Ira L. Jeffries (March 20, 1932- July 16, 2010) was an author, playwright, and journalist. The collection consists of one video recording of a short clip from the film The Watermelon Woman, and four audio recordings including readings of Jeffries's astrological birth chart, a script reading, and radio programs collected by Jeffries.
Author, playwright, and journalist Ira L. Jeffries (March 20, 1932- July 16, 2010) had a productive career in New York City's off-off-Broadway theaters and independent media. Jeffries received a BA in communications from City College of New York in 1987. She authored twenty-two one-act and full-length plays as well as short stories, poems, essays, and articles. As a journalist, she wrote for several African American and lesbian publications including B & G Magazine, The New Harlem Magazine, New York Amsterdam News, Sappho's Isle, and Womanews. Jeffries played the role of Shirley Hamilton in Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman (1996), the first feature-length film to be directed by a Black lesbian.
The collection consists of one video recording of a short clip from the film The Watermelon Woman, and four audio recordings including readings of Jeffries's astrological birth chart, a script reading, and radio programs collected by Jeffries. They are arranged chronologically. Two of the items' original formats are audio cassettes, and contain two parts, one for each side of the cassette.
Estate of Ira Jeffries, 2013.
Collection inventoried by Nathan Evans. Collection processed and described by Ornella U. Baganizi, archivist. Finding aid published in 2025.
See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Ira Jeffries papers, Sc MG 794.
See the Photographs and Prints Division for the Ira Jeffries photograph collection, Sc Photo Ira Jeffries Collection.
The following commercial media was transferred to the MIRS audio collection: Thriller (1982) by Michael Jackson, Oasis (1988) by Roberta Flack, and Another Place And Time (1989) by Donna Summer.
In the Life Archive (ITLA) miscellaneous collections, Sc MG 736.
The Watermelon Woman directed by Cheryl Dunye, Sc Visual DVD-2086.
See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Divion for In them We All Exist (2025), a zine partly focused on Ira Jeffries.