Abstract: John Kenyon Chapman (1947-2009), known as Yonni, was a life-long social justice activist, organizer, and historian who focused his academic and social efforts on workers rights and African American empowerment in central North Carolina. Chapman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1947; graduated from Harvard University in 1969; and then moved to Atlanta, Ga., to join the fight for African American equality. He relocated to North Carolina in 1975 and worked as a laboratory technician at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital for about ten years. During this time, Chapman became active in local social justice struggles and community organizations. He helped organize his coworkers against unfair working conditions, became involved with the Communist Workers Party, and participated in African liberation and anti-apartheid struggles. Chapman was a survivor of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979. Throughout the 1980s, he was active in progressive social justice campaigns. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chapman was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he focused his activism and academic work on historical accuracy, African American empowerment, and civil rights education in and around Chapel Hill. During this time, Chapman founded and directed two racial and social justice organizations: the Freedom Legacy Project in 1995 and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth in 2005. From 2002 to 2005, Chapman ran a successful campaign to abolish the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, an action that opened a dialogue about the history of slavery and racism on campus. After a 30-year battle with cancer, Chapman died on 22 October 2009 in Chapel Hill. The collection documents Yonni Chapman’s social activism and academic activities, covering nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in central North Carolina. Organizational correspondence, notes, newsletters, and reports document the activities of the Communist Workers Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus and in Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Workers rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats. Photographs, slides, contact prints, photographic negatives, posters, banners, signs, and screen-printed t-shirts, chiefly created by Chapman, document a variety of demonstrations, meetings, and social justice events. Audio and video materials, largely created by Chapman include documentaries, meetings, speeches, and demonstrations captured on audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8mm video cassettes, and DVDs. Research materials for Chapman’s graduate doctoral work include audio and paper files of interviews with participants in the Chapel Hill civil rights movement. There are also audio files recorded by Chapman on a digital voice recorder in the year leading up to his death that contain lengthy discussions with local activists about continuing his social justice work after his death; audio recordings and a video photograph montage from Chapman’s 2009 memorial service; photographs of Chapman with friends and family; and other items.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of particular note are the materials related to the Communist Party in Series 1, as well as materials documenting the Greensboro Massacre that took place at an anti-Klan Rally in 1970. Series 6 also contains materials related to numerous social justice and civil rights organizations that Yonni Chapman was involved in, including the Chapel Hill- Carrboro chapter of the NAACP. Subseries 7.1 contains audio recordings of oral histories interviews Yonni conducted with participants in the black freedom struggle and civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. There are also photographs and audio of numerous civil rights demonstrations, events, and programs.

Abstract: The Lewis family arrived in Raleigh, N.C., in 1923, when John D. Lewis Sr. took a job as a district manager for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company of Durham, N.C. He and his wife, Luella Alice Cox Lewis, and their two children, J.D. Lewis (John D. Lewis Jr.) (1919-2007) and Vera Lewis Embree (1921-2004), lived in southeast Raleigh and were members of First Baptist Church. J.D. Lewis was a Morehouse College graduate, one of the first African American members of the United States Marine Corps, and the first African American radio and television personality, corporate director of personnel, and director of minority affairs for WRAL of the Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC). J.D. Lewis also worked as the special markets representative for the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company; as the project director of GROW, Incorporated, a federally funded program for high school dropouts; and as the coordinator of manpower planning for the state of North Carolina. Lewis was active in many civic and community organizations as well. Vera Lewis Embree (1921-2004) graduated from the Palmer Institute for Young Women and Hampton Institute. She built a successful and celebrated career as a choreographer and professor of dance at the University of Michigan. The collection consists of papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials that chiefly relate to J.D. Lewis’s working life and the civic and community organizations he supported. Lewis’s career is documented by materials from Capitol Broadcasting Company, including editorials he wrote and produced; GROW, Incorporated; Manpower; Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company; National Association of Market Developers; and the National Business League. Lewis’s civic leadership is evident in records of the Raleigh Community Relations Committee, which worked to integrate Raleigh public schools; political campaigns; and the Team of Progress, a group interested in political leadership at the city and county levels of government. Community organizations represented in the collection include the Garner Road YMCA; Alpha Kappa Alpha Debutante Ball; the Eastside Neighborhood Task Force; the Citizens Committee on Schools; Omega Psi Phi; and Meadowbrook Country Club, which was founded in 1959 by a small group of African American community leaders. Other materials document the Method Post Office dedication in 1965; the Montford Point Marine Association; and a youth charrette, possibly on integration of Durham schools. There are also clippings and printed materials on such topics as black power, African American history, Morehouse College, and Shaw University. There are several issues of Perfect Home, a home design and decorating magazine published by John W. Winters, a real estate broker, home builder, city councilman, state senator, and civic leader. Family materials are mainly biographical and include newspaper clippings, funeral programs, school materials, awards and certificates, and photographs. There are a few family letters, including one from 1967 with a first-hand account of rioting on Twelfth Street in Detroit and a copy of a 10 January 1967 letter in which the Lewis family opposed the selection of Mark Twain’s Mississippi Melody for student performance on the grounds that it perpetuated stereotyped images of African Americans. Photographs include portraits and snapshots of four generations of the Lewis and related Cox families, documenting family life from the 1910s through the 2000s. There are non-family group portraits of Omega Psi Phi members of Durham, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company employees on its 21st anniversary, and of unidentified groups at other civic and community events. There is one folder of J.D. Lewis photographs that depict him in various work contexts. Also included is a portrait of a young Clarence Lightner, who owned a funeral home business and later served as the first African American mayor of Raleigh. Audiovisual materials chiefly relate to J.D. Lewis’s work at Capitol Broadcasting Company/WRAL and his interest in African American community and history. Included are audiotapes of his editorials for WRAL; videotape of Harambee, a public affairs program about the concerns of the general public and especially African Americans; audiotape of musical performances, possibly for Teen-Age Frolic, a teenage dance and variety show; audiotape of Adventures in Negro History, an event sponsored by Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Raleigh; and film of unidentified wedding and seashore scenes. Also included are several published educational film strips on African American history with accompanying audio.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of particular note are the letters J.D. Lewis received from musicians and students desiring to appear on Teen-Age Frolic, the dance/variety show Lewis hosted on WRAL (Folder 140). There are also numerous editorials Lewis did during his years as a broadcaster, on a variety of topics (Folders 21-140). Additionally, there is corresponding audio for many of these transcripts (See Series 3).

Folder 16 also contains a 1967 letter with a first-hand account of the rioting in Detroit and a copy of a 10 January 1967 letter in which the Lewis family opposed the selection of Mark Twain’s Mississippi Melody for a school-wide student performance on the grounds “it will by no means further relationships in an integrated situation, where students as a whole, do not have a sufficient background or appreciation of Negro History to comprehend this as perhaps an exaggerrated situation of a particular and past era, but rather, would perpetuate an image already deeply established as stereotyped.”

There are also numerous photographs of the Lewis and Cox Family, including J.D. and Vera Lewis’s father during his time at Morehouse College. There are also photographs of J.D. Lewis on the set of Teen-Age Frolic, introducing different bands, and at different community events (Image folders 1-10).

Abstract: Daniel Hubbard Pollitt (1921-2010) was a law professor, civil liberties lawyer, progressive activist, and staunch advocate and defender of civil liberties and civil rights. The collection documents Daniel H. Pollitt’s legal career and his scholarly and public service interests and activities. The bulk of the collection consists of Pollitt’s subject files. Major topics include ABSCAM and other congressional ethics controversies; amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters; planning a law school with a focus on public service; civil rights, especially school desegregration and employment discrimination; the death penalty in North Carolina; government employee strikes; self-incrimination and the House Un-American Activities Committee, especially with regard to Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller; Hobby v. United States, a case about grand jury foreman selection that Pollitt argued before the United States Supreme Court; impeachment; labor, especially the reorganization of the National Labor Relations Board, migrant workers, and the Brookside Mine Strike in Harlan County, Ky.; the North Carolina speaker ban; and Supreme Court nominations. Numerous other topics are covered in these files, many of which concern narrower aspects of constitutional law, such as separation of church and state and search and seizure. Subject files also document long collaborations with a number of legal scholars, civil liberties attorneys, and government officials, including Congressman Frank Thompson, as well as Pollitt’s work with academic associations, government agencies, and civil liberties and civil rights groups, and his teaching career and his service to the University of North Carolina. Other smaller series in the collection include Biographical Materials; Correspondence and People Files, which refer to legal cases, writings, and career activities and developments of Pollitt and others, including Joseph L. Rauh Jr., Henry Edgerton, and H.L. Mitchell; Writings, which overlap considerably with the Subject Files; and Photographs, which are chiefly of Pollitt.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: There are a number of materials that deal with civil rights, civil liberties, employment discrimination, and social justice in this collection. Folder 86 contains correspondence regarding Pollitt’s analysis of school desegregation legislation in Arkansas. Folder 105 contains correspondence with Julius Chambers, former chancellor of North Carolina Central University.

Speech topics include the KKK and the Lumbee Indians (Folder 186), racial discrimination in employment practices (Folder 198) , and legal issues in school desegregation in the South (Folder 192). There are also various subject files related to African American history and civil rights organizations in Chapel Hill (Folders 325, 331). Several subject files deal with civil rights issues in Chapel Hill and throughout the South (Folders 337-350). There are also numerous files related to the death penalty in North Carolina, including discussions of race and subject files related to particular individuals (see Folders 618-740).

 

Abstract: Howell Begle is an entertainment and media lawyer and long-time activist on behalf of early rhythm and blues recording artists. In 1982, Begle met Ruth Brown, recording artist with the Atlantic Recording Corporation in the 1940s and 1950s, who had had difficulty securing royalty payments. He agreed to represent her pro bono against the recording company. Over time, his list of pro bono clients grew to more than 30 artists who had recorded for Atlantic. Begle was also a major figure in the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, founded in 1988 in Washington, D.C., with $1.5 million in initial funding from Atlantic in partial fulfillment of a legal settlement with Brown and others represented by Begle. The collection includes detailed royalty statements from the Atlantic Recording Corporation that document payments to Ruth Brown, 1955-1964. There are also copies of contracts and correspondence related to royalty payments owed to other artists who recorded for Atlantic and other labels during the 1950s and 1960s, among them Nellie Lutcher, Jimmy Scott, Joe Turner, Harry Van Walls, the Clovers, the Coasters, and the Drifters. Also included are legal documents, articles of incorporation, correspondence, news articles, and other materials relating to the formation and administration of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation; scattered correspondence between Begle and Atlantic executives, including Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Michael Resnick, and Sheldon Vogle, documenting negotiations leading to the royalty settlement of 1988; correspondence with musicians involved in the Foundation, particularly board member Bonnie Raitt; letters relating to Begle’s dissatification with and 1998 resignation from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation; photocopied news and periodical articles relating to Foundation; and calendars and promotional materials for the Foundation, some relating to the Foundation’s annual award ceremony. Other items include Billboard chart research documents, 1950s-1960s; a chronology documenting efforts to reform royalty payment accounting at Atlantic Records, 1983-1993; programs from Ruth Brown’s memorial service in 2006; correspondence with activists including Jesse Jackson, politicians including Congressmen John Conyers Jr. and Dennis J. Kucinich, and members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA); and 45rpm, 78rpm, and LP record albums collected by Begle.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Series 1 contains correspondence, contracts, and news clippings related to Begle’s work with the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which included a number of African American musicians such as Ruth Brown and the Drifters.

Folders 7-10 also contain correspondence with political activists such as Jesse Jackson as well as Democratic representative John Conyers.

Series 2 (Audio Recordings) also contain Begle’s personal collection of albums, which include records by Bessie Smith and B.B. King.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Folders 421-424 in Series 3 (Subject Files) are entitled “African American Music and Culture”.

Folders 4444-4515 are entitled “Labor Landmarks: African American Landmarks”.

In Suberies 10.1 (Audio materials), Audiocassette FS-11486is entitled “Tape 373: African American Congregational Singing: Nineteenth-Century Roots, 1994 (Smithsonian Folkways release)”

Subseries 10.2 (Video Materials) contains a DVD entitled Plenty of good women dancers: African-American women hoofers from Philadelphia (Digital Video Disc DVD-20002/2)

The additions of 2006, 2009, and 2010 also contain many interrelated subject files with the original materials, including materials on Hudie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter (Folder 2258; 4947-53)

 

 

Abstract: George C. Stoney (1916- ), a documentary filmmaker who specialized in socially relevant films, was a mentor and teacher to generations of filmmakers and media activists worldwide and a pioneer in the movement for the creation and use of public access television to enact social change. The collection consists of papers chiefly relating to George C. Stoney’s professional work as a documentary filmmaker, teacher, and early advocate of public access television. Correspondence, 1944-1993 (bulk 1960-1990), is chiefly work-related in content, though many of Stoney’s correspondents were long-time friends and colleagues and wrote personally as well. Letters, 1944-1945, from Stoney to his future wife, Mary Bruce (1926-2004), are chiefly personal in nature and include love letters, but also, to a lesser extent, describe Stoney’s experiences as a photo intelligence officer with the 8th United States Army Air Forces in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Correspondence between Stoney and his long-time companion Betty Puleston (d. 2009), 1967-1968, also blend description of personal and working life. Subject files comprise the bulk of the collection and include materials relating to films Stoney wrote, directed, and/or produced for the Southern Educational Film Production Service and George C. Stoney Associates. Topics include sexually transmitted disease; outreach programs of the Methodist Church; cardiovascular healthcare; education; community mental health; race relations in the South; police training; old age and retirement; midwifery; urban redevelopment in New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, D.C.; and other social issues. Some of Stoney’s early work as a journalist and social researcher is also documented in essays, a report on race relations in Mississippi, and materials relating to his work for the Farm Security Administration. Subject files also document classes and workshops Stoney taught, especially at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and his involvement with the growth of public access and local cable television, the Challenge for Change project of the National Film Board of Canada, the Alternate Media Center, and the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers. Additionally, there are film treatments and research materials for prospective projects and printed and other material relating to the documentary film and cable television industries. Loose papers, 1980-1990s, consist of memobooks that likely relate to Stoney’s filmmaking, and clippings, reports, readings, conference advertisements, miscellaneous printed materials, handwritten notes, and writings by others that are not clearly connected to his film projects or cable and public access advocacy work. Photographs depict the documentary filmmaking process for several of Stoney’s films, public access projects and the Alternate Media Center, the work of Farm Security Administration photographers in the South in the early 1940s, and Stoney’s family life. The audio-visual materials consist of films, tapes, and sound reels from various Stoney productions, 1950s-1990s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 675 contains some of Stoney’s work as a Southern field assistant for Gunner Myrdal’s study on race relations in the U.S., An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.

There are a number of Subject Files that relate to Stoney’s research for Myrdal’s study as well as many of Stoney’s own films. There are several that deal with race relations and various topics:Folder 162 (Auburn, Ala./Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 214 (Brewster Methodist Hospital (Jacksonville, Fla.)/Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 216 (Bunche, Ralph: Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR (1973)); Folders 625-626 (Kytle, Calvin, 1947, 1960, 1973 – materials related to anti-discrimination protests and land use); Folder 666-667 (Methodist Church 1962– Chiefly concerning “The Church and the Inner City”); Folders 752-760 (Newspaper Clippings, 1960s-1980s – dealing with issues such as segregation, race relations, and Christianity)

Several of Stoney’s films also discuss the African American community and various topics. Notable documentaries include All My Babies and The Shepard of the Night Flock

All My Babies (1953) was an award winning film that focuses on An African American midwife. Folder 101-113, 671-672, 887,  contains articles, correspondence, and other materials related to the film. Folder PF-4970/1-3 contain photographs related to the film. There is a copy of the film as well (Film F-4970/203).

The Shepard of the Night Flock (1975) is a documentary discussing the life of Father Joseph Gensel and his role ministering to the Jazz community in New York. Influential musicians such as Duke Ellington appear in this film. There is a Reference folder (between Folders 972 and 973) for this film. Subseries 5.2 contains numerous clips and edits from the feature film, as well as audio tapes of the performances featured in the film.

Abstract: Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, in the course of his research on the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. Rosengarten recorded a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974). The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes, most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with Ned Cobb and other members of the Cobb family. The interviews describe Cobb’s life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with African American sharecropper Ned Cobb and other members of his family. These interviews were used as the basis of Rosengarten’s book All God’s Dangers, which describes Cobb’s life as a sharecropper in east-central Alabama, his involvement with Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Abstract: The Chapel Hill Historical Society was formed in 1966 in Chapel Hill, N.C. In 1974, the oral history committee was established to conduct interviews with local Chapel Hill and Carrboro, N.C., residents in an effort to preserve first-hand recollections about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, local African American communities, and local mill-worker communities. One of the first major projects conducted was a series of interviews with men and women who had worked in the Carrboro textile mills in the early and mid-20th century. The collection consists of 40 of the original 117 oral history interviews conducted by the Chapel Hill Historical Society between 1974 and 1978 in the “Generations of Carrboro Mill Families” project. Interviewees include mill workers, mill supervisors, and several doctors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who discuss health in the early 20th century. Interview topics include working in the Carrboro mills from the turn of the 20th century through the Great Depression and World War I; work conditions, social relations, and union organizing in the mills; everyday life in North Carolina and especially in Carrboro in the early 20th century, including displacement from farms into the town, housing conditions, health, education, family life, childbirth, and women in work; and the University of North Carolina.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Several of the interviews discuss race in Chapel Hill and the local African American community. For example see the interview with Forrest Lacock (Audiocassette C-4205/51 :Lacock, Forrest, 6 February 1975: Audio; Folder 51 Lacock, Forrest, 6 February 1975: Transcript, 35 pages)

Abstract: Timothy Duffy (1963- ), folklorist and musician, produced field recordings of the American roots tradition as an undergraduate at Warren Wilson College and while working on a folklore master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A few years after graduating in 1991, he co-founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF), a non-profit organization near Hillsborough, N.C., that helps southern roots tradition musicians meet their financial needs and gain recognition for their work. The collection includes chiefly sound recordings, but there are also artist files, CD liner proofs, correspondence, photographs, posters, documentation, video recordings, DVDs, and miscellaneous items. Most of the material relates to Duffy’s work with MMRF. Sound recordings include Duffy’s folklore thesis fieldwork in the Black Mountains of North Carolina and recordings of blues, gospel, and R& B artists such as Walt Davis, Ray Greene, Jeeter Riddle, James Guitar Slim Stephens, Etta Baker, Willa Mae Buckner, Guitar Gabriel, Cool John Ferguson, Cootie Stark, Cora Mae Bryant, Sammy Mayfield, Neal Pattman, Beverly Guitar Watkins, Jerry McCain, Essie Mae Brooks, Precious Bryant, Preston Fulp, Macavine Hayes, Algia Mae Hinton, John Dee Holeman, Captain Luke Mayer Luther, Taj Mahal, and the Greene Acres Picking Party. Some of the sound recordings include interviews with artists.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: There are sound recordings, oral histories, and artist files for numerous gospel, R&B, and blues artists.

Abstract: J. Taylor Doggett is a businessman and writer who has extensively researched, among various other interests, the 1950s R&B group the 5 Royales, swing bandleaders, and musicians associated with the University of North Carolina. He lives in Greensboro, N.C. The collection consists of three series: 5 Royales Materials; UNC Bandleaders Materials; and Other R&B, Jazz, and Doo Wop Materials. The Five Royales series documents Doggett’s extensive research and collecting efforts relating to the Winston-Salem, N.C., R&B vocal group of that name and the careers of constituent members Lowman Pauling, Clarence Paul, Curtis Pauling, Obadiah Carter, Johnny Tanner, Eugene Tanner, Otto Jeffries, and William Samuels. There is also music of the Royal Sons, EL Pauling and the Royalton, and the Charlie Little Jazz Ferguson Orchestra. The UNC Bandleaders series reflects Doggett’s interest in sweet jazz bandleaders associated with the University of North Carolina, including Kay Kyser, Hal Kemp, Skinnay Ennis, and John Scott Trotter. Also in this series are other performers, including Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge, Harry Babbitt, Merwyn Bogue (Ish Kabibble), Libby Holman, Georgia Carroll Kyser, Ginny Simms, and Bo Thorpe. The 5 Royales and UNC Bandleaders series both include audio and video recordings, printed materials, and correspondence. The Other R&B, Doo Wop, Jazz, and Blues Materials series contains printed materials and recordings that reflect Doggett’s broader musical interests.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection