{"value"=>"<p>The National Committee for Rural Schools (NCRS) subseries dates from 1945 to 1981, and contains files created through McLaurin's work on the Committee's executive board via donation requests, pamphlets, annual reports, souvenir journals, correspondence, executive board meeting minutes, clippings, and financial materials. Files are grouped together by general subject: Correspondence, Events, Financial Records, Organization Documents, Publications, and Clippings.</p> <p>Correspondence includes letters sent by Rae Brandstein, founder and secretary of NCRS, soliciting donations from private individuals, public figures, unions, and national organizations. George Meany, president of AFL-CIO; Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and A. Philip Randolph were some of the labor and civic leaders she wrote to ask for support. The NCRS also corresponded with integration advocates sent to places including Clarendon County, South Carolina and Normal, Alabama. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, the NCRS expanded its fundraising scope to support southern Black communities by funding multiple co-ops, grocery stores, and schools, in addition to regular monetary and clothing donations.</p> <p>Events files hold invitations, venue arrangement documents, seating lists, flyers, and speaker schedules from NCRS fundraising dances, tea parties, testimonial luncheons, and annual meetings. Ad space from yearly souvenir journals and ticket sales generated funds for donations and organizational costs. Judge Waties Waring was honored with a testimonial luncheon in 1954, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at the annual meeting in December 1956.</p> <p>There are a number of Organizational Documents in this subseries, which include articles of incorporation, Committee resolutions, board meeting minutes, membership lists, and specific donation requests for food or clothing from NCRS partners in the South.</p> <p> Publications files includes press releases, sample letters, souvenir journals and yearly reports published for the annual luncheons, and clippings.</p>"}