Abstract: The Grigsby family of North Carolina and South Carolina; New Haven, Conn.; Detroit, Mich.; and Phoenix, Ariz., descend from Fred Grigsby (b. 1867), the son of a former slave. The Grigsby family papers consist of correspondence and invitations, funeral and school materials, newspaper clippings and other printed biographical material, photographs, and other materials documenting the Grigsby family, especially publicist, civil rights activist, and editor Snow F. Grigsby, artist and art educator J. Eugene Grigsby (Gene), school principal J. E. Grigsby and school teacher Purry Leone Dixon Grigsby, and the family of teacher Miriam Grigsby Bates. Educational achievement is the central theme of the collection, in evidence in transcripts, diplomas, and photographs of family members receiving degrees. Other education-related materials include a letter from one Grigsby generation to the next providing personal insights on Langston Hughes for a research paper; a 1938 photograph of Purry Leone Dixon Grigsby teaching in a Biddleville (Charlotte, N.C.) elementary school classroom; and a small amount of material relating to the School Workers Federal Credit Union, which was founded in 1941 in Charlotte, N.C., by J. E. Grigsby, for African American teachers and employees of the public school system. Also of note are a 1942 living letter recorded at a USO Club; a 1980 letter that included a then-confidential list of the Detroit chapter of Tuskegee Airmen; a copy of a 1980 letter from Snow F. Grigsby to fellow Republican Strom Thurmond on racism, politics, and the economy; a CORE sit-in songs (Congress of Racial Equality) booklet; and the 1942 program for the women’s West End Book Club of Charlotte, N.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Barbara Lau (1958- ), folklorist and program coordinator, has studied African-American shape-note singing groups in the midwest, coordinated the 1983 Shape-Note Singing Reunion in St. Louis, Mo., and documented the 1983 and 1984 Ohio-Indiana-Michigan Vocal Singing Conventions. While doing graduate work in folklore at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Lau worked with a Cambodian community in Greensboro, N.C., through the Greensboro Buddhist Center. In 1999, she became the community-based documentary programs coordinator at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Materials, 1980-1995, include audio tapes, videotapes, photographs, slides, logs, and manuscripts from two of Barbara Lau’s folklife projects. Documentation of Lau’s work with African-American shape-note singing groups in the early 1980s includes her senior thesis, “Black Shape-Note Singing: A Beginning,” along with surveys on which she based her writing. Also included are photographs, audio recordings, and slides from the 1983 Shape-Note Singing Reunion in Saint Louis, Mo., and the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan Vocal Singing Convention, 1983-1984. Materials documenting the Cambodian community in Greensboro, N.C., include nearly 1,200 color slides and prints by Lau and photographer Cedric Chatterley of the 1995 Cambodian New Year celebration. There are also photographs of New Year celebrations in Lexington, N.C., and Charlotte, N.C., and videotapes by Jim White and photographs by Lau of a 1995 Cambodian wedding in Greensboro, N.C.. Lau also interviewed two Cambodian dancers, Chea Khan and Chaa Moly Sam, while they were in residence at the Greensboro Buddhist Center and photographed their classes. All photographs and interviews have extensive logs with commentary and field-note summaries by Lau. The Cambodian Immigrant Folklife series contains materials documenting interviews performed by Lau in preparation for a 2003 exhibit at the Greensboro Historical Museum entititled “From Cambodia to Greensboro: Tracing the Journeys of New North Carolinians.” It also includes a children’s book with text by Barbara Lau and photographs by Cedric Chatterly entitled Sokita Celebrates the New Year.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Materials include audiotapes, videotapes, photographs, slides, logs, and manuscripts from two of Barbara Lau’s folklife projects. Documentation of Lau’s work with African-American shape-note singing groups in the early 1980s which helped produced her thesis “Black Shape-Note Singing: A Beginning,” along with surveys on which she based her writing. Also included are photographs, audio recordings, and slides from the 1983 Shape-Note Singing Reunion in St. Louis and the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan Vocal Singing Convention in Indianapolis in 1983 and Detroit in 1984. (See documentation and audio in Series 1)