Found 607 collections.

The Glenn Carrington Papers document the personal life of an African-American homosexual from the 1920's to the 1960's, before the advent of the gay pride movement. Among Carrington's friends and acquaintances were Alain Locke; sociologist Ophelia Settles Egypt, a fellow student at Howard University; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, grandson of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and a "surrogate" mother to Carrington, Georgia Douglas Johnson. There is correspondence related to Carrington's position as a parole officer and as a psychological social worker. Many of the young men Carrington counseled remained friends with him throughout his life and frequently corresponded with him. The correspondence between Carrington and the young men is included in the collection. There is also correspondence with Carrington's gay male friends. less

The Margaret Bonds Papers (5.4 lin. ft.), are arranged in three series: PERSONAL PAPERS (.4 lin. ft.), CORRESPONDENCE (.8 lin. ft.), and CREATIVE WORKS (4.4 lin. ft.). Margaret Bonds produced a wide range of works spanning orchestral compositions, theatrical accompaniments and traditional African-American spiritual arrangements throughout her career. She is widely credited with creating new interest in traditional African-American musical forms, history and culture. The papers document her personal life and professional process through correspondence, her work notes, lyrics, scripts and sheet music. less

Eddie Bonnemère was an African American composer, church musician, jazz pianist, and New York City public school teacher. Bonnemère's papers comprise correspondence, music compositions, and promotional materials that detail his musical pursuits and performances, educational achievements, and his thirty-three year tenure as a public school music teacher. less

Joe Nash was a dancer, black dance historian, coordinator of black dance history courses at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater School in New York, and director and founder of the Multiethnic Christian Education Resources Center of the National Council of Churches. The Black dance collection consists of correspondence, contracts, scripts, and descriptions of dances based on African themes. less

The all-Black 99th Pursuit Squadron was created by the U.S. Army in 1941, with the proviso that the pilots would be strictly segregated. The airfield at Tuskegee, Alabama, was chosen as their training site, thus they became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen Trainees: Freeman Field Mutiny collection consists of documents relating to a case of racial discrimination that resulted in the arrest of over a hundred African American officers and their subsequent exoneration. less

The ancestors of the Polk Family, Jim and Amey, their daughter, Judah, and her husband, Kit, along with their children, upon reaching the age of twenty-one), were emancipated in 1840. This occurred one and one-half years after the death of their master, plantation owner Thomas Smelly, in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. The newly-freed Smelly family left Virginia that same year, according to the law prohibiting freed slaves to remain in the state more than one year, and migrated to New Jersey. At some point the family changed their name from Smelly to Smiley. In New Jersey, the Smiley family met another freed family from Maryland, the Polks, and the two families intermarried. By 1993, Amey and Jim Smiley had over one hundred descendants. The Smiley-Polk family documents consist of nine holograph 19th-century documents relating to the emancipation of the ancestors of the Smiley-Polk family of New Jersey, and other items concerning the genealogy of this family. less

Geraldine Louise Wilson (1931-1986), was an early childhood specialist, poet, writer and civil rights activist. Wilson would begin her educational career in Philadelphia. She moved to New York City and would eventually become Director of the Regional Training Office for the Head Start Program. She also worked as a consultant. During the 1960s Wilson joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was a co-planner of the Mississippi Institute for Early Childhood Education. The collection, dating from the 1950s to the 1980s, mostly focuses on Wilson's career as an educator, consultant and poet and to a lesser extent the Civil Rights Movement. There are audio and moving image materials that support the collection. less

Lyonel C. Florant, an African American economist, was employed by the Carnegie Corporation's "Study of the Negro in America" project. Florant authored several documents for the project, and he, along with others, completed the report, "Negro Population Movements, 1860 to 1940: In Relation to Social and Economic Factors". The Lyonel C. Florant papers consist of reports and some research files Florant prepared and gathered primarily regarding African American migration and population studies across the country, mostly for the Negro in America study. less

The Ross Thalheimer papers consist of materials related to Thalheimer's activities as a civil rights supporter from the 1940s to the 1970s. Files relate primarily to the funding and presentation of the Thalheimer Award to the National Urban League, including the prize winning essays written by students, and the Thalheimer Awards he funded for the NAACP, including information about the recipients and associated programs, 1942-1976. The collection also contains letters from Kenneth B. Clark and Lester B. Granger; typescripts of interviews given by Thalheimer; copies of an advertisement placed in The New York Times in 1964 by the Psychologists' Committee on Interracial Relations concerning violence and race relations; and telegrams to Thalheimer from Martin Luther King, Jr., inviting him to join King on what would become known as the Selma to Montgomery March on March 9 and 21, 1965. Also included are an address that Thalheimer delivered in 1940 called "The Need for Equal Educational Opportunity in a Democracy"; an article that he wrote entitled "What Can the Church Do About Juvenile Delinquency", 1954; biographical information about Thalheimer prepared by his widow; and expressions of sympathy upon his death. less

The Claudia McNeil Scrapbooks, donated by The Actors' Fund of America after McNeil's death, were created by the late performer during the course of her career and consist of twelve volumes spanning the years 1938 to 1981. The contents include newspaper and magazine feature articles, reviews, advertisements, programs, poems, telegrams, letters, photographs, greeting cards, and handwritten notes arranged chronologically by her engagements or performances, with the predominate amount of material documenting her arrival at the pinnacle of her career in A Raisin in the Sun. less

Architect John Louis Wilson, Jr., was one of the designers of the Harlem River Houses in New York City, and he helped found the Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture. This collection includes personal and professional materials, mostly related to his architectural career in New York. less

Catholic interracial center, also known as Friendship House, established in 1938 to assist Harlem residents in need of relocation due to inadequate housing. Information sheets and relocation questionnaires in addition to various federal, state, and city housing reports. less

Wesley Williams was New York City's first African American fire fighter and fire official in the New York City Fire Department, and he was a founder of the Vulcan Society. The Wesley Williams papers consist of correspondence, news clippings, material about the Vulcan Society, and information about Williams's father, James H. Williams, Chief of the Red Caps at Grand Central Station, and Robert O. Lowery, first African American fire commissioner in New York City. less

Singer and actor Jules Bledsoe created the role of Jo and the interpretation of the song "Old Man River" in the original production of Show Boat (1927). This collection consists of correspondence, contracts, musical compositions, legal documents, financial records, programs, broadsides, and news clippings documenting Bledsoe's professional career, particularly in Europe. less

Mabel Mercer (1900-1984) was a singer, song stylist, and night club entertainer. Born in England in 1900 to a Black musician father, Benjamin Mercer, and a white English vaudevillian mother, Emily Wadham Stonehouse, Mercer started her show business career at the age of fourteen. She joined a song and dance act with her mother and aunt in Europe. Later, in the 1920s, she appeared in Lew Leslie's Blackbirds in London, as part of a vocal trio. Around this time, Mercer started studying singing, with aspirations of becoming a concert singer. In the 1920s and 1930s, she was a successful night club singer in Paris, appearing at Ada "Bricktop" Smith's Bricktop's. She made her first appearance in the U.S. in 1938 and settled here in 1941, after marrying singer Kelsey Pharr, a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys. Mercer became an American citizen in 1952, where she was known as one of the most popular supper club singers for many years. The Mabel Mercer collection consists of articles, correspondence, interviews and profiles, publicity flyers, programs, and a scrapbook. less

This collection consists of biographical material, programs, catalogs, printed material about Carver, plant specimens, and correspondence. Most of the correspondence is between Carver and Ford Davis, a white scientist employed at the Tom Houston Peanut Company in Georgia. In their letters, they discuss Carver's health problems, aspirations, and plans, and lament the fact that Carver's being Black prevents him and Davis from working together as fellow scientists. less

Robin W. Winks, a professor of history at Yale University during the major part of his research for Blacks in Canada: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1957. His career was mostly spent at Yale University, beginning as an instructor in 1957, through his appointment in 1977 as Master of Berkeley College at Yale. Additionally, Winks was a visiting professor at the University of Malaya (1962-1963)and the University of Sidney (1963), and he was a State Department lecturer in the Middle East (1966) and West Africa (1972). He conducted research in a number of areas besides race relations, including Canadian-American diplomatic and cultural relations and the role of Australia, New Zealand, and Britain in the Pacific. Among his publications are Failed Federations: Decolonization and The British Empire (1970), Myth of the American Frontier (1971), and The Relevance of Canadian History (1978). He died in 2003. This collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, and research materials related to Winks's authorship of Blacks in Canada: A History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971) and other articles concerning the history of Blacks in Canada. Research material consists of notes taken by Winks in the field and in archives; printed matter, consisting of articles, pamphlets, magazines, and newspaper clippings; and correspondence with reviewers. less

The collection consists primarily of printed material used by Stephanie Black in researching the sugar industry in the United States and its treatment of the foreign workers who harvest the crop, for the film "H-2 Worker." Included are FBI files related to investigations of the United States Sugar Corporation, 1940s peonage petitions filed by the Workers Defense League, and internal FBI files of contractual agreement violations and abuses of individuals contracted to work in the program. These files were retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act. There is also documentation that the AFL-CIO initiated legal action against the sugar corporations, opposing their use of foreign workers for the available jobs and not American citizens, and the treatment of those hired to harvest the sugar cane. The newspaper clippings from the 1940s through 1990s present a view of the media's coverage of the U.S. sugar industry, along with national and regional public and political positions on the "H-2" guest-worker visa program. U.S. federal and state positions on farm/migrant workers, public response, and positions of individual politicians, both in the Caribbean and the United States are documented in the clippings. Also included are notes, transcripts of interviews, and copies of legal briefs prepared by the Farmworkers Justice Fund. The collection is arranged in alphabetical order. less

Charles Anthony Frye (1946-1994) was an early proponent of Black studies and taught philosophy, religion, and literature, and he was a published novelist and poet. The Charles A. Frye papers, 1964-1995, reflect the teaching and writer career of this professor of African and African American philosophy, religion, and literature. less

Known as the "Mother of Medicine in Harlem", Muriel Petioni was a doctor and community leader. The Muriel Petioni papers reflect primarily on her participation in various organizations including the Gayap Organization; they also include professional correspondence; African diaspora related documents; and Harlem related documents. less

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo ("made one") Church maintains full communion with the Armenian, Syrian, Indian, and Coptic Orthodox Churches, together known as the Oriental Orthodox Churches. In 1959, Abuna Theophilus, the Archbishop of Harar Province in Ethiopia, established the Western Hemisphere branch in New York, Jamaica, and Guyana. In 1990, a congregation was established in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and brought into the diocese. The Holy Trinity EOC Bronx assembly served as the headquarters of the Western Hemisphere and South Africa Archdiocese. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOC) in the Western Hemisphere and Southern Africa records (1939-1998) consist primarily of correspondence but also contain minutes; addresses and speeches by clergy; printed matter; some ephemera; a notebook of members' information (1970); and financial statements and documents (1956-1984). A significant portion of the correspondence (1993-1997) relates to tensions within the EOC generated by the installation of Abuna Paulos, an archbishop elected by the Holy Synod in Addis Ababa to replace Abuna Yesehaq, the Archbishop of the EOC in the Western Hemishphere and Southern Africa, and the Bronx EOC's legal challenge of Paulos's authority over the congregation and its property. The correspondence also records inquiries from persons interested in the liturgy of the EOC; general news of the EOC in Ethiopia, the United States and Caribbean; and needs of the EOC in South Africa. Also represented in the collection are correspondence and financial ledgers of the Ethiopian World Federation (1938-1970) and some records of the Ethiopian Students' Association in North America, including a list of Ethiopian students in the United States in 1965. less

The 167th Field Artillery Brigade, formed in November 1917 as a component of the 92nd Division, was the first brigade of Black artillery regiments of ever organized. It consisted of two regiments of light artillery (the 349th and the 350th) and one regiment of heavy artillery, the 351st. The 351st Field Artillery was trained at Camp Meade, Maryland, and in June 1918, it sailed with the rest of the 167th Brigade from Hoboken, New Jersey to Brest, France, where the troops received additional artillery training. As part of the U.S. 2nd Army's drive toward Metz, France in November 1918, the 351st attacked six towns within a week. In February and March 1919, the 351st returned to the United States. The 351st Field Artillery Collection contains a few of documents pertaining to field conditions in France. An order issued in French calls for the mandatory evacuation of the town Le Maire de Ville-à-Mousson, July 13, 1918, where the 3rd Battalion saw action. Included are schedules for the firing of weapons during training by the 351st Field Artillery in France, August-September 1918, and sanitary reports of field conditions. Many of the reports in this collection were certified by Captain Henry J. Meyer, U.S. Army surgeon. Additionally, the collection includes rosters of officers and enlisted men in the Sanitary Detachment with names, addresses, and discharge information. There is a passenger list of the army units which embarked from Brest, France in 1919, and a list of enlisted soldiers in the medical detachment who were discharged at Fort Dix, New Jersey, as well as a list of promotions for this detachment. Of particular interest are several statements indicating that no venereal disease or vermin were found among the troops. Other medical records for the troops to be discharged include cards with names and ranks of soldiers, issued by the infirmary at Camp Meade, listing cause of admission and disposition (transfer to hospital or return to duty), February-March 1919; and lists of the sick and wounded with names, rank, company, nature of illness, and place of treatment. There are also reports of sanitary inspections of conditions on board the U.S. Louisville and medical inspections of soldiers en route from Brest to Hoboken, as well as reports about the condition of supplies. A photocopy of a portion of a 1942 reunion program forms part of the collection. less

Pearl Bailey (1918-1990) was an African American actress and singer. In films, she was known chiefly for two roles: Maria in Porgy and Bess(1959) and Frankie in Carmen Jones (1954). She was also known for her starring role on Broadway in an all-Black cast version of Hello Dolly. During World War II, Bailey toured with the USO, performing for American troops. Beginning in 1946, she was a top attraction in nightclubs, variety houses, and television programs in the United States and Britain. At age 67, in 1985, she graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in theology. Between 1968 and 1989, she published six books on her life, cooking, and educational experiences. Bailey served as a special ambassador to the United Nations in 1975 and 1989, and in 1988, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Pearl Bailey letters (1943-1989) consist of correspondence between Bailey and her friend, Lillian Morrison, a published author, compiler, and editor of children's and young adult books as well as a librarian at the New York Public Library, 110th Street Branch. Most of the letters were written by Bailey, and refer to her various endeavors, including her USO work at Fort Huachucha in Arizona; recordings of the song "Tired", which was one of her hit songs; Disney's The Fox and the Hound, for which she provided one of the voices; and her service with the United Nations. As both women were published authors, several of the letters make reference to this fact and to their long friendship and shared birthday, March 29, 1918. The letters do not provide a great amount of detail about Bailey's show business career. less

Andrew Goodman, along with hundreds of other students, was a volunteer in the Mississippi Summer Project launched in June 1964 to register Black Mississippi residents to vote and to establish Freedom Schools. The Andrew Goodman Memorial collection consists primarily of news clippings and other printed material related to the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. less

Father Divine (aka George Baker) was an African American religious leader and founder of the Peace Mission movement. The Father Divine collection consists primarily of material related to the broadcasting of Father Divine's sermons and messages over two radio stations. less

The Wynn family, consisting of the Reverend Robert Daniel Wynn, his wife Rosie D. Wynn, and their daughter, Cora, lived in New York City and Newark, New Jersey. Reverend Wynn was the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church from 1885 until 1902, during the period the church was located in Greenwich Village, New York City. He later pastored at Bethany Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where he remained until his death in 1921. His daughter, Cora, was a pianist and performed in a number of recitals both before and after her marriage, when she was also known as Cora Wynn Alexander. The Wynn Family collection contains a small amount of material representing two members of this family. Rev. Robert D. Wynn's documents consist of a program celebrating the 90th anniversary of the founding of Abyssinian Baptist Church (1898); lyrics for a song he wrote, "I Would Live Longer"; and a program from Newark's Bethany Baptist Church (1907). Cora Wynn Alexander is represented by a letter written to her by a missionary friend in Cape Town, South Africa (1898), and several programs for music recitals, a few for which she performed. There are fifteen legal documents for property that the family owned in various locations in New Jersey (1919-1927). less