{"value"=>"<p>The Files of the Frederick D. Patterson administration (1953-1969) comprise the largest portion of the Office Files series. They include two sub-subseries, the Patterson General Files and the Patterson Office Files, reflecting their original order. Each contains alphabetically arranged individual, organization, and subject files. It is necessary to search both groups of files, although the Patterson Office Files sub-subseries contains little material after 1964, when Patterson became chief executive officer of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and divided his time equally between the Phelps-Stokes Fund and the UNCF. The alphabetical arrangement of the two sub-subseries differs slightly. In the General Office Files, significant correspondents are arranged alphabetically in individual files with less significant correspondence placed in miscellaneous alphabetical files. In the Patterson Office Files, some significant correspondents appear in individual files, but they may also be found in the miscellaneous alphabetical ones.</p> <p>The Patterson Office Files contain correspondence, memoranda, reports, speeches, and clippings. They include material on Fund projects initiated or continued in the Patterson years, such as the administration of State Department technical assistance grants, the Talent Study, Improvement of High School Instruction (General Education Board), and the Cooperative College Development Program (Sloan Foundation). The material covers the broad range of Patterson's, as well as executive secretary Wilton Dillon's, interests and contacts. It reflects their frequent travels throughout Africa and the Fund's participation in the intellectual life of emerging nations through it's support of students, teachers, conferences, and research projects. It includes correspondence with such notable political and cultural figures as Kofi Busia, Fela Sowande, Ella Gulama, Vincent Kofi, Violaine Junod, Simeon Adebo, Robert K. A. Gardiner, William Fitzjohn, Kenneth Kaunda, Jomo Kenyatta, and William Tubman.</p> <p>Patterson sat on numerous boards and advisory councils from which he received substantial correspondence, minutes, and reports. The most notable were the Advisory Council on Africa of the National Academy of Science, The Advisory Council on Developing Institutions, the Institute for International Education Advisory Committee on Africa, the Africa Committee of the Division of Missions of the National Council of Churches (formerly the Foreign Missions Conference of North America), and the Fund's African Student Aid Fund. He was actively involved in UNESCO conferences in Tananarive, Madagascar (1962) and Nairobi, Kenya (1968).</p> <p>Patterson also served on the Task Force on International Exchange, a committee of President John F. Kennedy's transition team in 1960-1961, for which there is considerable correspondence and reports. He and Wilton S. Dillon maintained correspondence with several Kennedy administration officials which reflects optimism concerning United States relations with newly independent African nations, as well as civil rights issues. Discussions of these issues may be found in the files of Harris Wofford, Jr., the Department of State, the Peace Corps, and the Airlift Africa and Capahosic Conference subject files.</p> <p>Patterson also maintained contacts with clerical and medical missionaries. In addition to correspondence with Fund trustees Emory Ross and George Carpenter, there are files which contain information concerning the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, the training of nurses for a hospital in Haiti founded by Dr. William L. Mellon, and support for Agricultural Missions, Inc., the Samuel Grimes Center in Liberia, and the Zuma Memorial Hospital in Nigeria. Patterson's continued interest in medical education is also documented by his service on the board of the National Fund for Medical Education. There is additional material relating to other foundations which supported the Fund's interests in Africa. These were headed by leading industrialists including Harold and Walter Hochschild (American Metal Climax files), Landsdell Christie (see his Trustee file) and Juan Trippe (Liberian Foundation file and Trustee file).</p> <p>While Patterson did not play as activist a role in the civil rights movement as some of his contemporaries, the records of his administration reflect his involvement in several important racial issues of the 1950s and 1960s. Through the Capahosic Conferences at the Moton Memorial Conference Center at Capahosic, Virginia, the Fund sponsored off-the-record weekend meetings at a time when there were few integrated facilities of that kind in the South for black and white leaders to gather. Important topics discussed by student, corporate, and government participants included the impact of urban renewal in 1959, the sit-ins in 1960, constitutional rights in 1961, and integrated housing in 1962. The correspondence includes reactions and opinions of conference participants and there are substantial notes taken by Patterson and Dillon.</p> <p>Under Patterson, the Fund continued its support of the Southern Regional Council and received reports of its civil rights activities, which were also discussed in the correspondence of both Harold Fleming and Mrs. M. E. Tilley. Patterson supported and received reports from the controversial Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and corresponded with its director, Myles Horton. The correspondence discusses the school's programs and it's financial and legal difficulties. The Fund also gave financial assistance to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for a 1960 conference on the Philosophy of Nonviolent Action. The SNCC folder contains correspondence with SNCC officials, including Marion S. Barry, Jr., regarding use of the funds and requests for additional funds for a subsequent conference, as well as miscellaneous reports and newletters.</p> <p>Patterson carried on continuing correspondence concerning educational and civil rights issues, as well as general conditions at historically black colleges, with college presidents Luther Foster of Tuskegee Institute, James Nabrit of Howard University, Rufus E. Clement of Atlanta University (see also his correspondence file in the TRUSTEES series), Benjamin Mays of Morehouse College, Albert W. Dent of Dillard University, Felton Clark of Southern University, Milton C. Curry of Bishop College, and Jerome Holland of Hampton Institute. Correspondence, minutes, and reports also document the considerable time Patterson spent, with Rev. Harry V. Richardson, in the development of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta and his longtime service on its board. Other correspondence with educators relates to travel and research grants for Flemmie Kittrel, St. Clair Drake, Frank S. Loescher, and Rayford W. Logan.</p> <p>Patterson's correspondence with these educators and civil rights officials occasionally reflects his disappointment with the Eisenhower administration, especially in its second term, but also shows his continued support of such liberal Republicans as Nelson A. Rockefeller and John V. Lindsay.</p> <p>Other correspondence and reports concern Patterson's attempt to revive the National Business League to assist small African-American business ventures and his efforts to place graduates of historically black colleges in a wide variety of jobs through a Rockefeller Foundation grant for the Identification and Placement of Negro Talent (Talent Study).</p> <p>There are also correspondence and reports reflecting the Fund's continued support for cultural projects including a study of the feasibility of reviving the American Negro Theatre under a Ford Foundation grant and continued contacts with the Harmon Foundation, as well as financial assistance to Pearl Primus, Ghanaian sculptor Vincent Kofi, Robert Nemiroff (to organize the archives of Lorraine Hansberry), the New York City Writers Conference, and a 1966 Capahosic conference with Randolph Edmonds and Frederick O'Neal concerning improving theatre education programs for African-American college students. The Portrait Exhibit Committee of the UNCF file concerns an exhibit of Betsy Graves Reyneau's portraits of African Americans originally sponsored by the Harmon Foundation and includes extensive notes by Reyneau tracing her interest in painting African Americans, as well as correspondence discussing the disposition of the Harmon Foundation collection and efforts to secure additional support for the exhibit.</p> <p>While not as active in housing issues during the Patterson administration as in the prior years, the Fund supported anti-discrimination efforts in correspondence with Morris Milgrim (Modern Community Developers) and Max Delson.</p>"}