The Atlanta Urban League (AUL) was established in 1920 as an affiliate of the National Urban League. The AUL served as an organization dedicated to addressing the social and economic concerns of African Americans in the city of Atlanta. The AUL worked to address housing discrimination, inadequate unemployment, improve health services, and promote voting rights. The digitized collection focuses on the leadership of Grace Towns Hamilton, executive director of AUL from 1943-1961. Under her leadership the AUL waged intensive campaigns for advancement of education, health care, housing, and voting rights for African Americans. The AUL worked with the League of Women Voters, the National Council of Women, the Southern Regional Council, and more to promote the enfranchisement of Black women and voter education.
The Voter Education Project (VEP) began in 1962 as part of the Southern Regional Council. Initially VEP granted funds to civil rights organizations to support voter education, voter registration drives, and voting-related research. In 1964, Vernon Jordan, the second executive director of the VEP, expanded the programs goals to include citizenship training, voter education, and leadership training in the southern United States, while continuing to provide funds to independent voter and civil rights groups, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the League of Women Voters. The VEP’s work with the League of Women Voters is highlighted in the materials below. In 1971, VEP under the leadership of John Lewis, became an independent organization and functioned as a research center and became known as an authoritative source for statistics on southern elections and voter registration in general. Lewis also forged the VEP into an activist organization, launching Voter Mobilization Tours with Georgia state legislator and civil rights advocate Julian Bond.
In 1937, a then LeMoyne College professor named Hugh M. Gloster (later a President of Morehouse College), through correspondence with Gladstone Lewis Chandler, a colleague at Morehouse College, formed an association to increase English proficiency in their respective colleges. In 1937, eight men and women met at LeMoyne and formed the Association of Teachers of English in Negro Colleges (ATENC). In 1941, the Association broadened its objective to formally include the teaching of literature and foreign language, and changed its name to the Association of Teachers of Languages in Negro Colleges (ATLNC). In 1949, the ATLNC officially became the College Language Association (CLA). Since its inception, the CLA developed its constitution, has held annual meetings at host institutions, published a variety of publications - "The News-Bulletin", "Bulletin of the CLA", "CLA Bulletin", "CLA Journal", "CLA Newsletter" and "CLA Notes". The CLA continued building upon their objectives stated in the 1941 Constitution: 1) improving the study and teaching of language skills, 2) cultivating the appreciation of literature, and 3) sharing each other's productive interest to the group as represented in the collection. The records of the College Language Association include administrative correspondence, bibliographies, minutes, reports, financial statements, presentations, presidential addresses, press releases, programs, lists, constitutions, publications, literary submissions, photographs and memorabilia preserving one of America's largest, long-standing African American academic organizations.
The Southern Regional Council is a reform-oriented organization created in 1944 with its roots in the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. The organization was founded to help avoid racial violence and promote racial equality in the Southern United States. The collection includes newsletters, memos, correspondence, reports, programs, statements, and pamphlets from various organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, the National Council of Negro Women, and the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights.
Founded in 1942 by African American businessman John H. Johnson, the Johnson Publishing Company, Inc. published Ebony and Jet magazines, as well as other publications. This collection contains newspapers clippings, press releases, and more used as research for the various publications. The collection includes newspaper clippings on various prominent African American women, such Daisy Bates, Mary McLeod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dorothy Height, Mary Church Terrell, Sojourner Truth, Diane Nash, Rosa Parks, and Pauli Murray. It also contains newspaper clippings and press releases on various African American organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, the National Council of Negro Women, and the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights.
The Bacote papers document an important period in the history of Atlanta, and of Atlanta University. The activities of one very prominent scholar and community leader help provide an important piece of the history of the university and its community.
The Asa G. Hilliard, III papers span the years between 1933 and 2007. The bulk of the collection dates from 1971 to 2007. The collection includes organizational files from organizations of which Hilliard was a member, subject files on topics of interest, records from his work at both San Francisco State University and Georgia State University, files related to his speaking engagements, photographs and videos, and manuscripts of articles, books, speeches and reports. The collection also contains some materials related to trials in which Hilliard served as an expert witness. Of note are the files related to the Larry P. V. Wilson Riles case from the late 1970s, photographs of the ceremony during which Hilliard became Nana Baffour and the slides from Hilliard's presentation "Free Your Mind! Return to the Source.
The purpose of the Cascade Oral History Project, supported by the City of Atlanta, is to gather and preserve information about this vibrant Atlanta neighborhood and its changes over time. The oral history interviews are used to provide elements of history that are often not apparent in other documents. When used with other research materials, the oral histories help to provide an enriched view of history. These oral histories complement the records and artifacts in the Archives for research on Atlanta, and are invaluable to the larger research community. The Cascade Oral History Project was conducted by the Atlanta Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), a 501(c)3 organization. Founded in 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the mission of ASALH is to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black like, history and culture to the global community. The Atlanta Branch, established in 2015 at the Centennial Conference, continues this legacy with the motto of "Promoting the Study of Black History: Bridging the Gap Between University and Youth." The Atlanta Branch is dedicated to collecting, preserving and making available the history of Atlanta. Email asalhatlantabranch@gmail.com. The Archives for the Atlanta Branch of ASALH, housed at the Archives Research Center, Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, 111 James P. Brawley Drive, Atlanta, GA 30314, will continue to be used in years to come by students, scholars, activists, and other researchers.
Nora Ethel Floyd (1893-1969) was born in Georgia in 1893 and attended Atlanta University in from around 1911-1913. She married John Rosamond Johnson, the brother of James Weldon Johnson (a founder of the NAACP), in 1913. John Rosamond Johnson was a renowned composer, known for writing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (1900), which became known as the The Negro National Anthem. After marrying, the couple moved to New York City in 1914, where John was the director of the Music Settlement School for Colored People. The photographs in this collection feature groups of students and adults from the Atlanta University and Morris Brown College participating in the football game festivities. Other images include unidentified individuals, female students from Atlanta University, Eugene Dibble, and the marching band.
The Political Poster Collection contains various posters and ephemera depicting political campaigns and social justice issues form 1970-1989. These posters chronicle the political campaigns of elected officials including, school council members, commissioners, Georgia Assembly representatives and mayoral candidates within Atlanta, Georgia, and the south.
This collection consists of records generated by Eliza Paschall and the Atlanta Community Relations Commission (ACRC) during her year as Executive Director of the ACRC. The bulk of the collection is research materials gathered by Paschall and the ACRC to support their work in the community. The files contain reports and statistics that document such things as employment discrimination, police action in the Dixie Hills Riots, and desegregation efforts in the public schools. Of special interest are the studies which survey the conditions of Atlanta's disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Dr. William Pickens directed Morehouse College's Interdisciplinary Humanities Program (Mirror Grant Project) in the early 1970s. The Mirror Grant Project was a program designed to teach freshmen and sophomores interdisciplinary mini-courses called "mirrors". These "mirrors" were half a semester in length and provided a humanistic thrust in learning and communication skills.
The Juanita Marshall Eber collection includes her personal papers, professional correspondence, memorabilia, printed material and photographs. A significant portion of the collection contains papers, correspondence, printed materials and photographs relating to the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority with special focus on the 75th Anniversary Celebration.
Roosevelt "Bo" Richmond was an amateur photographer from Alabama. He photographed events, buildings, people, and documented the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This collection contains photographs of people, events and places in Atlanta, Georgia. Included are photographs of Henry "Hank" Aaron, Hosea Williams at the sanitation workers strike, Jesse Jackson at the March Against Repression, Martin Luther King, Jr. at the barber shop and photos of the funeral procession for Martin Luther King, Jr.
George Alexander Towns was an educator, author, and community activist. For most of his life, Towns was affiliated with Atlanta University (AU), first as a student, then professor and finally as an active alumnus. He was active in the community as a member of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP, the Citizen's League, the Boule of Atlanta (Sigma Pi Phi), and the Community Chest. A member of the Harvard University Class of 1900, he was also active in the Harvard University Alumni Association and in the 1920's used his class connections to raise funds for Atlanta University. This collection consists of the papers of Towns from 1851 to 1963. It includes correspondence, literary works, diaries, photographs, and publications.
The Atlanta University Center Votes Coalition, referred to as AUC Votes, is a coalition of non-partisan civic engagement-oriented organizations in the Atlanta University Center. Students from each of the campuses participated in the coalition. During the 2020 and 2021 elections, the organization created a digital strategy to engage all eligible voters in the AUC. Organizations included were Spelman's Chapter of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, Spelman College Social Justice Program, Spelman and Morehouse Chapters of National Action Network, Spelman and Morehouse Student Government Associations, Spelman's Chapter of the NAACP, Fair Fight U, Collegiate 100, and CAU Votes. The records contain materials related to the activities of the coalition. It consists of event materials, such as flyers, Instagram posts, photographs and videos of events. The collection contains meeting agendas and minutes, correspondence, and logos. The collection covers the 2020 presidential election and the 2021 Georgia Senate Runoff elections.
The Henry P. Slaughter collection consists of materials collected by Henry P. Slaughter which emphasize the early history of African Americans in the United States. The collection is composed mainly of slave papers and correspondence of African American leaders, abolitionists, and political figures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The materials include pamphlets, sermons, speeches, reports, correspondence, and legal documents.
Trezzvant William Anderson (1906-1963) was an author and journalist best known for reporting on the injustices and inequalities of the Jim Crow South at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. A member of the 761st Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army during World War II, Anderson wrote the unit's history book "Come Out Fighting: The Epic Tale of the 761st Tank Battalion, 1942-1945." This digital collection including photographs, correspondence and audio recordings.
Edward Twichell Ware, son of Edmund Asa Ware, (first president of Atlanta University 1869-1885) became Atlanta University's third president in 1907 and served until he became seriously ill in 1919. Ware was born in Atlanta in 1874 and attended his father's alma mater, Yale University. After graduation he was designated as Northern Secretary for Atlanta University, a position which mainly involved raising funds for Atlanta University by addressing organizations on the work of the school. In 1901 Ware was appointed Chaplain of Atlanta University. He served in this position while continuing his fund raising efforts until he was elected President in 1907. During the administration of Edward Ware, new courses in industrial arts and education were added to meet the demand for Atlanta University graduates as teachers in the public schools.
