MARBL

by Cheryl Oestreicher, Project Archivist, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Throughout its nearly 30 year existence, a major part of the mission of the Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR) was to act as a clearinghouse of information about hate crime activity. To do this, they had offices in Kansas City and Seattle as well as their headquarters in Atlanta collect newspaper and magazine articles, news stories, and first-hand accounts of incidents from across the country. They also subscribed and obtained numerous newsletters, newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

Above left: Table of Contents from 1st edition, 1986. Above right: Fact Sheet for 2nd edition, 1992. Click to view full size images

By Kim Norman, Conservator, Emory University Libraries Preservation Office

by Christopher Harter, Director of Library and Reference Services, Amistad Research Center

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

The archival staff at the Amistad Research Center is diligently working to increase access to the more than 700 archives and manuscripts collection by entering legacy finding aids, accession records, and biographical and historical sketches into the Center’s collection management database . Many of the Center’s collections came in the 1970s and have been under used or even unknown due to researcher difficulty of accessing paper finding aids or indexes. As we continue to work with these legacy collections, we are re-discovering some of the Center’s most significant collections documenting the life experiences and history of ethnic and racial communities in the United States. The Robert E. Jones Papers are just such a treasure; donated to the Center in 1976 and initially processed at the most basic inventory level early on, the collection has been a little known resource until now. The online finding aid provides expanded full-text searchable descriptions anywhere in the United States and beyond for this and other significant materials about African American and ethnic history and culture.

by Ryan Taylor, Project Archivist, MARBL

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Though it is best known for working towards equality and the fight for civil rights, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference has also thrown its weight behind a number of other social and human rights causes. Most of this work has been conducted through SCLC’s Department of Direct Action. Direct action is the strategic use of immediately effective acts such as strikes, demonstrations (marches and rallies), and boycotts to achieve a political or social objective, and no one understood it better than Reverend Fred Taylor, a long-time employee of SCLC and Director of Direct Action from 1984 to at least 2005.

Fred Taylor began working for SCLC in 1969 as a staff member in the Department of Chapters and Affiliates.  In 1971 he became Office Manager for the organization, a position he held for two years.  In 1973 he was promoted to Director of Chapters and Affiliates, where he served until becoming Director of Direct Action in 1984. Though his primary focus was always furthering SCLC’s mission, he took an interest in working towards the abolition of the death penalty, serving as a volunteer for Amnesty International and a board member for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Under his leadership, SCLC became an outspoken and passionate voice in the fight against the death penalty.

By Cheryl Oestreicher, Project Archivist, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Because I finished the Andrew Young Papers and NAACP Atlanta Branch Records (finding aid forthcoming) with time to spare, CLIR approved adding another collection to our project. The collection chosen was the Center for Democratic Renewal Records (CDR).

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Journalist and photographer, Arnold De Mille (1908-1996) spent his career capturing the African-American experience for publications such as the Negro World (1927-1932), Newspic (1940-1942), and both the Chicago Defender and the New York Age Defender (1950-1955). He served under the Federal Writers Project, WPA (1937-1939) and joined Milady Publishing Corporation in 1944 as a photographer-writer, in which his works appeared in early cosmetology textbooks. As a United Nations news photographer (1948-1961) and correspondent (1978-1987), De Mille traveled the world to interview world leaders and to document their countries.  He also worked for the City of New York as the assistant personnel director and served as the press relations director for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund under Thurgood Marshall.  

"Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations" is a collaborative project between Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, and The Robert W. Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center to uncover and make available previously hidden collections documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta and New Orleans. The project is administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each organization regularly contributes blog posts about their progress.

Above left:  Map of Atlanta public schools.  Right:  WAOK radio announcement.  Click to view full size images.

August 30 marks 50 years since nine black students transferred to white Atlanta high schools. The NAACP filed its first lawsuit, Calhoun v. Latimer, against the Atlanta public school system in 1958, four years after Brown v. Board of Education. In 1959, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Hooper declared Atlanta’s segregated public schools unconstitutional and ordered the system to file a desegregation plan by December 1959 to be implemented in 1960. If schools did not integrate, they would lose federal funding and be forced to close.