As president of Morehouse College for twenty-five years and as president of Atlanta University for five years, Dr. Hope conducted a great volume of correspondence with black leaders and with numerous white philanthropists and supporters of Negro civil rights. As an officer and member of various local, regional, and national church groups, fraternal organizations, civil rights groups, and professional associations, Dr. Hope also engaged in voluminous correspondence with blacks and whites of all walks of life. Mrs. Hope, although most closely associated with Atlanta's Neighborhood Union, was also an officer and member of several charitable, feminist, and civil rights organizations. The Hopes numbered among their personal correspondents almost all of the major black educational, political, and civil rights figures of the first half of this century as well as many prominent white persons. Finding aid only.
The Freedmen's Aid Society was an agency of the Methodist Episcopal Church created after the Civil War for the purpose of establishing schools and colleges for African Americans in the South. A great part of the work of the society was in supporting teachers in various institutions begun by or connected with Freedmen's Aid, and in preparing young men for the ministry. Finding aid only.
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is a philanthropic organization that provides scholarship funds for black education. This collection includes UNCF organizational records. Finding aid only.
The Spelman Independent Scholars is a two-semester independent, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational learning experience open to students across all majors, the goal of SIS is to enhance students critical writing and thinking skills. It also allows students the opportunity to share research and grow in griot knowledge. In addition to learning sessions with the SIS faculty mentor, students are exposed to lectures by guest scholars including gerontologists, oral historians, museum curators, and physician-researchers. Through one on one independent student relationships and class seminars, the unique yearlong program allows and entrusts students to solicit, understand and archive stories of African-American women elders. A global component of SIS has included oral history research in Accra, Ghana; Benin, West Africa; and Kingston, Jamaica.
This collection contains the photographs from the life and work of Reverend Robert E. Penn, a Baptist minister and educator. Penn was born in a rural coal mining town in West Virginia, and went on to receive degrees from Clark College, Gammon Theological Seminary, and Central Baptist Theological Seminary. He was a chaplain during World War II, and later after his pastoral work in Kansas City, Kansas, and Gary, Indiana, Penn returned to Atlanta to become Director of Field Education at the Interdenominational Theological Center in 1973. These photographs document Rev. Penns family life and friend in West Virginia, Indiana, and Georgia, as well as his work as Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana, and Director of Field Education at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary.
Grace Towns Hamilton (1907-1992) was a civic leader and Georgia General Assembly member. She is known as the first African American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly. She represented the Vine City area of Atlanta in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1965 to 1984. Maps in the collection span from 1960 to 1981 with the bulk of the material from 1963 to 1975. They consist of Atlanta Neighborhoods, Atlanta Congressional Districts, Georgia counties, and election precincts of Fulton County, GA. Images in the collection span from 1910 to 1984 with the majority of materials from 1910 to 1930. They consist of Hamilton’s family, childhood, and individual portraits.
This collection contains over 1100 images dating from 1887 to the present and document Spelmans presidents, commencement ceremonies, and campus building and grounds. Also featured are images from Spelmans Department of Drama and Dance from the 1930s to the present.
Gladstone Lewis Chandler was an English professor at Morehouse College from 1931 until his death in 1965. During his 34 year tenure, he served as the faculty representative for the Maroon Tiger, the student-run newspaper, and taught three generations of Morehouse graduates, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Outside of his career as a professor, Chandler was also involved in the Atlanta community as an active civic worker and the leader of campaigns for the YMCA, the Community Chest, and the UNCF. He was a member of the St. Paul's Episcopal Church as active participant in the Vestry and the Men's Club. He also served as president of the neighborhood club Fountain Drive-Morris Brown Drive community club , where he led a successful battle to prevent a highway from being built through the neighborhood. Beyond his civic activity, Chandler was the first African American to conduct a campaign for a mayoral candidate in the city of Atlanta. The photographs in this collection document the personal and professional life of Gladstone Chandler and the Chandler family.
Dr. James H. Costen was Presbyterian minister and educator, and served as president of the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) from 1983 to 1997. In 1969, he became the first Dean of the Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary the only historically Black theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Costenss records tell the story of an active educator and administrator with the papers providing rich resources in the study of African American religion and education in the South.
Bishop John Howard Dell was born in Washington County, Georgia on September 29, 1902. Bishop Dell began preaching and spreading the gospel at the age of 16. At 18, he preached out of his first congregation in Gardner, Georgia. During his life, Bishop Dell founded four other churches: Crisp Street Church, Macon Georgia; First Church of God in Christ, Soperton, Georgia; First Church of God in Christ, Lyons, Georgia; and Christ Temple Church of God in Christ, Atlanta, Georgia. He also started missions in Danville, TerryTom, Alley, and Udila, Georgia. In 1948, he was appointed Georgia's overseer by the late Bishop Charles H. Mason. Bishop Mason consecrated him to the Office of Bishop in 1954. Bishop Dell was instrumental in the Northern Georgia Jurisdiction having a headquarters being paid for by the congregation. He was one of the first Black ministers in Georgia to have a radio ministry beginning in 1941, and the first to preach from a remote radio site in Macon and Columbus, Georgia. He was the first Black minister to have a television ministry in Albany, Georgia beginning in 1958 and one of the first Blacks to telecast Sunday services in Atlanta, Georgia beginning in 1979.
