Creator: Wheeler, Raymond Milner, 1919-1982.
Collection number: 4366
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Abstract: Raymond Wheeler of Charlotte, N.C., was an internist, civil rights activist, and advocate of better health care and nutrition for the poor, especially in the South. The collection contains chiefly material pertaining to the social justice activities in which Wheeler took part, from the mid-1950s to 1982. Letters, informational bulletins, clippings, and texts of speeches are among the items that document Wheeler’s testimony on hunger and malnutrition in America before various Congressional committees and his involvement with such organizations as the Southern Regional Council, the National Sharecropper’s Fund, the North Carolina Hunger Coalition, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union, and the Charlotte Citizen Action Team. Aside from a few letters Wheeler wrote to his parents during World War II, there is very little of a personal nature in the collection.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: The collection documents Wheeler’s activities as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Southern Regional Council (1964-1969) and as its president (1969-1974). He also participated in a field study of health and living conditions of African-American children in two rural Mississippi counties in 1967, and in the same year testified before the U.S. Senate’s Employment, Manpower, and Poverty Subcommittee.
See Series 1 (General Files) for correspondence, pamphlets, and other materials about Wheeler’s social activism and work as a physician. There are several files on various topics, such as “King, Martin Luther” (Folder 48), “Voting Rights” (Folder 77), and various files dealing with migrant workers (Folders 55-57).
Series 2 contains information about his work for the Southern Regional Council.