Also, personal papers of Martha Seabrook Glover relating to the Seabrook family. less

Manuscript drafts, correspondence, research notes, documentation, and printed material relating to Bernard and Jonathan Katz's book, BLACK WOMAN: A FICTIONALIZED BIOGRAPHY OF LUCY TERRY PRINCE (1973). Correspondence with publishers and others include Mary Adams Bell, Charles Hallam, James M. McCabe, James K. Owens, and Martha Wright. less

The records of the Schomburg Center document the activities of the six individuals who managed the library, dating to its establishment by Ernestine Rose. The records are divided into the following series: General Correspondence, Reference Correspondence, Memoranda, Subject Files and Visitors' Registers. The majority of the material consists of subject files containing a considerable amount of correspondence. less

A professor of history, Kenneth W. Porter conducted research on African-American frontiersmen and cowboys, Black Seminoles, and American folklore and folk history. This collection consists primarily of his manuscripts and research materials pertaining to African-American and Native American studies. Porter's interests in socialism, poetry and literature, folklore, and general American and European history are also documented. Aspects of his personal life are represented in the papers as well. less

Author/historian William Loren Katz is the author of "Eyewitness: The Negro in American History" (1967), "The Black West" (1971), "A History of Black Americans" (1973), "Black Indians: a Hidden Heritage" (1986), and other titles about African-American history. The William Loren Katz Manuscript and Research collection contains Katz's research files, drafts, and correspondence related to the research, development and publication of: "Eyewitness: the Negro in American History," "The History of the Black West," "A History of Black Americans," and "Black Indians: a Hidden Heritage." For "The Black West" there are a large number of photographic negative prints. less

The Levi C. Hubert papers pertain to Hubert's research on black soldiers in the United States Armed Forces and other topics in African American history and include manuscript drafts, correspondence, reproductions of photographs, news clippings, notes and printed material. Most of the material is devoted to his manuscripts "In the Name of Congress: Inspiring Stories of 47 Negroes Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor," (1966-1967) which discusses awardees from the Civil War era to the War in Vietnam; and "Their Muskets Flashed the Dawning: Regimental Histories of the United States Colored Troops During the Civil War." There are drafts for both manuscripts as well as research material. Drafts for short articles Hubert wrote can be found in this collection, and printed copies of his articles for the Federal Writers' Reporting Project are contained in a scrapbook. Included are notes, correspondence and printed material regarding the filmstrip entitled "History of the American Negro (1619-1865)." There is also genealogical material concerning Hubert's family. less

Arthur (originally Arturo) Alfonso Schomburg was a collector of books and manuscripts pertaining to black history and culture, whose collection formed the basis for the Schomburg Center for Black Culture. This collection consists primarily of correspondence to Arthur Schomburg; press clippings, mostly in scrapbooks, of articles by and about Schomburg; ephemera; and memorials of Schomburg written after his death. less

Papers reflecting Schomburg's endeavors as a writer and researcher, and collector and curator of books and manuscripts documenting black history and culture. Personal and professional papers, including correspondence and writings, and writings of others. Includes material relating to Schomburg's position as curator of the Schomburg Collection at the 135th St. branch of the New York Public Library, and to black literature, art, and history. Correspondents include John E. Bruce, Henrietta Buckmaster, W.E.B. Du Bois, Nicolás Guillén, W.C. Handy, Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, James W. Johnson, Claude McKay, J.A. Rogers, Albert A. Smith, Sténio Vincent (President of Haiti), Walter White, and Carter G. Woodson. Other papers include programs, news clippings, invitations, announcements, and minutes of a variety of organizations, such as the New York Urban League, New York Public Library, Young Men's Christian Association, and several black cultural and educational groups. Also, transcriptions of eighteenth and nineteenth century historical documents pertaining to black history and culture. less

Papers include letters written to Bruce from black politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and activists including John Wesley Cromwell, Alexander Crummell, Richard T. Greener, T. Thomas Fortune, and Arthur A. Schomburg, as well as manuscript and printed copies of Bruce's articles, editorials, short stories, poems, addresses, and other writings concerning national and local politics, race relations, historical black figures, Haiti, Prince Hall Masons, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, among other topics. less

Middleton Alexander "Spike" Harris (1908-1977) was an author, historian, collector, and dealer of African Americana. In addition, he was the founder of the Negro History Associates (NHA), an organization which collected and disseminated information about African Americans. His papers primarily consist of research files created by Harris and the NHA. less

William Sanders Scarborough (1854?-1926) was a renowned philologist and the President of Wilberforce University from 1908 to 1920. Scarborough was appointed professor of Latin and Greek at Wilberforce in 1876. In 1892 he was dismissed due to the prevailing sentiment that the classics had become irrelevant. Re-appointed and promoted to vice-president in 1897 Scarborough served the university until he was forced to retire in 1920. The William Sanders Scarborough letter collection consists of eight letters: from Frederick Douglass (1894); W.E.B. DuBois (1921); and Booker T. Washington (1902-1909). The letter from Douglass extends his apologies for being unable to attend commencement at Wilberforce. The two letters from DuBois relate to the second Pan-African Congress to be held in 1921 and discusses when and where the conference was to be held. The five letters from Washington are general in nature, although one seems to deal with a disagreement they had. less

The Berry family collection consists of seven pieces of correspondence, apparently written by members of the Berry family, dating from 1863-1918, and spanning three states and Europe. There is also one typescript entitled "My Bit in the World War or the Story of 2921486." The correspondence begins with James Tate in West Point Georgia, although his wife and children appear to be in Mobile, Georgia, or Alabama. The other writers appear to be his wife, son, and nephew, although their relationship to Tate is not indicated. The documents cover important periods and topics in African-American history. James Tate's letter, written in 1863, expresses the anguish and difficulties African Americans faced with trying to establish and maintain a family while enslaved. A letter dated June 20, 1868 documents the role of a Black church as "post office;" the writer indicates mail for him and news for other people in town can be sent care of the church pastor. The letter from Olivia Tate dated July 28, 1887 describes her excitement at the possibility of a "Great Colored National Fair" in Georgia to exhibit the "arts, mechanics and productions of colored people throughout the union." Both of the letters written by Henry S. Berry during World War I, in 1918, tell of his experience in the Army's Medical Unit, 331st Labor Bureau. He expresses his pride in being a soldier and tells how the army built character. The autobiographical typescript, "My Bit in the World War, or the Story of 2921486," is twenty-five pages long and follows Berry, a member of the American Expeditionary Forces, from the receipt of the telegram calling him to duty to being one of fifty men chosen for the Army Medical Department, through war torn France. The typescript seems not to have been finished. Throughout this piece as well, is the theme of pride in being a good soldier. less

Jesse J. Jackson (1908-1983), the collector of these documents, acquired them over ten years while serving as a writer-in-residence at Appalachian State University. Jackson was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended Ohio State University. He wrote 8 books for children, and often wrote for magazines, journals, and local newspapers. Jesse J. Jackson Slavery and Civil War documents collection consists of approximately 90 individual documents relating to Southern slavery and the Civil War. The majority of the documents are manuscript bills of sale and deeds of gift for enslaved persons, issued in North Carolina, 1800-1858. Each document generally gives the enslaved person's name, sex, approximate age, and occasionally other information such as occupation, prices, and names of seller and buyer. Other information provided includes mention that the enslaved person being sold is "at large" and an affidavit accusing a dealer of selling a man's runaway despite the fact that the owner had asked the dealer to hold the runaway until he could be retrieved. less