Anna E. Hall was born near Bainbridge, Georgia on March 1st, 1870. She lived a religiously oriented childhood with her mother, a seamstress, and expressed the desire to serve as a missionary while a student at Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed the normal course on May 12, 1892. With the generosity of influential people who were made aware of her desire to be a missionary, she was able to enter the New England Deaconess Training School in Boston, Massachusetts in 1899 and graduated May 22, 1901 as the first African American to attend the school. Her missionary work was realized in December of 1906, when she travelled to Monrovia, Liberia to teach the Kroo (Kru) people. Her second year she was asked to go to the southern part of the Republic, Garraway, where she became the successor to the Director of the Julia A. Stewart Memorial Girls Home and School, Garraway Mission.
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.
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.
This collection documents the Atlanta Student Movement during the Civil Rights Era. It highlights student activism in the Atlanta University Consortium (AUC); Clark College, Morris Brown, Morehouse College, Atlanta University, and Spelman College. The collection includes newspaper and journal articles, flyers, reports, photographs, and correspondence by and about students from the AUC schools. Of note are copies of An Appeal for Human Rights written by student leaders, which set forth the student's grievances, rights, and aspirations as well as their dissatisfaction with the status quo conditions of segregation and discrimination and the slow pace at which inherent human and civil rights were being meted out to African Americans. The Appeal was published as a full-page ad in the March 9, 1960 editions of the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Journal, and Atlanta Daily World. It was subsequently published in the New York Times, providing national awareness of student activism in the civil rights struggle in Atlanta. The issuance of the Appeal was followed by sit-ins and pickets at specifically targeted businesses, government and transportation facilities in Atlanta and Fulton County, Georgia, and kneel-ins at churches. The participants in the Atlanta student movement organized commemorative reunions, 1990 and 2000 to re-examine the civil rights movement and discuss current efforts and projections for the future. Programs, minutes, correspondence, and news articles from the reunions are included in the collection.
This publication series highlights selected scholarly and research contributions of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) community. The bibliographies, which are compiled by the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center, illustrate the richness of faculty contributions within each institution and across the AUC community.
This collection contains photographs of Atlanta University before its consolidation with Clark College, containing photographs dating from 1858 to 1995, with the bulk of the material falling between 1905 and 1968. The photographs consist of mostly students, alumni, faculty, administrative officers, campus events, and buildings of Atlanta University, however, there are photographs of people and places from all the Atlanta University Center schools.
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.
This section includes drafts and writings related to Elizabeth McDuffie's memoir entitled "The Back Door of the White House." In addition to her reminiscences of life working for the Roosevelts, she writes of her own life, including her memories of the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 and her 1938 audition for the part of "Mammy" in Gone With the Wind.
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.
Black Women In Radio (BWIR) is committed to the historical preservation of America's Black female broadcasters and their contributions to Black radio culture and digital media. BWIR conducts ongoing research to capture the perspectives of Black and minority women who might otherwise be excluded or overlooked in historic conversations curated by BWIR Founder, Felesha Love.
The Chautauqua Circle collection spans the years between 1913 and 2010. The bulk of the collection dates from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The collection includes materials related to the anniversary celebrations, committees, events and meetings. It also contains correspondence, directories, financial records, member and speaker information, and year books. There are also folders relating to the subjects they research and general information about the Circle itself.
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.
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.
The Cullen Jackman Memorial Collection (1881-1995) documents the artistic and creative nature of those of African descent. A series of note within this collection are the photographs by Carl Van Vechten, an American writer, artistic photographer, and patron of the Harlem Renaissance. An appreciator of the arts, Van Vechten promoted many of the major figures of the Renaissance through his photography, including Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Rose McClendon, and Ethel Waters.
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.
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 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 catalog for Gammon School of Theology, later named Gammon Theological Seminary (now part of the consortium, The Interdenominational Theological Center) provides information on the degree programs, course offerings, policies, procedures, financial costs, buildings, services, administration staff, Board of Trustees, and faculty. Early years of the catalog also included lists of matriculating students and alumni.
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.
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.
