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 Southern Governors’ Association, formerly the Southeastern Governors’ Conference, is a regional association of state governors that was founded in 1934 to represent the common interests of chief executives of the southern states and to provide a vehicle for promoting those interests. The collection consists of annual meeting transcripts and programs, annual reports, and other related publications. Materials span 1983-2010 and cover such topics as aging, agriculture, banking, business, climate change, diversity and race issues, drug prevention, economic development trends, education, emergency response management, energy, environmental concerns, finance, globalization, government, health care, infant mortality, housing and urban development, immigration, industry regulation, international relations with Latin American and African nations, national and international politics, poverty, the prison system, regional challenges and cooperation, technology, tourism, trade, transportation, and welfare reform. Annual meeting speakers include southern governors and other politicians, academicians, and military and business leaders.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Materials in the collection cover a vast number of topics, including race relations and diversity. Annual Meetings discuss issues such as race and diversity (Folders 28-29) and include prominent African American politicians as speakers, including Marian Wright Edelman and Andrew Young. Folder 84 also contains a 1993 report on the “African Heads of State” summit for that year.

Abstract: Raymond Bowden Mallard was born in Faison, N.C., in 1908. He was an attorney, state legislator, North Carolina Superior Court judge, and first chief judge of the North Carolina State Court of Appeals. Mallard died in 1979 in Tabor City, N.C. The collection documents Raymond B. Mallard’s judicial career and related civic activities. Materials include correspondence; briefs and other legal documents for a variety of cases, most of which probably duplicate the official records that are filed with the North Carolina Court System; writings; court notes; his diary from the Superior Court special terms of 1964; informal notes and annotations on envelopes and other materials; speeches; newspaper clippings; and photographs, including a few relating to the civil rights protests in Chapel Hill, N.C. The bulk of the materials documents Mallard’s judicial career on the North Carolina Superior Court and the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Topics include the establishment and function of the Court of Appeals; the trials stemming from the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill; the North Carolina Civil Rights Advisory Committee’s reports on African American participation in instrumentalities of justice and voting history; judicial responsibility for protection of rights of the defendant in high profile cases; preparation and delivery of jury charges; inherent powers of the courts of North Carolina; the Henderson Cotton Mills trials; conflicts with the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI); inmate requests for parole and Mallard’s opinions on criminal recidivism; his interest in student activism on campus; and the North Carolina Bar Association position on legal aid clinics. The collection also documents Mallard’s early work as an attorney for the town of Tabor City, N.C., and board of trustee matters at Pembroke State College, including the conflict over administrative decisions and planning that purportedly diminished the roles and presence of Native Americans at the school.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folders 186-188, 196, 197 document cases in the Superior Court relating to Civil Rights. Folders 206-233 particularly contain legal documentation, clippings, letters, and other materials related to the Civil Rights protests in Chapel Hill in 1964.

Image Folder PF-5518/1 also contains a number of photographs of the protests from 1964.

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: The Atlantic Coast Line was based in Wilmington, N.C., and possessed rail that ran through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida. The Atlantic Coast Line later formed part of the CSX Transportation System. The collection contains records, 1900s-1950s, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Files are divided between President’s Files, which document railroad operations and relations with other companies, and Tax Files, which contain records of federal, state, and local taxes paid by the Atlantic Coast Line. There are also a set of financial journals and a series of files related to the reorganization of the Florida East Coast Railway Company. Addition of 2011 consists of records, 1918-1963, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company Police Department. Reports document often extensive investigations into crimes such as trespassing and vandalism, especially by juveniles; petty larceny of railroad and personal property; vagrancy and train hopping; public drunkenness; and assault. Reports typically mention age, race, and sex of the suspects, many of whom were African American, and often personal or family information. There are also lost luggage claims, reports of injuries sustained in the rail yard, and personnel records that document relief checks, retirement traditions, job applications, and funerals.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The addition of October 2011 contains records of the Atlantic Coastline Railroad Company Police Department, and includes investigative reports and arrest records for juveniles as well as adults. Many of the records involve African American men and women, suspected of crimes as well as victims.

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.

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: John Poynter Streety was born in Bladen County, N.C., in 1820. He arrived in the town of Haynesville, Ala., circa 1839, where he became a prosperous businessman. Streety’s plantation was located in Lowndes County, where he was primarily active in cotton farming, raising livestock, and other agricultural activities. He was also involved in a co-partnership with a firm named J.P. Streety and Company, which participated in several types of businesses, including mercantile and advancing credit, ginning and milling, and acquisition of land. Streety died in Haynesville, Ala., in 1894. The bulk of the collection is manuscript volumes, mostly written by John Poynter Streety, 1874-1894. The volumes contain entries describing life on his plantation and in the town of Haynesville, Ala., as well as a few accounts of national occurrences. Many entries describe Streety’s farming and mercantile endeavors, the weather and its impact on crops, family and town life, the performance of workers, and local politics, while others describe race relations in the post-Civil War American South and include Streety’s personal views, accounts of lynch mobs, and other information. Some entries discuss yellow fever, social and economic conditions, and the national political environment. Also included are research materials, late 1960s-early 1970s, relating to Streety and belonging to Roland Mushat Frye, a Streety descendant and professor of English literature at the University of Pennsylvania; a 2001 Streety family newsletter; and other items.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: There are several references to race relations and African Americans in Streety’s writings. From Volume 2 in Folder 4, The entry written 12 June 1875 concerns the Radical Republican Party meeting attended by “a crowd of Freedmen,” and describes it as “noisy and turbulent.

Volume 3 in Folder 6 includes entries regarding race relations, such as one written 14 November 1875 that contains the description of a court case against an African American for assaulting a white man, which John Poynter Streety noted as having been arranged to include a majority of African Americans on the jury. In entries written 23 October and 25 December 1875, Streety reflected on his views regarding the presence of African Americans at his store and his concern for the safety of the store’s goods. In another entry from 1 January 1876, he mentioned Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

In Volume 4 in Folder 8 for an entry dated 26 August 1876, Streety discussed the overall dissatisfaction of the African American population regarding the overwhelming Democratic Party victory in the state elections.

In an entry written on 9 May 1878, Streety discussed the time African Americans spent in court and their convictions for what he considered minor infractions (Volume 5, Folder 10)

Volumes 7 and 8 in Folders 14 and 16 contain numerous references to Streety’s views on race relations, and incidents involving newly freed African Americans

Volume 9a in Folder 18  contains entries concerning race relations, such as an account of a lynching written on 30 March 1888. In the account, Streety described an African American man being abducted from jail, where he was awaiting trial for allegedly killing a white man by a mob of masked men who hung him from a tree by the town’s public square. A few days later, on 7 May 1888, Streety commented on the consequences of the lynching, wherein numerous African Americans were arrested for organizing with the intention of avenging the action and state troops were called upon to handle the situation. In a 20 August 1889 entry, Streety reflected upon possible race troubles brought about by comments published in a newspaper edited by an African American man, in which an article characterized “the White race in most uncalled for and scandelous manner.”

There are accounts of local and national economic matters, such as the entry on 1 March 1892 noting the sharp decrease in the price of cotton and the dire situations encountered by farmers, especially African Americans. Another entry regarding race relations was written on 14 October 1893, describing a young African American girl being whipped by a white man for “rudely walking against his daughter.” The same white man had the parents of two smaller girsl whipped for the same reason. The entry goes on to describe the white man responsible for the whippings receiving a letter saying that future acts of this sort would result in the town being burnt down (Volume 10, Folder 21)

Abstract: Billy Brown Olive of Durham, N.C., is a North Carolina attorney who specializes in patent and intellectual property law. In 1957, he established Olive & Olive, the first patent law firm to serve the Research Triangle Park area, and taught proprietary and engineering law classes at the Duke School of Engineering and the School of Product Design at North Carolina State University. For more than 40 years, Olive was involved in civic affairs, specifically those relating to the environment and environmental racism. Locally, he was involved in the opposition to specific routes of Interstate 40 in Orange County, N.C., serving as coordinator with Opposition to I-40 in Orange County. He also opposed the Eubanks Road landfill site in Orange County, N.C. and the East/West Expressway route through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham, N.C. The collection includes materials on environmental and social issues of interest to Billy Brown Olive, specifically his opposition to the Interstate 40 construction through Orange County, N.C.; the proposed landfill site near Eubanks Road in Orange County; and the proposed extension of the East/West Expressway (North Carolina Highway 147) through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham, N.C. Interstate 40 papers consist of Olive’s office files related to Interstate 40 construction through North Carolina, including correspondence, meeting minutes of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, newspaper clippings, maps of routes, and petitions. Landfill site materials relate to the proposed placement of an Orange County landfill near Eubanks Road in Orange County, and include court documents, letters of opposition written by Olive, newspaper clippings, landfill drawings, and publications and reports. Crest Street papers include correspondence; court documents, specifically those related to the Save Our Church and Community Committee of Durham; maps of Duke Forest; publications and reports; and additional correspondence relating to I-40 construction in Durham. Also included is material related to the Orange County Municipal Waste Project, chiefly consisting of correspondence of Olive with state and local officials, newspaper staff, educators, and the Landfill Owners Group, but also including studies and reports on waste management. There are a few related photographs scattered throughout the collection.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: A number of the communities Mr. Olive worked with are African American, including the community on Crest Street. Series 3 contains correspondence, maps, and court proceedings relating to stopping the expansion of Interstate 40 through the Crest Street neighborhood.

Abstract: Benjamin F. Swalin (1901-1989) was conductor and director of the North Carolina Symphony, musician, composer, performer, author, teacher, and advocate for music in North Carolina. His wife, Maxine M. Swalin (1903-2009), also an accomplished musician, supported the work of the North Carolina Symphony as its executive assistant for many years. The collection contains biographical information, writings, correspondence, subject files, and photographs of Benjamin F. Swalin and Maxine M. Swalin. Materials document Benjamin F. Swalin’s life from childhood through his music studies, teaching career at the University of North Carolina, and his 33 years as conductor and director with the North Carolina Symphony. Published and unpublished writings include notes, poetry, musical scores, and materials relating to Benjamin F. Swalin’s Hard Circus Road (1987), a history of the North Carolina Symphony, and to Maxine M. Swalin’s An Ear to Myself (1996), a reminiscence of her childhood in Iowa and life with her husband and with the North Carolina Symphony. Correspondence chiefly concerns North Carolina Symphony operations and the Swalins’ social and professional relationships with acquaintances and advocates in the arts and legal communities. Subject files include materials relating to the Symphony, especially Benjamin Swalin’s forced retirement in 1971; a run of Symphony Stories that Adeline McCall wrote for the Symphony’s Children’s Concert Division, 1950-1973; items relating to music education and appreciation in North Carolina; and other materials. Photographs document the Swalins from early childhood to old age.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folders 16 – 18 contain various addresses and articles, some of which includes drafts of “Music in a Chaotic World,” which addresses racial conflict, war attitudes, and other social dilemmas in North Carolina.

Folders 248 – 249 contain  a summary of legislation efforts made by Benjamin F. Swalin, and  his discussion of the challenges surrounding the use of state busses during the 1960s to transport African American children to desegregated symphony concerts in areas of North Carolina where “mixed” audiences were not permitted; and drafts of his Jukebox bill.

Folder 371, entitled “American Black Music, includes notes and research gathered on African American art and music used in creating “Painted Music”, a performance by Maxine Swalin

Folder 376, “Black Art,” contains articles, picture postcards, and handwritten notes about African American art for “Painted Music”.