Found 20 collections related to Racism -- United States

This collection consists of two minute books documenting the meetings of the Executive Committee of the Montgomery, Alabama Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), from February 22-August 29, 1955, and the Branch membership, January 9-December 12, 1955. Also included are loose sheets of notes taken at meetings but not recorded in the minute books; they include notes of an emergency Executive Committee meeting on December 13, 1955, referring to the Rosa Parks bus segregation incident. One prior bus segregation incident is also noted. Correspondence from the Youth Council of the NAACP, membership lists, and financial reports for the branch during this period are included. These minutes, particularly those of the Executive Committee, present a clear picture of civil rights activities in Montgomery at this time. less

William Haywood Burns was a civil rights activist, lawyer, educator and dean of the City University of New York Law School at Queens College. He is the author of The Voices of Negro Protest in America, published in 1963. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, Burns served as legal counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., from 1967-1969. He was one of the founding members and became the first director (1970-1973) of the National Council of Black Lawyers (NCBL), an organization that helped to acquit Angela Davis of murder and kidnapping charges that also represented other black political activists, including Black Panther members and Vietnam War resisters. Highly recognized for his work with the Attica prison uprising in 1971, Burns spent much of his career working tirelessly to recruit more people of color into the legal field, and was committed to educating lawyers about the complexities of representing underserved communities for the public good. Also active in the anti-apartheid for a quarter of a decade, Burns was a member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. During one of his trips to South Africa, he was killed by a speeding lorry. The Haywood Burns Papers is organized into seven series: Personal, Correspondence, Legal, Writings, City University of New York (CUNY), Subject Files and Organizations. The majority of the Papers represent Burns' legal work and the various organizations with which he was connected including the National Council of Black Lawyers, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Community Service Society of New York, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, National Lawyers Guild, ACLU's National Prison Project, New World Foundation, Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the Vera Institute of Justice. less

Research files on organizations, individuals, and subjects collected for Kennedy's books, I RODE WITH THE KU KLUX KLAN (1954) and SOUTHERN EXPOSURE (1946), and newspaper and magazine articles. Includes correspondence, transcripts of articles, first person accounts of Klan meetings, notes, newspaper and magazine clippings, and printed material including publications. Subjects include the Klan in Georgia and Tennessee; Klan leaders such as J.B Stoner; the Columbians, a Georgia white power group; the Christian Americans and the right-to-work movement in the 1940s; and Georgia politics, including Eugene and Herman Tallmadge. less

The Payne, Wood, and Estes families are southern white families. Two members of these families, Robert R. Reiley and Harry Wood, were in the Ku Klux Klan. The Payne and Wood family papers consist of correspondence and printed material dealing primarily with family matters. They also include proceedings, certificates, programs and proclamations, and membership directories relating to such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, the Daughters of America, the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. less

Shirley Carter Burden (1908-1989), a descendant of Cornelius Vanderbilt, was a prominent American photographer, best known for his pictorial essays exploring aspects of Catholic culture, racial intolerance, and architectural heritage. Burden promoted the appreciation of photography through service on the boards and advisory committees of several museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, and was a long-time supporter and chairman of the board of Aperture. Colleagues and friends included, among others, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Thomas Merton. The collection reflects Shirley Carter Burden's post-World War II career as a commercial architectural photographer and fine art photographer, particularly his publications and exhibitions. Correspondence, negative indexes, reviews, contracts, gift lists, proof copies and reference materials document the publication of Behold thy Mother, The Chairs, God Is My Life, I Wonder Why, Presence and The Vanderbilts in My Life, and projects concerning Ellis Island. Exhibitions of Burden's work and other projects are documented in correspondence, royalty and shipping receipts, exhibition floor plans, publicity material, invitations to openings, reviews, and a guest book. The collection also contains miscellaneous correspondence; business records; records of his private collection; and subject files on other photographers, particularly Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Also present is a phonograph recording of Burden's 1965 interview on "Open End" about Behold thy Mother. Some of Burden's photographs are scattered throughout the collection. less

The Blacks in the Railroad Industry Collection is comprised of a variety of materials documenting the struggle of black railroad employees against ouster from the industry by collusive actions of the companies and the unions. While provenance seems to be uncertain, holograph notes on many of the documents appear to have been done by Robert Wood, editor of "The Railroad Workers' Link," a newspaper published by the Railroad Committee of the Communist Party. In addition, the few original items in the collection are addressed specifically to him or to the "Link.". less

The records of the Angela Davis Defense Committee including incoming letters of support and sympathy from the United States, Germany, and Eastern Europe (many in German). Many of these letters are postcards to Angela Davis, signed and with notes, mostly from abroad (some are in French). A large number are birthday cards to Angela Davis with notes and others are greeting cards portraying Angela Davis. The rest of the collection includes printed material from magazines and newspapers; Alliance newsletters; pamphlets by or about Davis and other political cases, such as the prison inmate riot at Attica; and printed material, posters, and information about other cases in which the Alliance was involved. less

The Walter Winchell papers span 1920-1967 and consist of annotated radio scripts, correspondence, miscellaneous scripts for stage and film, scrapbooks, news articles, clippings from his newspaper columns, and other items related to his journalism career. The largest portion of the collection is the radio scripts, usually typewritten and annotated, which date from 1930 to 1959; because of their fragile condition, these scripts are available only on microfilm. Film scripts include two to which Winchell contributed, BROADWAY THROUGH A KEYHOLE (1933) and WAKE UP AND LIVE (1937), the latter of which provided an opportunity for Winchell to play himself. Winchell's correspondents included Fanny Brice, Samuel Goldwyn, and Billy Rose. Clippings cite Winchell's role in public controversies, such as the battle over racism at New York's Stork Club which pitted Winchell against entertainer Josephine Baker, and Winchell's accusations of Communist sympathies made against various public figures during the McCarthyist 1950s. less

Actor, Earl Sydnor appeared on and off-Broadway, on television, and in film. He began his acting career after performing with the New Jersey Federal Theatre Company. Throughout his career, he worked with Katherine Dunham, Ethel Waters, Henry Fonda, James Earl Jones, and Lou Gossett, Jr. in various plays such as "Cabin in the Sky," "Kiss The Boys Goodbye," "First Monday in October" and the films, "The Emperor Jones" and "Take A Giant Step." As a young man Sydnor wrote poetry and several of his poems were published in black literary magazines. Sydnor died on July 9, 1989. Papers documenting the acting career of Earl Sydnor. The papers are divided in two series, Personal and Professional, which include correspondence, biographical material, newspaper articles and reviews, and playbills. Additionally, there are two scrapbooks dealing with his acting career and service in the Army Air Force in 1943. A third scrapbook relates to his appearance, with his wife Virginia, in "The American Home" magazine in 1945, which became a controversial issue because the magazine had never featured blacks before. less

The D.C. Area Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) was a student organization at Howard University active in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s. NAG members participated in the Freedom Rides from Washington to Mississippi; contributed clothing, food, and medicine to Tennessee sharecroppers who had been forced off their land for voting in 1961; initiated and/or participated in civil rights demonstrations in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland; and maintained working relationships with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.). NAG's membership included civil rights figures Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin). This collection (27 items) consists mainly of correspondence and minutes pertaining to the D.C. Area Nonviolent Action Group's (NAG) civil rights-related activities. Authors of letters include William Mahoney, NAG president; members Anne C. Wooten, Bernard Z. "Butch" Conn, and James Forman; and Julian Bond and Charles F. McDew of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. less

The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), founded in 1973 and still in existence today, seeks to raise awareness of America's political prisoners and prison conditions, police brutality, repressive legislation, and unfair labor practices. While most of the materials concern Black Americans, other minority groups, such as Native American activists, Puerto Rican nationalists, Chicanos, and the LGBTQ community do have a presence in this collection, as do cases involving oppression based on leftist political beliefs. The collection includes extensive correspondence with prisoners, as well as materials specifically related to executive board member Angela Davis, and materials dedicated to the NAARPR's management, conferences, and rallies, mostly from the 1970s through the 1980s. less

Joan Ross Sorkin is a playwright, opera librettist, musical theater bookwriter, lyricist, and screenwriter. Sorkin was born in New York City and attended the University of Rochester, as well as the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she studied history and politics. She went on to work as a research analyst in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she gained interest in race relations, a theme which has influenced several of her theatrical works. After earning a law degree and practicing law on Wall Street, Sorkin began writing plays and musical theater including the opera Strange Fruit and the play (mis)UNDERSTANDING MAMMY: The Hattie McDaniel Story. . Her plays, operas, musicals, and cabarets have been presented off-Broadway and at regional theaters, earning her national acclaim. Sorkin is currently a member of The Dramatist Guild, BMI Musical Theater Workshop, and New Vic Collaboratory. The Joan Ross Sorkin collection, 2003-2010, is comprised of materials documenting two of her works, the opera Strange Fruit and the play (mis)UNDERSTANDING MAMMY: The Hattie McDaniel Story, which are based on race relations and events from American history. The collection contains libretti, a piano score, programs, press releases, and reviews pertaining to the two works. less

Kenneth B. Clark founded and directed the Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC), a non-profit research corporation concerned with the problems of American urban society. This collection consists mainly of reports and studies accumulated or researched under the auspices of MARC. less

The Rev. Dr. Nathan Wright, Jr., an Episcopal minister and scholar, was an early and prominent advocate of Black power. The Nathan Wright papers reflect his numerous interests and endeavors in the fields of religion, Black power, education, and race relations. less