This aggregate collection contains documents related enslaved peoples dating from 1830-1865 from the American south including bills of sale, lists of enslaved people from various estates and correspondences between slave owners. Documents from Virginia and Georgia are represented as well as the estates of Richard Bayne, George Zuesenbury and Daniel Payne.

The Audiovisual series consists of video and audio recordings documenting the professional careers of Joseph E. Lowery and Evelyn G. Lowery. Content includes sermons delivered by Joseph E. Lowery during his ministerial career at Central United Methodist Church (1968-1986) and Cascade United Methodist Church (1986-1992). There are many video and audio recordings of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) conventions and other SCLC activities. In her capacity as the founder of the SCLC/Women's Organizational Movement for Equality Now (SCLC/W.O.M.E.N.), Evelyn Lowery hosted annual Civil Rights Heritage Tours, the Drum Major for Justice Awards, and oratorical contests, of which several recordings exist in this series. The series also contains video and audio of events at which Joseph or Evelyn Lowery served as panelists/speakers or at which they were recognized with awards.

Dr. Cleveland L. Dennard was educated at Florida A & M University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he earned an Ed.D. From 1960 to 1965 he was Principal of the Carver Vocational and Adult schools of the Atlanta Public School System. In 1965, Mayor John B. Lindsay appointed Dr. Dennard as Deputy Commissioner for Manpower and Program Management in the New York City Human Resources Administration. During this time Dennard also served on a task force on governmental reorganization. Dr. Dennard left New York to accept an appointment from Lyndon B. Johnson to serve as President of the Washington Technical Institute, in Washington, D.C. In 1977 Dr. Dennard was elected the 8th President of Atlanta University, a position he held until 1984.

At the AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library we are always striving to improve our digital collections. We welcome additional information about people, places, or events depicted in any of the works in this collection. To submit information, please contact us at DSD@auctr.edu.

This collection includes items that document various family members and the Zack and Camilla Hubert Foundation.

This collection consists of correspondence and papers of John Brown, an American abolitionist. The collection contains letters from Brown's fellow abolitionist, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn concerning the Free-Soil contest in Kansas, the National Kansas Committee, and various state committees. The letters concern finances and the amassing of arms for Brown's insurgencies on Kansas soil. Two letters concerning Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, from local resident D. E. Henderson, give a detailed account of the foray. A military order, signed by Robert E. Lee, details a guard to escort Brown and his fellow prisoners to the Charleston jail.

Wayman A. Carver (b. 1905 d. 1967), jazz musician and music educator, achieved acclaim for his virtuosity and artistry as a flutist during his tenure from 1934-39 with Chick Webb and his Orchestra. In the series "Giants of Jazz" (International Musician April 1963), Leonard Feather credits Wayman Carver as being internationally recognized as the first and only jazz musician to play the flute during the decade of the 1930s. Wayman Carver, a graduate of the class of 1929, is among the most notable alumni of Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University). Carver was an outstanding student and assisted with instruction and band direction. In 1942, Carver accepted a faculty position in the music department at his alma mater. Carver served on the Clark faculty for twenty-five years and was held in high esteem by his colleagues and students. The Clark College students dedicated the 1952 yearbook to Carver, and the college presented him a trophy and plaque in appreciation of his contributions.

Dr. Bernard William Bell is an emeritus research professor at The Pennsylvania State University and an internationally known scholar of American and African American literature, language, and culture. Throughout his forty-year career in academia, Dr. Bell’s contributions to African American scholarship included serving as a co-founder and acting head of one of the nation’s first African American Studies programs, authoring and editing nine books and more than seventy articles and reviews, and teaching and lecturing in eight countries.

Irvin "Mac" Henry McDuffie and his wife Elizabeth "Lizzie" Hall McDuffie were domestics in their hometown of Atlanta and later in the employ of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his presidency. Born in Elberton, Georgia, Irvin moved to Atlanta to be a barber and eventually manage the McDuffie-Herndon Barbershop financed by Alonzo Herndon of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Upon the recommendation of a customer, Roosevelt interviewed McDuffie to be his valet at his retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia. McDuffie continued on with Roosevelt through his governorship in New York and his presidency, until McDuffie suffered a nervous breakdown in 1939. Elizabeth worked for 23 years as a maid with the prominent Atlanta family of Edward H. Inman. In 1933 she moved to Washington, D.C. to join her husband and became a maid in the White House where she remained until Roosevelt's death in 1945.

The Joseph E. Lowery Papers series consists of correspondence, personal papers, and writings of Joseph E. Lowery. Correspondence is comprised of greeting cards, letters, postcards to and from colleagues, friends and associates. Personal papers include awards and honors, appointment books, biographical information about Lowery, material related to his tenure at Cascade United Methodist Church and Central United Methodist Church, invitations, programs and travel files. Writings contain sermons, speeches, statements and other writings by Lowery.