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: Digby Gordon Seymour (1855-1927) was a railroad engineer who lived and worked in the southeastern United States. He was the father of Knoxville, Tenn., lawyer and businessman Charles Milne Seymour (1882-1958), who was the father of Tennessee medical doctor and historian Digby Gordon Seymour (1923- ). The collection chiefly includes letters, 1893-1902, written by Digby Gordon Seymour at his work locations in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee to his oldest son, Charles Milne Seymour. Also included are telegrams from Digby Seymour and a letter from him to another son, James. These communications contain fatherly advice, especially comments on and encouragement of Charles Seymour’s studies. Digby Seymour wrote of borrowing money to pay for Charles Seymour’s attendance at Sewanee Military Academy in Tennessee and at the University of Tennessee and for his family’s monthly expenses; expenditures for rent, food, clothing, shoes, and travel; and a lawsuit with R. M. Quigley & Co., a Saint Louis contractor for which he had previously worked. In later letters, he discussed his political opinions, especially his support for Republican politicians. Items of note include a 22 March 1900 letter that provides directions for staging an eleven-act minstrel show.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

 Collection Highlights: Folder 4 contains a a 22 March 1900 letter that provides directions for staging an eleven-act minstrel show, which also discusses actors performing in blackface.

Materials from this collection have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.

Abstract: This collection comprises field notes, transcripts, memos, ephemera, and other items associated with sound and video recordings assembled at the Southern Folklife Collection. The identifying number for the associated recording as well as provenance information (where available) is noted in the finding aid. Materials in this collection are associated with recordings from a wide variety of collections, including those of Andy Cahan, Guy Carawan and Candie Carawan, Bob Carlin, Cecelia Conway, the John Edwards Memorial Foundation, Joan Fenton, Alice Gerrard, Peter Hartman, Glenn Hinson, the Goldband Recording Corporation, John Huddle, A. P. Hudson, Beverly Patterson, Daniel Patterson, Mike Seeger, Brett Sutton, and many others. The recordings in those collections include materials produced for commercial distribution as well as (predominantly) materials gathered in a field context by folklorists. The notes include information on African American music, banjo music, Primitive Baptist church music, country music, fiddle tunes, folk music, folklorists, old-time music, popular music, storytelling, and other topics, chiefly but not exclusively relating to North Carolina or the American South.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: The field notes contain information on African American music and musicians. Several collections, such as the Goldband Recording Corporation, the Guy and Candie Carawan, and Glenn Hinson Collections, contain recordings and documentation on African American music and musicians.

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: During the 1950s and 1960s, collector, folklorist, and traditional music performer Mike Seeger recorded interviews and performances of many legendary old-time and bluegrass musicians.The collection consists of open reel tape and DAT audio recordings from 1955 to 2002, along with supporting logs and films. The audio recordings include both live performances and Seeger’s interviews with many notable bluegrass and old-time musicians; master tapes from various LP recording projects; and recordings of Seeger’s own band, the New Lost City Ramblers. Of particular interest are live concert recordings featuring such musicians as Tony Alderman, E. C. Ball, Dock Boggs, Buzz Busby, Alex Campbell and Ola Belle Reed, Maybelle Carter, Elizabeth Cotten, Sady Courville, Cousin Emmy, Hazel Dickens, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Roscoe Holcomb, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Jarrell, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Grandpa Jones, the Lilly Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, Carl Martin and Ted Bogan, Dennis McGee, Sam McGee and Kirk McGee (the McGee Brothers), Bill Monroe and Charlie Monroe (the Monroe Brothers), the Osborne Brothers, Don Reno, Marc Savoy, Red Smiley, Kilby Snow, the Stanley Brothers, Ernest V. Stoneman, J. C. Sutphin, Merle Travis, Wade Ward, Mac Wiseman, and the New Lost City Ramblers. Also includied are recordings of various performances and workshops at festivals, including the American Old-Time Music Festival, the Bean Blossom Music Festival, and the Culpeper Music Festival. There are also recordings from the New Lost City Ramblers’ European tour with Adam Landrenau and Cyp Landrenau, Cousin Emmy, and the Stanley Brothers. Performances were recorded at large and small venues, including New River Ranch near Rising Sun, Md.; Sunset Park, Pa.; and the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention in North Carolina. Seeger recorded in-depth interviews with many musicians, including Clarence Tom Ashley, the Benfield Family, Dock Boggs, Charlie Bowman, Maybelle Carter, Tommy Jarrell, Kirk McGee, Sam McGee, Eck Robertson, Leslie Riddle, Kilby Snow, Ernest V. Stoneman, and Wade Ward. Of particular interest is Seeger’s interview with Columbia Records talent scout Frank Walker. Other New Lost City Ramblers recordings include raw tracks and master tapes for the group’s albums; live recordings at folk festivals, colleges, and other venues; and band meetings. Supporting documentation includes Seeger’s logs for all of the audio recordings and an artist index. The Addition of February 2003 contains films of Mike Seeger and other musicians, including films of an old-time music workshop in 1977 and an interview with Mike Seeger. The Addition of July 2009 contains audio recordings featuring many of the musicians already represented in the collection and others, including Eddie Adcock, Howard Armstrong, Kenny Baker, the Balfa Brothers, Dewey Balfa, Ted Bogan, Hylo Brown, Vassar Clements, Sady Courville, Kyle Creed, Bobby Durham, Flick Flaharty, Alice Gerrard, the Goins Brothers, Ted Gossett, Sarah Gunning, Bill Harrell, Doc Hopkins, Tommy Jarrell, Lily May Ledford, Tex Logan, Carl Martin, Jimmy Martin, Dennis McGee, Melvin Robinette, Montana Slim, Ralph Stanley, Carl Story, Tut Taylor, Doc Watson, Nimrod Workman, and others. The addition also contains recordings of Mike Seeger’s interviews with musicologist Charles Seeger. The Addition of May 2010 includes video footage from Seeger’s documentary project, “Talking Feet.”

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: This collection features several recordings of African American artists, as well as discussions of interactions between white and black musicians.

There are live performances of folk singer Elizabeth Cotten [Audiotape FT-3754; FT-3756];  country blues singer Mississippi John Hurt (who was recorded in the 1930s, and rediscovered in the 1960s).

There are also recordings of African American Appalachian string musicians Carl Martin and Ted Bogan [Audiocassette FS-9655; 9656; 9658-60; 9689-90; 9694; 9696]

There are also a number of Caucasian musicians who describe being influenced by African American musical traditions, such as the Seeger’s own band the New Lost City Ramblers [See Series 1: Audio Recordings, 1955-2002] , as well as the Jim Kweskin Jug Band [Audiotape FT-5704].

There are also a number of interviews, including from Maybell Carter [Audiotape FT-8821], Clarence Tom Ashley [Audiotape FT-5582], and Dock Boggs [Several recordings, including Audiotape FT-5603 thru FT-5611] discussing the influence of African American musicians on their music.

Mike Seeger’s documentary “Talking Feet” is available online through the SFC on Folkstreams. Click here to access the film and see other documentaries.

Abstract: William Shelburn was active as a photographer in North Carolina circa 1856-1907. During that period, he frequently relocated his studio and gallery, which at various times were in Oxford, Raleigh, Goldsboro, Asbury, Greenville, Kinston, Durham, and Burlington. The collection is a photographic print, circa 1870s, mounted on card stock. It depicts an African American man on a donkey on a dirt street in front of a building; the man is holding a crutch. On the verso is printed: “William Shelburn, Photographer, Fayetteville Street, Raleigh, N.C.” and “Additional copies can be obtained at any time by sending this number,” but no number is given.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Image P-5474/1 is an 1870s photograph card of an African American man on a donkey on a dirt street in front of a building. On the verso is printed: “William Shelburn, Photographer, Fayetteville Street, Raleigh, N.C.” and “Additional copies can be obtained at any time by sending this number,” but no number is given.

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: 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”.

Abstract: Southerners for Economic Justice (SEJ) was founded in 1976 during a successful campaign to help J. P. Stevens textile workers unionize. Since then, SEJ has focused on empowering the unemployed and working poor to develop community-based strategies to solve social problems associated with economic crisis. Records, 1977-2001, of Southerners for Economic Justice document the organization under the leadership of its first three directors: James Sessions, Leah Wise, and Cynthia D. Brown. Administrative records document the everyday operations and strategic planning of SEJ, as well as the organizational culture of a non-profit organization. Project and subject files document programmatic work, grassroots organizing, and related interests of the organization, especially unemployment due to plant closings, racist violence, environmental racism, shrinking union membership, contingent work, workplace health and safety reform, leadership training for minority women and youth, and literacy. Subject files also show collaboration with churches and like-minded organizations and grassroots activists at local, state, regional, national, and international levels to build and participate in support networks and coalition groups, including the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network, among many others. Highlights of SEJ’s documented activist work include the J. P. Stevens campaign; the Schlage Lock campaign; the workers’ bill of rights for city employees of Durham, N.C.; Betrayal of Trust: Stories of Working North Carolinians, a report published in 1989 that documents workplace discrimination and wrongful firing of workers; the Hamlet, N.C., coalition for workplace safety reform; the Working Women’s Organizing Project; Youth for Social Change; and Voices of Experience, a collaborative group that advised and advocated for people experiencing welfare reform. Other materials include an extensive collection of economic and social justice newsletters and photographs, chiefly documenting SEJ meetings and events, but also showing Durham, N.C., scenes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: SEJ’s chief constituency during the 1980s was dislocated and marginalized workers, often low income or unemployed and injured women of color. Development of leadership and organizational skills in African American youth became a second focus later in the decade. Of note are the Project files (in Series 3.2). Of particular note in Series 3 (Records) are Box 20 – 23 [“Betrayal of Trust”], which contains documentation related to dislocated workers; Box 23 [“Black Workers for Justice” and “Center for Democratic Renewal”]. There is documentation on youth groups as well [Box 78]. Box 36 – 38 contains records on plant closings on how workers, including African Americans, were affected. Box 38 – 40 [“Racism and Violence”] contains information on numerous groups and topics, including the Ku Klux Klan killings in Greensboro.

Abstract: The collection includes scattered bills, receipts, and accounts for purchases, schooling, blacksmith work, and other business of Solomon Slatter, Scotland Neck, Halifax County, N.C.; and one family letter from Slatter, 1848.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Includes an 1849 receipt, which lists medical treatments and cost for enslaved African Americans. An 1848 letter from Slatter to Martha Nicholls asks her to treat “the Negroes with humanity and without rigor” as outlined in his will. Slatter’s will, dated 21 August 1843, includes twelve enslaved individuals.