African American

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The exhibition, "And The Struggle Continues: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Fight For Social Change," which was curated by Carol Anderson, Michael Ra-Shon Hall and Sarah Quigley, is on display now through December 1 in the Schatten Gallery which is located on Level 3 of the Robert W. Woodruff Library. Below is the curator's statement included in the exhibition.

AND THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES highlights the efforts of one of the most important human rights organizations to challenge the oppressive political and economic systems of the 20th century.

Based on the extensive Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) records housed in Emory University's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, the exhibition reveals how SCLC exposed and transformed a status quo that allowed millions to suffer from poverty, environmental degradation, health care disasters, hunger, homelessness, disfranchisement, and a brutal criminal justice system. It waged these battles on a political terrain that had been fundamentally altered since the organization was created in 1957. 

The exhibition picks up the story of SCLC eleven years after it was founded to "redeem the soul of America." By 1968 Congress had finally passed landmark legislation on civil rights, voting, and housing. The visible markers of "white only" and "colored" were coming down. But the reality of poverty, inadequate schools, a Jim Crow justice system, and discrimination in housing and employment continued to dominate the lives of millions. With the assassination of its iconic leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., the question soon became how SCLC could mount an even more complex campaign for justice and equality, especially with the Nobel Peace Prize winner no longer at the helm.

The decision to take on the larger human rights agenda of jobs, housing, and health care — while shoring up the still-precarious civil rights victories of the 1950s and '60s — is the essence of this exhibition. During the movement, SCLC's nonviolent tactics had required the discipline of the protesters — often ministers, teachers, students, and other well-dressed icons of respectability — and a readily identifiable enemy — racist sheriffs unleashing German shepherds or bullwhips on unarmed citizens. Yet by the late 1960s, both of those pillars had crumbled. Overt racism had been discredited; still, the forces that maintained inequality were as powerful as Jim Crow but more elusive and harder to define and identify. In addition, those who felt the brunt of continued inequality did so without the shield of respectability to garner public sympathy and outrage. Poor, incarcerated, or afflicted with HIV/AIDS, they found themselves instead consigned to the "unworthy."

Another factor that hampered SCLC's ongoing quest for equality was a nation intent on "moving on." Unequal schools, impoverished neighborhoods, and scarce job opportunities were now no longer considered to be the result of years of discrimination and public policy but the culmination of a "culture of poverty" and an individual's bad decisions. In the process, the United States' responsibility for nearly 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow faded from the public consciousness. In addition, as apartheid in South Africa demonstrated, the pursuit of international human rights required organizational nimbleness to deal with the complications inherent in global economics and politics.

SCLC's answer, as AND THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES suggests, was not to shy away, collapse, or rest on its laurels. Instead, it faced these challenges with an unshakable belief in the power of God and the church — and the courage to be on the right side of justice.

Minute Book of the Frances E.W. Harper Literary and Social Circle, 1915-1929

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I have always been fascinated by African American women who organized themselves into literary, social, and service organizations during the early to mid-twentieth century. Many of these clubs were founded within 50 years of emancipation and mark a thirst by African American women to not only become literate, but to be well-read and to keep abreast of contemporary issues.

MARBL has two small, but significant collections, the Frances E.W. Harper Literary and Social Circle Papers and the Utopian Literary Club Papers, which illuminate activities of African American women not just as readers, but also as philanthropists and agents of social change.

The Frances E.W. Harper Literary and Social Circle of Savannah, Georgia was a club organized by African American women in 1899. While the literary society was dedicated to reading works of literature, it also included a social, religious, and service aspect. Members were expected to be well-versed in literature as the November 3, 1922 meeting minutes instructed members to:

"…answer roll-call by quotations from the following authors- Nov. Longfellow, December, the Bible, January, Dunbar, February Harper and Lincoln, March, Alice Carey, April. B. Washington, May-Milton, June, Mrs. Browning."

Aside from their literary pursuits, the women of "The Circle" donated books to Savannah's library for African American residents, supported the construction of a female dormitory at the Georgia State Industrial College (now Savannah State University) and donated to a fund for Charity Hospital, which was the city's first hospital to train black nurses and doctors. The collection at MARBL contains a book of meeting minutes from 1915 until 1929.
 

The Utopian Literary Club of Atlanta, Georgia was founded in 1916 by "a few friends, having similar interests in literature, art, sculpture, painting, and current developments…[who] met together to organize a club that would infuse them with objectives and set goals, by provoking discussion and thereby stimulate thinking." Each year a theme was chosen and the monthly meetings were centered on a topic related to the year's theme. Over the years the women read numerous books and discussed an array of topics ranging from classic literature to issues facing women in foreign nations. Some of the themes and topics included: "American novelists," "The Negro Woman in History- Race and Women's Clubs," "Slavery" and "World Cultures."
 

In addition to their literary activities, the women hosted an annual Party for Friends social event and fundraiser open to non-members to learn more about club. Each year at Christmastime, members hosted a Christmas Party and donated to a local charity benefitting women and children. The collection in MARBL contain the club's constitution, bylaws, meeting minutes, events programs, yearbook, and member profiles and photographs from 1984-2003.
 
Through their collection of papers, the Utopian Literary Club and Frances E.W. Harper Literary and Social Circle provide an intriguing glimpse of African American women concerned with stimulating their minds amid the race's long struggle for equality. I invite you to conduct your own search for sisterhood within MARBL's holdings.