New Acquisitions

According to the Society of American Archivists' Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology, the word acquisition is defined as: "The process of acquiring records from any source by transfer, donation, or purchase, or the body of records so acquired." Institutions such as the Amistad Research center preserve old records, but they should never become antiquarian institutions. With this philosophy guiding its collection development policy, the Center continues to selectively acquire materials, both old and recent, in order to strengthen its collections and to address gaps in its holdings.

Amistad takes a team approach to the acquisitions process in order to maximize the diversity of its staff and to ensure that communication with donors is conducted efficiently and in a timely manner. All staff are encouraged to seek out new collections and potential donors, and it is the acquisitions team that oversees the acknowledgement and documentation of new donations and the receipt of a deed of gift from each donor, which transfers formal ownership of materials to the Center. Documentation and deeds of gift for all archival donations are of utmost importance if the Center is to preserve and make accessible the materials entrusted to its care.

Donors are honored annually in each February issue of e-Amistad Reports, but given the importance of acquisitions to the Center, we present this short highlight of materials received throughout the first half of 2011. While room does not permit listing all of the Center's recent acquisitions, Amistad has received five new manuscript collections, nine additions to existing collections, and forty-seven new titles for the library collection thus far in 2011.

Campaign ephemera from Larry Bagneris' candidacy for president of Houston's Gay Policital Caucus, 1980.

Mr. Larry Bagneris, activist in the area of civil rights, human rights, and GLBT rights, has begun donating his personal papers to the Amistad Research Center. Mr. Bagneris began his civil rights activities at the age of 16 while a student at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. He participated in sit-ins and protests of Jim Crow policies at businesses around the city, as well as segregation in local Catholic schools. As an openly gay man, he also experienced the stings of homophobia, which led him to become active in pursing rights for the gay community, as well as racial minorities. Today, as the Executive Director of the New Orleans Human Relations Commission, Mr. Bagneris continues to provide leadership in the areas of tolerance and understanding. More information regarding his career can be found on the HRC website. The initial deposit of his papers includes correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, awards, and records documenting Mr. Bagneris' efforts on local, state, and national levels. Of particular interest are materials on his work within the GLBT community in Houston, Texas, and the Latino gay community there.

Page from the Josephine Gresset copybook, circa 1810s.

 Mr. Albert Nicholas has donated an early 19th century copybook. Little historical information accompanies the copybook, but Amistad's staff continue to research the item, which includes 43 leaves, each containing a poem within a hand-drawn border. The poems, all of which are unattributed, are in French. Some of these poems are found in Chansons Nationales et Populaires de France Accompagn�es de Notes Historiques et Litt�raires by Theophile Marion Dumersan and Noel Segur (Paris, Garnier fr�res, 1866). The calligraphic nature of the penmanship indicates these poems may have been handwriting exercises. The name Josephine Gresset and the inscription "ma bien aimee / ma cherie" appear on the first leaf and the date and lanuage of the poems indicate this copybook was likely the property of a young girl from a Creole family in New Orleans' 7th Ward area. 

 

 

 

Dr. Ron Mickens' notes for a presentation at Florida A&M University in 1985.

African American physicist Dr. Ronald E. Mickens has donated additional papers to the Amistad Research Center, which document not only his work in the area of education and the study of nonlinear, ordinary differential equations, but his research on contributions by African Americans in the area of science, as well.  Dr. Mickens attended Fisk University and received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Vanderbilt University before teaching at Fisk and Clark Atlanta Universities. He is a member of the National Society of Black Physicists and has authored textbooks for advance mathematics, over 250 research papers, biographies on several African American scientists, and published a history book, The African American Presence in Physics and Edward Bouchet: The First African American Doctorate. His papers include correspondence, writings, lectures, newspaper clippings, and research notes.

 

These are but a sampling of the exciting new acquisitions received at the Center, which demonstrate the Center's leading role in documenting the history and culture of African Americans and other underrepresented communities.

Amistad's quarterly exhibitions continue to acknowledge the scope of the Center's collections by showcasing a wide range of letters, publications, photographs, artwork, and other materials from various sources. Here is a look at what has been displayed thus far in 2011, as well as current and upcoming exhibitions.

Harold Battiste: Keeping the Music Alive
 January 18 - April 14, 2011
Exhibition Checklist 

This exhibition celebrates not only the opening of the Harold R. Battiste Papers at the Amistad Research Center, but the 50th anniversary of Battiste's founding of AFO Records, the first African American musician-owned record label. Throughout his career, Mr. Battiste has documented the second 50 years of New Orleans jazz through his own recordings and those of AFO. His talents have also allowed him to work with a wide variety of musical artists, from Sam Cooke to Dr. John to Sonny and Cher. Join us in honoring Mr. Battiste and his career through his collection of letters, photographs, phonograph records, writings, and documents related to his various musical and teaching activities.

Richmond Barth�: Builder of Pictures
 April 18 - July 8, 2011
Exhibition Checklist

This exhibition celebrates the life of Mississippi-born artist Richmond Barth�. The subject of a recent biography by art historian Margaret Rose Vendryes, Barth� is known for his eclectic and sensual visual language that allowed him to create an oeuvre that defied race and sexual orientation while, at the same time, elevating Black subjects above contemporary caricatures to render them timeless. Taken mostly from the Richmond Barth� Papers at the Amistad Research Center, the materials on display include letters, photographs, sketches, writings, and sculptures related to his artistic journey from a student in Chicago to Harlem Renaissance star to expatriate in Jamaica.

Building Bridges: Operation Crossroads Africa

July 12 - September 29, 2011

Operation Crossroads Africa (OCA) was established in 1958 by Dr. James H. Robinson as a cross-cultural program in which young people from North America and Africa would work together at the grassroots level on a variety of projects in host countries across Africa. Called the "progenitor of the Peace Corps" by President John F. Kennedy, OCA has sent over 11,000 young Americans to more than 40 African countries since its inception. This exhibition will feature correspondence, photographs, reports, and other materials from the extensive archives of OCA, as well as the personal papers of Dr. Robinson, both of which are housed at the Amistad Research Center.

The Revolution Will Not Be...: Print Culture and the Civil Rights Movement

October 3 - December 22, 2011

The Civil Rights Movement coincided with rapid changes in a variety of news and communications media. The expansion of television and documentary filmmaking brought images of the struggles of African Americans and those who supported civil rights into the homes of the American populace. However, control of the tone and content of electronic media was not always in the hands of those who were being documented. It was the democratization of various printed media that allowed civil rights leaders, workers, and organizations to circulate their combined, and sometimes contradictory, voices. This exhibition will highlight the newspapers, posters, broadsides, pamphlets and other printed ephemera produced by student groups, leading civil rights organizations, and individuals, which documented a revolutionary era.

Amistad Expands Library Collection to Include Comics and Zines

Recent publications about African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos in comics are aiding Amistad in its new collecting area.

For more information about Amistad's collections and how you can help them grow, see these two recent entries from Amistad's blog.

Amistad Begins Comics and Graphic Novels Collection

Zine Collection to Chronicle Self-Expression by Zinesters of Color

Poet Countee Cullen reading to a group of children at a party for his god daughter, undated.

The Amistad Research Center's founding director, the late Clifton H. Johnson, worked many years to locate existing correspondence of Harlem Renaissance poet/playwright Count�e Cullen outside of the letters held in the collection of Cullen's personal papers at Amistad. His goal was a published edition of Cullen's collected letters. The Center is pleased to be moving forward on this exciting project with the addition of Leiza McKenna as Data Entry Specialist for the Count�e Cullen Online Correspondence Project.  Before joining Amistad, Leiza worked in the insurance industry for several large corporations and non-profit entities in the fields of Claims and Risk Management. She holds of a Bachelor of Arts degree from Xavier University and is currently pursuing a professional certification in Fine Art Appraisal at New York University.

The publication of an annotated scholarly edition of Count�e Cullen's correspondence online will be a milestone in the evolution of African American literary scholarship. The project's goal is to produce a searchable digital edition that includes both letters from and received by Cullen. Cullen was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance - the literary movement of the 1920s that marked the blossoming of a self-consciously racial literary tradition and the emergence of a modernist black sensibility. An aspect of the wider New Negro Movement, which originated with W.E.B. Du Bois at the turn of the 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance was distinctive not only because of its location in the city that was the center of the publishing industry, theater, the new media of radio and film, and ocean travel, but also because of the intense social interaction among its participants. Cullen - a very popular "crossover" poet, literary columnist, and editor - was at the center of the action. His correspondence is extraordinarily revealing of the intellectual, social, and sexual dynamics of this complex and critical period of transition in American cultural life.

For her part, Leiza is transcribing in XML electronic format some 3500 original and copied letters, as well as reprocessing and editing certain letters originally transcribed by Dr. Johnson. Already complete are a number of letters between Cullen and Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Dorothy West, Witter Bynner, and William Fuller Brown. "Transribing the Cullen letters is like a daily history lesson on the Harlem Renaissance," reports Leiza, which is an apt description of the project's aim - to provide greater access to a global audience interested in Cullen, his contemporaries, and their lives and times.

The staff of the Amistad Research Center has recently posted the online finding aids for three collections processed as part of a grant received by the Council on Library and Information Resources. Amistad has received researcher inquiries for all three collections since the creation of these finding aids, which demonstrates the value of the Center's efforts to use technology to expand access to its unique collections.

The Marr-McGee Family papers document the lives of writer, photographer, and cultural promoter Warren Marr II; his wife, attorney, community activist, and energy consultant Carmel Carrington Marr; and his sister, nurse, and race relations advocate Grace Marr Nugent. The key topics covered in this collection are the founding and administration of the Amistad Research Center; Black arts and theater; community development and relations; historically Black colleges and universities; human rights and race relations; minority employment and discrimination; neighborhood development in Brooklyn, New York; and the United Nations policy to the United States. The collection includes audiovisual materials, correspondence, memoranda and minutes of meetings, printed items and ephemera, and photographs.

The James H. Hargett papers document Rev. Hargett's civil rights and social action driven ministries in Hawaii, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. The key topics covered in this collection are civil rights, community advocacy, social justice, missionary travels, multi-ethnic churches and transitional communities, race relations, and the recruitment of African American men and women into Christian service. The main strengths are Hargett's commitment towards diversifying the United Church of Christ and addressing the needs of minority communities. The collection encompasses 15.4 linear feet of audiocassette tapes, correspondence, greeting cards, news clippings, photographs, programs, and scrapbooks.

The John Wesley Dobbs family papers document the personal and professional lives of the Dobbs family of Atlanta, Georgia. The key topics are civil rights, education, integration, race relations, and African American suffrage. The main strengths are the civil rights activities of the family as well as J.W. Dobb's tenure as Grand Master of Prince Hall Masonic Grand Lodge of Georgia. The collection encompasses 5.8 linear feet of correspondence, photographs, programs, sound recordings, speeches, and news clippings.

Executive Director Lee Hampton discusses the Center with visitors from Latin America.

The Amistad Research Center recently hosted 11 delegates from Latin America who were interested in learning more about the history and cultural heritage of African Americans and the African Diaspora. The group's visit to Amistad was scheduled by the New Orleans Citizen Diplomacy Council (NODC) under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program. 

NODC arranges professional appointments and cultural activities for over 400 international leaders sent to New Orleans each year.  Several visitors who participated in past programs have risen to important positions in their countries including: Margaret Thatcher; Frederik W. deKlerk; Oscar Arias Sanchez; Tony Blair; Anwar Sadat; and Boutros-Boutros Ghali.

Amistad's staff enjoyed meeting with the visitors and learning more about their countries. The hosts also briefly discussed best practices in archival management, documentation, and preservation of cultural materials. Ines Sigel, NODC Program Coordinator, wrote to Amistad's director that "you have played the role of citizen diplomat by extending friendship, knowledge, and culture to our international guests. The New Orleans Citizen Diplomacy Council is grateful for the time and expertise you and your colleagues offered...."

The Chicago Friends of the Amistad Research Center conducted its seventh annual archival training workshop on April 16, 2011. The workshop was held at the historic Cleveland Hall Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Participants representing 15 Chicago area churches of various denominations were in attendance. 

Reverend Alice Brown, Assistant Pastor of First Baptist Church of Chicago, was the keynote presenter. Speaking on the preservation efforts of First Baptist, Rev. Brown discussed the importance of efforts to save historically-significant church documents.

Other presenters included Ms. Willie Hart, President, Chicago Friends of Amistad Research Center; Ms. Beverly Cook, Librarian/Archivist, Woodson Regional Library; Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty, Consortium Archivist, Black Metropolis Research Consortium; Lennel Grace, Director of Economic Development, Vision Restoration, Maywood, IL.

The Chicago Friends organization was founded in 1979 by Mrs. Irma Kingsley Johnson at the Church of The Good Shepherd Congregational United Church of Christ.  Its purpose is to provide the Amistad with financial support and to encourage donations of historically-significant documents. In addition, the chapter sponsors local Chicago community programs emphasizing history and the preservation of historical materials.

We are saddened to acknowledge the passing since our last publication date of two dedicated friends and supporters of Amistad:

Dr. Emmett W. Bashful, educator, political scientist, and the first chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans was born March 12, 1917, and was educated in the public schools in East Baton Rouge.  He was one of the first African Americans to receive a graduate degree in political science from the University of Illinois. He served as dean and CEO of Southern University at New Orleans from 1959-1969, and then chancellor of the university from 1977-1987.

The Emmett Wilfort Bashful Papers (1946-2004) at Amistad document his educational and political science careers, including materials generated by his membership in organizations such as Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the NAACP, and New Orleans Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Of note is the transcription of a 1998 interview in which Dr. Bashful discusses his experience with segregation during his years in the army and as a member of the Southern Political Science Association. Dr. Bashful passed away on February 26, 2011.

David Anthony Newsome, M.D. (April 16, 1942- February 24, 2011) was a scientist, ophthalmologist, inventor, and author, who proposed useful treatment to slow the rate of vision loss from age-related macular degeneration. A North Carolina native, he earned a B.A. from Duke University and an M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He established and operated the Retinal Institute of Louisiana, a private clinical practice in New Orleans, but was forced to relocate to Tampa, Florida, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Throughout his professional career, Newsome was an active philanthropist.  He founded the Meals on Wheels New Orleans Fund and Eye Care Haiti in Port-au-Prince. He served on the New Orleans Historic Landmarks Commission, the Audubon Commission, and was a longstanding member of the Amistad Research Center Board of Directors.