African American Women's History Resources at Rubenstein Library: Civil Rights & Post-World War II

The 195 films represented by this collection of movie promotional and advertising materials cover a variety of types of motion pictures, from obscure Black-cast silent films by the Norman Film Manufacturing Company, to movies with supporting and starring roles for African-Americans and modern Black-cast films. The collection contains 238 separate press books, campaign books, advertising manuals, supplements and other ephemeral promotional booklets, broadsides or single sheet publications, and posters designed for the use of theater distributors, dating from the independent Black films of the 1920s to 2000. The collection also includes some souvenir program booklets sold at theaters, and two published hardcover books.

Elna Bridgeforth Spaulding was an activist in civil rights for minorities and women and involved in local politics in Durham, N.C, serving as a Durham County Commissioner for five terms, from 1974 through 1984.

Brenda Schoonover was the former ambassador to Togo (1998-2000) and the interim ambassador to Belgium (2003-2004). Her papers consist largely of speech files and other items created by Schoonover during the latter part of her career in the U.S. Foreign Service, including her ambassadorship to Togo, her time as Diplomat-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her subsequent post as Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Belgium, where she became interim ambassador in 2003. Speech topics range from international diplomacy, the Peace Corps, September 11th, trade, foreign relations, and West Africa development.

Doctor, administrator and pioneer in the medical profession in Durham, NC. Also included are the papers of Constance Watts (wife), Lyda Merrick (mother-in-law), and Margaret Smith (a nurse in his office). Of special interest is a scrapbook about the Negro Braille Magazine (now the Merrick-Washington Magazine for the Blind), founded by Mrs. Merrick.

The collection includes three publications related to the campaign to free Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram, an African American sharecropper and widowed mother of twelve in southwest Georgia, along with two of her sons, Wallace and Sammie Lee Ingram, who were serving life sentences for the 1947 death of their white sharecropper neighbor, John Ethron Stratford.

This collection contains subject files, clippings, and reunion materials collected by Constance Curry, a civil rights activist and member of SNCC's executive board. The materials also contain Curry's subject files on figures like Ella Baker and Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), and clippings from various SNCC reunions and anniversaries in the 1990s and 2000s

Dedicated to providing effective and healthy day-care for African American children in Durham, especially those from poor families, Clydie Fullwood Scarborough (d. 1989) managed the Scarborough Nursery School for over fifty years. The Scarborough Nursery School is the oldest licensed, black-owned day care center in North Carolina, and in the main the collection contains correspondence, financial reports, legal and administrative papers, clippings, writings, programs, flyers, and photographs pertaining to the operation of the school.

The Darlene Clark Hine Papers span the dates from about 1879 to 1996, with the bulk of the files dating from the 1970s to 1996. Earlier dates represent reproductions of archival materials, chiefly photographs. Through professional correspondence, research and writings materials, and professional service files, the collection documents the career of Darlene Clark Hine, professor of African American history, college administrator, and published author on African American history in the United States.

Florence Tate (1931-2014) was a civil rights and pan-African activist based in Washington, D.C. Born in Eads, Tennessee in 1931, Florence L. Tate (née Grinner) grew up in Memphis where she attended public school. After earning a bachelor's degree in English from LeMoyne College, she married Charles Tate, and took a job as a reporter for the Dayton Daily News in Dayton, Ohio. While reporting on politics, courts, and schools for the newspaper, she was also heavily involved in the civil rights movement. In addition to working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), Florence and Charles Tate founded the Dayton Alliance for Racial Equality (DARE).

The papers of Gwendolyn M. Parker, which primarily document her writing carreer, span the years 1967-1998 with the majority of the papers dating from 1986-1997. They consist primarily of diaries, correspondence, clippings, writings, and other miscellaneous printed and manuscript materials. Parker's writings are well documented by several manuscript versions of her 1994 novel, These Same Long Bones, and her 1997 memoir, Trespassing: My Sojourn in the Halls of Privilege. Parker's correspondence is chiefly professional and related to her efforts to publish for her work, but a small amount of personal correspondence is held in the collection. The clippings are primarily reviews of her books or published interviews. The personal observations, story ideas, and writing exercises recorded in Parker's diaries provide some documentation of her life and artistic career, chiefly after 1986.

African-American educator and historian; professor of history at N.C. Central University, Durham, N.C. Collection contains primarily correspondence and printed materials, including speeches, clippings, and photocopies. Two large sections of materials concern her interests and activities as a member of the Republican Party and her work as an alternate delegate to the U.N. General Assembly, 1970. Some materials relate to her work with the National Peace Corps Advisory Council, to educational exchange, consultations in Europe and Israel, and other work experiences in an international context. Papers representing her duties as a college professor are limited.

Collection consists largely of correspondence between Nell Irvin Painter and her parents (1969-2003), documenting various stages of their lives, travels, and Painter's scholarly career. Also includes writings by or about Nell Painter, including reviews of her work; materials, including photographs and tintypes ([ca. 1890s-1910s]) of African Americans in Victoria, Texas, kept by Frank and Dona Irvin relating to their early life near Houston, and documenting aspects of African American history in that area; copies and reviews of Dona Irvin's writings; documents related to Frank and Dona's education and careers; assorted family photographs; and other items.

African-American woman accused and acquitted of murdering a jail guard in Wilmington, NC, in 1975. Collection comprises correspondence from documentary filmmaker Morris Dees to attorney Jerry Paul; the screenplay and publicity materials for the film FREE JOANN LITTLE; transcripts of interviews conducted by Morris Dees; lists of defendants, and witnesses; list of defendant's exhibits; medical, and court records; an autopsy report; clippings; and writings by Joan Little.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (JCPES) is a nonprofit American research and public policy institution, or think tank, founded in 1970 to aid black elected officials in creating effective policy and successfully serve their constituents. The collection includes subject files, writings, publications, photographs, audiovisual materials, and electronic records pertaining to JCPES events, programs, and projects especially of concern to African Americans in the late 20th century.

Collection includes materials from Barrow's advertising career, his teaching and tenure at Howard University, and his involvement in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The Korean War material, 1950-1951, includes press releases, written by Barrow, regarding various battles and engagements with Communists. Also included is correspondence to his mother, Wilhelmina Barrow, discussing his activities, as well as his struggles with payment and segregation in the U.S. Army.

The personal and business papers of African American lawyer and businesswoman Mahala Ashley Dickerson span the years 1958 to 2007, the year of Dickerson's death, and chiefly consist of correspondence; newspaper clippings; real estate records; programs, letters, and additional items documenting honors, awards, and public appearances; papers concerning her homestead plot in Alaska and other personal and business concerns; photographs and videocassettes; and directories, journal publications, and pamphlets and correspondence concerning the American Bar Foundation and the Alabama State Bar Association.

Nell Irvin Painter is a scholar, teacher, and writer in 19th- and 20th-century American and African American history who has taught at Harvard, Princeton, and the Universities of North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Collection spans the years 1793-2010, with the bulk of the material dating between 1876 and 2007. Contains extensive records related to the research and writing of five of her major books: Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction; The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South; Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919; Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol; and Creating Black Americans: African-American History and its Meanings, 1619 to the Present.

Nellie McKay (d. 2006) was a scholar and co-editor of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. Papers consists of letters from Nell Irvin Painter to McKay.

African-American native of Granville Co., N.C. More commonly known as "Peach Pie" Morgan.
The collection contains five company/church cookbooks and one folder of church-related seminar materials, from the "Women's Conference '99," containing Christian marriage and life skills advice; a conference program from the church-related "Women's Conference 2001" held at the Oxford Public Works Complex in Oxford, NC (2001 September 15); a speaker biography and church bulletin documenting the "Women's Day" Service at Whetstone Baptist Church (2001 May 13 Sunday), Oxford, NC; 20 color photographs taken at the "Women's Conference 2001."; 20 color photographs from the "Women's Conference 2002," with accompanying program; and programs, agenda, and photographs from the 6th Annual Women's Conference, 18 September 2004.

The Office of Black Church Studies was established as an initiative of the Duke Divinity School in the early 1970s. There are materials related to African American churches, civil rights, and the status of African American students and faculty in universities across the country. Materials related to Martin Luther King, Jr.; Benjamin Chavis; Gardner C. Taylor; and Prathia Hall Wynn are included. Some items relate to black church studies at other academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and churches. The collection includes manuscripts, black-and-white and color photographs, digital images, and electronic records contained on compact discs.

Activist and union organizer who was involved with the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Service Employees International Union, the Black Radical Congress, the Black Workers for Justice, Jobs with Justice, Solidarity, and the Durham NAACP. El-Amin was also a founding member of the Labor Party and the Southern Anti-Racism Network. Organizational and subject files from El-Amin's years of activism and organizing in the Service Employees International Union, the Black Radical Congress, the Southern Anti-Racism Network, and numerous other groups and causes. Also includes publications, photographs, videotapes, and correspondence.

Collection consists largely of materials from Taylor's time in prison and as a community activist, post-prison, in Berkeley, California, during the 1970s. The majority of the materials is Taylor's incoming correspondence during his incarceration, which includes letters from a variety of people, especially women participating as pen pals in the Sisters of Motivation organization. Other frequent writers are Taylor's girlfriends, family members, and community organizations that he had contacted regarding his imprisonment and the general condition of black male prisoners.

Non-profit, inter-racial organization founded in Durham, N.C. in September 1968; Elna Spaulding was founder and first president. Collection comprises correspondence, by-laws, meeting agendas and minutes, budgets, articles of incorporation, as well as information about the organization's relationship to the Women In Action Foundation of Durham, N.C. Documents the organization's involvement in the Durham community on a variety of issues, including easing racial tensions; smoothing the way for court ordered school integration in 1970; providing for the recreational and cultural needs of disadvantaged youth; and establishing a clearinghouse to offer information and referral services to Durham citizens for a variety of social problems.

Collection comprises material related to Anglesey's editing of LISTEN UP!: SPOKEN WORD POETRY (1999) and to the performance poetry scene in New York during the 1990s, including correspondence, newspaper clippings, and interview transcripts in various stages of editing. There are also twelve 3.5" computer disks containing 309 electronic files for LISTEN UP! manuscript drafts, as well as interviews, correspondence, contact lists, and other information Anglesey gathered from her poetry contacts at the Brooklyn Moon Café. The electronic documents have been transferred to the Special Collections file server.