{"value"=>"<p>This series consists of correspondence and documents of related organizations, the most significant of which are highlighted here. Bill Strickland was a member of the advisory board of the African-American Institute, a group that promoted better understanding between Africans and Americans; its file includes reports, the group's Constitution and Bylaws. The file Americans for Democratic Action has some correspondence with the national chairman of its campus division, Harry Wachtel. Associated Community Teams was a national umbrella of grassroots organizations; included are surveys, reports and other documents of its Harlem chapter, including the minutes of an April 1964 meeting with Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Dick Gregory and housing Activist Jesse Gray. The Citizens' Crusade Against Poverty was launched in 1964 by Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers union. NSM raised funds and recruited volunteers for the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project organized by the Council of Federated Organizations, whose file consists of training material, summaries of incidents, correspondence, and a report written by Daniel Schechter. The East Harlem Block Development Project was organized in 1963 by a young civil rights activist, Jo Adler, who reportedly killed herself in 1970; included here are correspondence, reports and materials of the East Harlem Project and the East Harlem Action Committee.</p> <p>The Lowndes County Freedom Party file includes an exchange of letters between Strickland and Jack Minnis, SNCC's research director, about the need for independent black political organizations (1966). Strickland was the representative of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in New York State. Included here are MFDP press releases, reports, affidavits, declarations and organizing materials, in addition to documents of the New York Ad Hoc Committee for MFDP which lobbied the New York Congressional delegation for support of NY Congressman William F. Ryan's resolution in favor of sitting the MFDP delegation in lieu of the five white Mississippi representatives. The file of the National Council of Churches consists of reports, printed matter and minutes of its Commission on Religion and Race chaired by Robert Spike; Strickland was a member of the Commission. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People file relates to NAACP work in the South, whereas the National Urban League folder contains correspondence with Whitney Young and the League's Youth and Community branch. Materials of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference relate to nonviolence in opposition to Black Power, a Don't Buy campaign against the Hammermill Paper Company and SCLC's 1965 Summer Community Organization and Political Action campaign (SCOPE). Other organizations represented in the collection include the New Independent Committee for Jobs, Schools and Homes, a civil rights initiative in Chester, Pennsylvania, launched by Donald W. Jackson; the National Conference for New Politics, chaired by Julian Bond; and the Poor People's Corporation that provided technical and financial assistance to self-help groups in Mississippi.</p> <p>The Student Christian Movement in New England ushered NSM into existence at its 1961 summer conference and served as NSM's fiscal sponsor. Included are correspondence between Countryman and SCM's Samuel Slie regarding Christian responsibility and the role of white students in particular toward racism and social action, and SCM documents on interracial relations. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) files in this collection include correspondence, declarations, fact sheets, field reports, emergency bulletins and printed matter, and pertain to attendance at conferences, the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, police repression against SNCC workers, and NSM's activities in Philadelphia in 1966. Files of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) include correspondence about NSM and SDS relations, and the 1965 March on Washington to End the War in Vietnam; a copy of the Port Huron Statement; various declarations and discussion papers by SDS leaders Tom Hayden and Alan Haber; newsletters, press releases and other SDS publications; and compilations of articles and occasional letters by Paul Potter, Todd Gitlin, Rennie (Rennard) Davis, Jane Adams, Clark Kissinger and Jack Minnis. The SDS National Council voted a resolution in June 1966 to set up fraternal relations with NSM in recognition that the two groups were moving in \"similar directions\". Other student organizations represented in the collection include the National Students Association, the Southern Student Organizing Committee, the United Southern Christian Fellowship at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, NC, and the Western Student Movement.</p>"}