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Evelyn Cunningham on telephone in press tent at the 1963 March on Washington |
During the past year, the acquisition of new collections at the Amistad Research Center has been governed by the Center's collection development policy and managed by a team approach to donor relations. During 2011, the Center has been fortunate to acquire a number of collections that further the Center's collecting strengths, while addressing gaps in its holdings. As we begin to wind down the year, the Center's staff is pleased to announce two outstanding donations that were recently received at Amistad.
Evelyn Cunningham Papers
The Evelyn Cunningham Papers (circa 1920-2004) consist of 6.6 linear feet documenting Cunningham's work as a journalist and activist from Harlem, New York. Her papers cover her colorful career as a columnist for the New York edition of the Pittsburgh Courier, for which she wrote a column entitled "The Women" chronicling African American social life in Harlem. Cunningham's activities as a journalist provided her the opportunity to meet African American statesmen, celebrities, socialites and activists. Her journalism career is documented by typescripts, photocopies, and clippings of her columns, as well as a small amount of correspondence. Of note are two undated letters from Cunningham to an unidentified individual that describe her early days with the Courier, as well as a small exchange (two letters) in 1957 with a reporter in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cunningham's notebooks include one dedicated to coverage of Martin Luther King Jr. and two devoted to the legal proceedings resulting from the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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Cunningham's notebook for her coverage of legal proceedings regarding the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1956 |
The collection also includes documentation for Cunningham's appointment as Special Assistant to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Director of the Women's Unit of the State of New York, as well as her service to Rockefeller while Vice President. Cunningham's civic involvement in such organizations as the Apollo Theater Foundation, the Harlem Congregation for Community Improvement, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women, and others is documented through correspondence, photographs, minutes, programs, and reports.
News clippings regarding Cunningham's life and career date from circa 1961-2004. A small number of photographs, many undated, depict Cunningham with friends and associates.
Lorenzo Dow Turner Papers
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Lorenzo Dow Turner |
Lorenzo Dow Turner (1890-1972) was an African American academic and linguist who did seminal research on the Gullah language of the Low Country of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. His studies included recordings of Gullah speakers in the 1930s. He taught at Howard University and Fisk University, created the African Studies curriculum at Fisk, served as chair of the African Studies Program at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and co-founded a training program for Peace Corps volunteers going to Africa.
The Turner papers encompass approximately 4.26 linear feet of papers, photographs, sound recordings, and annotated books, offprints, and periodicals, as well as 6 feet of Turner's recording equipment. The papers consist of correspondence, writings (both by Turner and collected), family records, school records, and printed ephemera. Letters of note include a 1967 letter from William Brewer of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in which he provides his opinions on John Hope Franklin and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a 1967 letter from a graduate assistant at Northwestern State College in Natchitoches, Louisiana, discussing "language problems" of her Black students.
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Wire recording and field notes, circa 1950s |
Writings include typescripts on Gullah texts and the Sea-Island dialect of South Carolina, writings on African culture, and notebooks and gathered pages with an envelope marked "original of stories and proverbs in the Yoruba." Also present is the text of an address given by Ambassador S.O. Adeba, Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, at Roosevelt University in April 1966 and a copy of Turner's dissertation on "Anti-Slavery Sentiment in American Literature Prior to 1865." Additional papers include an invitation to a series of lectures given by Turner at Roosevelt University, news clippings, a draft of a Turner's report on his research conducted on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1951, a hand script chart listing the importation of Africans into South Carolina for 1733-1807 by region of origin, and worksheets used for the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, compiled by Hans Kurath. Photographic materials include approximately 100 black and white photographs, circa 1911-1930s, including portraits of Turner, as well as candid images of him, his wife, and unidentified individuals.
Of special significance is the presence of a number of wire recordings and lacquer and metal phonograph records that contain Turner's linquistic field recordings from the 1930s and 1950s. As soon as the sound recordings are inventoried, the Center will pursue funding to digitize and make these materials accessible. |
