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: Howard Anderson Kester was a theologian, educator, and administrator active in Christian movements relating to race relations, pacifism, and economic reform in the South from the 1920s until his retirement in 1970. Correspondence of Howard A. Kester and his wife, Alice Harris Kester, together with reports, leaflets, pamphlets, newsletters, organization reports, writings, and other items. Included are materials about Kester’s association, beginning in the 1930s, with such organizations as the YMCA, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice, the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, the Socialist Party, and others active in the movement for social change. Also included are materials relating to Kester’s work, beginning in the 1940s, with such institutions as the Penn School, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and Montreat-Anderson College. There is also material relating to Kester’s later work as an educational innovator and about Kester himself and his development as a Christian radical, social reformer, administrator, and teacher. Some of Kester’s correspondents are listed below.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights:  The collection documents his activities in various organizations including the YMCA; the Student Christian Movement; the Southern Tenant Farmers Union; the NAACP, for whom he investigated lynchings; the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice; and the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, for whom he investigated opinions on and problems with desegregation (1955-1959). The collection also contains material reflecting Kester’s duties as Principal of the Penn Normal Industrial and Agricultural School, St. Helena Island from 1943-1948 (See Series 2, part I and II).

Additional materials include his writings, such as his reports on lynching and farm tenancy; his financial records while he was employed by the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice; and conference programs for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Conference on Education and Race Relations, and the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching (see particularly folders 216-217 for reports on lynching).

This collection contains materials that have been digitized. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digital material.

Abstract: Mark F. Ethridge was a journalist of Louisville, Ky. Professional correspondence and speeches of Ethridge relating to his career in journalism, principally as editor and publisher of the Louisville, Ky., “Courier-Journal” and “Times,” 1936-1963; editor of “New York Newsday,” 1963-1965; and instructor in journalism at the University of North Carolina. In addition to newspaper affairs, these papers reflect many social and political issues of the times, including race relations, southern economic development, national elections and Democratic Party affairs, freedom and responsibility of the press, World War II, the Cold War, the creation of Israel, the spread of Communism in postwar Europe, and international peace. A separate series, chiefly 1945-1947, relates to Ethridge’s fact-finding missions on behalf of the United States State Department and the United Nations to several Balkan countries, especially Bulgaria, Rumania, and Greece.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters concern American race problems in general (1933); civil liberties in regard to African Americans, Jews, and the Ku Klux Klan (1939); the education of African Americans in Mississippi (1940); segregation in the South (1956, 1964); and the Ku Klux Klan (1964). The collection also contains Ethridge’s personal notes on civil rights (Folder 166) and copies of his speeches, such as “America’s Obligation to Its Negro Citizens” (1937), a lynching speech (1940), “The Race Problem in the War” (1942), and “The South’s Worst Qualities Have Come Out,” which dealt with integration (1956).

Abstract: Broadus Mitchell, economist, historian, and liberal thinker, taught until 1939 at Johns Hopkins University, from 1947 to spring 1958 at Rutgers University, and from fall 1958 to 1967 at Hofstra University. He was the son of educator, Samuel Chiles Mitchell (1864-1948) and brother of educator, Morris R. Mitchell (1895-1976) and labor leader, George Sinclair Mitchell (1902-1962). His second wife was economist Louise Pearson Mitchell (1906- ). The collection includes correspondence, writings, and other papers of Broadus Mitchell. Correspondence, 1900-1982, chiefly relates to Mitchell’s research interests, particularly the life of Alexander Hamilton, and to his teaching career, including his involvement at Johns Hopkins in an academic freedom dispute and a controversy in 1938 over whether to admit an African- American graduate student. Included are three letters in the 1930s from H.L. Mencken about Mitchell’s writing, one in 1932 from Norman Thomas relating to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and one in 1935 in which Franklin Roosevelt discussed the problems of sharecroppers. There are many letters from colleagues and students, among them economist Anatol Murad; H.L. Mitchell; Daniel Singal; Robert A. Solo; Lynn Turgeon; and Harold C. Syrett, editor of the Alexander Hamilton papers. There are also family letters, including a few about family matters from brother Morris. There are also writings by Mitchell, including many on the life of Alexander Hamilton, the American Revolution, and economics and economic history. Also included are Mitchell’s 1931 report on lynchings in Salisbury, Md.; his contribution to a 1931 ACLU pamphlet called “Black Justice”; and an unpublished autobiography. A few family history materials, clippings, financial and legal papers, photographs, and other items are also included.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence includes a 1 February 1932 request from H. L. Mencken to see Mitchell’s 1931 report on lynching in Maryland (Folder 1). There is also a letter dated 1 May 1935 mentioning Franklin Roosevelt’s discussion of the problems of sharecroppers (Folder 2)

There are several letters in November and December 1938 that show Mitchell’s involvement in the controversy to admit a black student to the graduate program at Johns Hopkins (Folder 3); and letters from the Southerners for Civil Rights organization from 1947-1958 (Folders 4-9).

The collection also contains several of Mitchell’s manuscripts, including a 1931 report on lynchings in Salisbury, Maryland, and a pamphlet entitled Black Justice , published by the ACLU in 1931, to which Mitchell contributed (Folder 61).

Abstract: Paul Eliot Green (1894-1981), of Chapel Hill, N.C., was an author, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, and humanitarian. This collection contains material documenting the many facets of Green’s life and work, material relating to the

life and work of his wife, Elizabeth Lay Green, and numerous items relating to members of the Greens’ immediate and extended families. Paul Green’s work as a dramatist and writer is documented in his professional correspondence files (ca. 34,400 items); by extensive files on his “symphonic dramas,” including background material, drafts, musical scores, and business records; and by drafts of poems, novels, and essays by Green. Also included are yearly diaries, 1917-1981, photographs, tape recordings, and appointment books. Correspondents include Sherwood Anderson, James Boyd, Erskine Caldwell, William T. Couch, Jonathan Daniels, Donald Davidson, John Ehle, Caroline Gordon, Frank Porter Graham, John Howard Griffin, Tyrone Guthrie, Dubose Heyward, Noel Houston, Langston Hughes, Gerald W. Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, Frederick Koch, Lotte Lenya, H. L. Mencken, Howard Odum, Clarence Poe, Carl Sandburg, Betty Smith, Lamar Stringfield, Allen Tate, Kurt Weill, Orson Welles, and Richard Wright. Green’s associations with various theater, cultural, and humanitarian organizations in North Carolina and elsewhere are extensively documented. Correspondence and other materials show his opinions on such social issues as lynching, capital punishment, nationalism, communism, race relations, religion, and the Vietnamese, Korean, and First and Second World Wars. Also included are a considerable number of photographs relating to Green’s family and to his work, and financial records.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection contains information on race relations, African Americans in the theater and in literature; African-American employment; lynching; the NAACP; the North Carolina Committee on Negro Affairs, and other organizations. Some noted series include Series 8 (Source Material), Sub Series 1.2 (General Files: for information on the Negro Little Theater) Sub Series 1.3 (General Files 1940-1949: for Green’s interest in Civil Rights and the NC Commission on Interracial Cooperation) and Subseries 2.1.18 (Major Dramatic Works: In Abraham’s Bosom, 1926-1960)

Some of the items in this collection have been digitized. Please click here to view the finding aid for this collection and to link to the digitized items.

Abstract: George Washington Carver (1864?-1943), African-American scientist of the Experimental Station of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Insitute, was known for his work in agricultural experimentation, especially in investigations of uses of peanuts and sweet potatoes and extraction of dyes from soils and clays. He was also an accomplished painter and lectured extensively in behalf of agricultural improvements and interracial cooperation. Wilson L. Newman first met Carver when Newman was a student at Vanderbilt University and chair of the Commission on Race of the Regional Council of the Student Y.M.C.A. Newman later taught in the Home-Study Department of the University of Chicago. Correspondence between George Washington Carver and Wilson L. Newman, beginning in 1926, when Newman asked Carver to tour Southern colleges in support of interracial communication. An instant rapport developed between the two men, who corresponded frequently until Carver’s death in 1943. Letters, chiefly from Carver to Newman, are personal in nature, reflecting Newman’s membership in Carver’s “family,” which was made up of young men who were expected to keep in touch with Carver by mail and to visit him periodically. Among these men were Howard Kester and Paul Newman Guthrie. Although most letters are filled with news of “family” members and with Carver’s unbridled praise of Newman’s mental and physical attributes, some letters address questions of race relations, Carver’s work in agricultural experimentation, activities at Tuskegee, and the pleasures of music and painting that Carver and Newman shared. Also included are clippings, 1927-1943, chiefly 1943 obituaries and appreciations of Carver, but also earlier announcements of speeches and lay reviews of his work; six small landscapes and floral paintings, 1928-1932 and undated, apparently painted by Carver and sent to Newman as Christmas greetings; and miscellaneous printed materials relating to Carver, including a few brochures on agricultural topics and advertisements for books by him and for penol tonic, a “Tissue Builder and Germ Arrester” derived from peanuts and marketed by the Carver Penol Company.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence with Carver, of the Experimental Station of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, by Newman who asked Carver to tour Southern colleges in support of interracial communication. Although most of the correspondence contains personal news, some letters mention race relations, agricultural experimentation, music, and painting. There is also a letter dated 18 July 1930 where Carver mentions a lynching that took place in Texas (Folder 5).

Abstract: Braxton Bragg Comer of Birmingham and Comer, Barbour County, Ala., was president of Avondale Cotton Mills, planter, merchant, and prominent politician, who served as president of the Alabama Railroad Commission, 1904-1907; governor of Alabama, 1908-1911; and U.S. senator, 1920. Personal, plantation and other business, and political papers of Comer. Personal papers consist primarily of letters to his family, including his brother E. T. Comer, about family matters, hunting, and social activities, and about Comer’s interest in public and higher education in Alabama. Plantation records include correspondence with agents, sharecroppers, and laborers on the Comer plantation; vendors of farm machinery and agricultural supplies; and others. These letters discuss business disputes, Comer’s African-American workforce, the sale and purchase of feed and livestock, cultivation techniques, and varieties of plants and animals. Plantation records also contain laborer and sharecropper work reports and financial and legal documents relating to the sale and purchase of farm equipment, including union activities in the mills.Political papers discuss many issues included in the progressive agenda–regulation of public utilities and transportation, especially railroads; Prohibition; and convict leasing. Comer’s battle to regulate the cotton futures market is also documented. In the 1910s and 1920s, papers show Comer’s involvement in several Alabama political campaigns and in Oscar Underwood’s unsuccessful bid for the 1924 Democratic presidential nomination. Many items document the role of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama politics in the 1920s. In 1940, there are items concerning Comer family history. Also included are scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, most dating from Comer’s tenure as governor of Alabama. Topics include Comer’s administration, railroad regulation, Prohibition, education, election reform, local and national elections, and Democratic Party politics.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Comer’s personal papers in Series 1 discuss African Americans, including a servant light enough to pass for white (1920), the death of Becky Comer, a former family slave (1922), his views on race relations and education (1917), traveling with African American servants (1919). The plantation records in Series 1 contain numerous documents related to African American laborers working for Comer as well as African American schools, and his thoughts on African Americans in the military. Volume 4 (pages 227-308) includes detail of the impeachment of Sheriff Frank Cazalas of Mobile, Ala., on the grounds that he permitted the lynching of an African-American accused murderer.

Abstract: Olive Matthews Stone was a sociologist involved in social welfare and race relations. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina in 1939 and was later associated with the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina. She was associate professor in the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Los Angeles, 1949-1964. Papers reflect Stone’s interests in social welfare, race relations, southern farmers, the training of social workers, and her own family history. Included are materials pertaining to a study of various aspects of the lives of African Americans in Gee’s Bend, Wilcox County, Ala.; observations on group relations and tensions in India, China, and Japan from a trip she took under the auspices of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1931-1932; anti-lynching efforts; and Stone’s involvement in the Southern Committee for People’s Rights (originally called the Southern League for People’s Rights), the Southern Negro Youth Congress, and several biracial conferences on race relations, including the Institute of Race Relations held at Swarthmore College and the Shaw University conference, both in 1934. Prominent correspondents include Howard Kester, Joseph S. Gelders, George Stoney, Josephus Daniels, various officers of the American Friends Service Committee regarding the Institute of Race Relations, Katharine D. Lumpkin, Sam H. Franklin Jr. of the Delta Cooperative Farm; Virginia Durr; C. Vann Woodward; Clyde Johnson; and Arthur Raper. Also included are correspondence about other matters, financial and legal materials, writings, clippings, certificates, some nineteenth-century family items, genealogical materials, printed items, and photographs.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence includes information on Stone’s involvement in the Southern Committee for People’s Rights, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, and the Southern Negro Youth Congress (See Folders 27-30).

Much of the correspondence (from 1934-1973) discusses such topics as anti-lynching efforts, as well as two interracial conferences on race relations (the Institute of Race Relations held at Swarthmore College in July of 1934, and the Negro-White Conference at Shaw University in fall of 1934). Materials in this series have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digital content.

Folders 23-24 contain information  on various aspects of the lives of African Americans in Gee’s Bend, Wilcox County, Alabama (1962, 1977).

Folder 34 contains a copy of Stone’s published article, “”Present Position of the Negro Farm Population” (1936).

Abstract: Native of North Carolina, active Episcopal layman, author, editor of “The Churchman” and founder of “The Constructive Quarterly.” Correspondence with leaders in the Christian and other faiths, statesmen, diplomats, educators, and philanthropists; much of it written in connection with McBee’s work s editor of “The Churchman” and “The Constructive Quarterly,” and as vice president of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. The papers reflect McBee’s interest in social, political, religious, and intellectual questions, particularly his concern with Christian world unity, foreign missions, church architecture, and the propagation of the social gospel in American politics and international affairs. Correspondents include James Bryce, Alfred Thayer Mahan, William Thomas Manning, John R. Mott, Gifford Pinchot, Jacob August Riis, Theodore Roosevelt, Speck von Sternberg, and William Howard Taft.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Worldwide correspondence with church and national leaders of McBee, native of North Carolina, active Episcopal layman, author, editor of The Churchman in New York City, and founder of the Constructive Quarterly . Letters concern McBee’s editing activities; church organizations, conferences, and architecture; the University of the South; foreign missions; Christian world unity; and the application of the social gospel to American political and international affairs, including racial tensions. Contains references to missionary work among the black population (1899); lynchings and Booker T. Washington (1902); discussion of the “race question” (27 Nov 1898 and 15 Jan 1903); and black troops in the Civil War (1906).

Abstract: The North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation was established in 1921 as a state affiliate of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation to work toward improved race relations in the state. Like its parent organization, the NCCIC, sought both to alleviate injustices and to change prejudiced racial attitudes. Its efforts included meetings with individuals, correspondence, press releases, radio programs, pamphlets, local meetings, and state-wide conferences. After closing its offices in 1949, the NCCIC became an affiliate of the Southern Regional Council in 1951 and, in 1955, changed its name to the North Carolina Council on Human Relations. The collection consists of correspondence and financial, legal, and other materials. Correspondence is primarily that of the directors of the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation concerning daily operations of the NCCIC and its county and city affiliates, investigations of instances of injustice and violence towards African Americans, and financial matters. Included are letters from officers and organizations including the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Regional Council, and the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company. There are also financial and legal materials, 1928-1949, including a 1946 agreement of affiliation between the Southern Regional Council and the NCCIC; a study concerning a Hamlet, N.C., murder in 1928; and an investigation of a Pender County, N.C., lynching in 1933. Other materials include pamphlets and other printed materials, speeches, radio program materials, reports, and other writings on topics such as race relations, education, religion, crime, discrimination, and civic involvement; responses to a 1948 survey of North Carolina public libraries about their holdings on minorities; conference materials; meeting minutes; and constitutions, by-laws, and resolutions.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights:  Papers discuss such topics as racial attitudes, justice, education, transportation, employment, religion, crime, economics, discrimination, health, social welfare, agriculture, and civic involvement.

Included are notes on racial conditions in New Bern, North Carolina (1922-26); an NAACP appeal for state support in a case involving the fatal shooting of an African-American man in Hamlet, North Carolina (1927) in Folder 1.

Correspondence also include discussion about a lynching in Franklin County, North Carolina (1935); black voter registration (1936); segregated toilet facilities on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad (1928-29); an African American’s application to the graduate school of the University of Virginia (1935); African- American employment, and African-American jury duty in Folder 2, 16-26.

This collection has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.