HST 424 / AAS 443: The Civil Rights Era: Archives

For assistance locating archival resources or to request the transfer of boxes from off-site storage, get in touch with Dr. Leigh McWhite (Political Papers Archivist & Associate Professor).

Email:  slmcwhit@olemiss.edu

Phone:  (662) 915-1850

Civil Rights & Race Relations Subject Guide.  Includes a list of collections, primary source publications, and secondary sources related to civil rights.

University of Mississippi Subject Guide.  Includes a list of collections, university serials, and histories of the institution.

• Issues of The Mississippian between 1911 and 1968 are available on microfilm – ask the main library reference desk for assistance locating the reels and using the microfilm reader.
• Issues of The Daily Mississippian between 1968 and 2001 are available on microfilm – ask the main library reference desk for assistance locating the reels and using the microfilm reader.
• Special Collections has bound volumes of The Daily Mississippian between 2001 and 2010.
• The Daily Mississippian issues between 2010 and the present are available online at https://issuu.com/dailymississippian.

While researching, keep track of the location of material that you intend to reference in your research paper.  Remember that you are providing bread crumbs for readers (or your professor) to retrace your steps and find that specific item.  The following information is essential:

• Title or brief description of item
• Name of collection
• Box number and folder number (or identifier if using a digital collection)
• Name of archival repository
• Name of institution

Sample:

Letter from John Smith to Mary Taylor dated 5 October 1964, Race Relations Collection, Box 1, Folder 5, Archives and Special Collections, University of Mississippi.

James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi

This database contains extensive information from the FBI Library Files on James Meredith's battle to enroll at the University of Mississippi including his correspondence with the NAACP and the correspondence he received from supporters and opponents.

Fannie Lou Hamer:  Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist and Woman

The Fannie Lou Hamer papers contain more than three thousand pieces of correspondence plus financial records, programs, photographs, newspaper articles, invitations, and other printed items. The papers are arranged in the following series: Personal, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Freedom Farms Corporation, Delta Ministry, Mississippians United to Elect Negro Candidates, Delta Opportunities Corporation, and Collected Materials.

• William Murphy Collection.  Correspondence and clippings spanning 1954 to 1978 related to UM law professor William Murphey’s controversial support for civil rights (1 box).  See also, James W. Silver Collection, Accession 87-25, Box 23, Folder 8 for an interview with Murphy.
• Morton King Collection.  A UM sociology professor, Morton King resigned in protest after Chancellor J.D. Williams rescinded the invitation of a 1956 campus speaker who had donated money to the NAACP (1 box).
• Race Relations Collection.  Box 1, Folder 1 contains a 1956 list of pro-integration books purchased by the UM Library.

• Marge Baroni Collection.  Box 6, Folder 2 contains correspondence with Catholic activist Dorothy Day discussing Freedom Rides.  Box 10, Folder 14 includes a Catholic newsletter on the subject.  Box 21 contains a number of Catholic Worker reports on the Freedom Rides.
• Freedom Riders Oral History.  Digital collection of oral histories gathered in 2001 at the 40^th anniversary in Jackson, Mississippi.
• We Shall Overcome:  Songs of the Freedom Riders and Sit Ins (New York:  Folkways Records, 1961).  LP record with historical notes and text in slipcase.  Call Number:  BLUES Folkways FH5591.

• James Meredith, Three Years in Mississippi (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1966).  Call Number:  LD3412.9 M4 A3.
• Integration of the University of Mississippi.  Digital collection with images, scrapbooks, and documents.
• Integration Correspondence.  Digital collection of correspondence received by James Meredith in 1962-1963 in support and opposition to his integration of UM.
• James Meredith Small Manuscripts.  Assorted documents, articles, speeches and other material (12 boxes).
• James Meredith Collection.  Box 2 contains material related to Meredith’s integration of UM.  Note that boxes 3 through 6 have been digitized and are available in the Integration Correspondence digital collection listed above.

• James W. Silver Collection.  Accession 76-40, Box 1, Folders 1 & 2 includes correspondence, reports, and publications.  Accession 87-25, Box 3, Folder 14 holds a prospectus for Freedom Schools.  Accession 87-25, Box 8, Folders 1 through 8 and Box 9 Folders 1 & 2 contain 1964 correspondence.
• Ed King Collection.  A white chaplain at Tougaloo College, King was a key leader in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.  Box 2, Folders 6 through 8 includes pamphlets, articles, and reports.  Box 3, Folders 32 through 36 hold articles.  Accession 00-620, Box 1, Folders 7 through 9.
• Race Relations Collection.  Box 1, Folder 9 contains a summary of incidents. Box 2, Folders 26, 27, & 28 hold articles and a list of Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Candidates.  Box 7, Folder 4 contains several 1964 issues of the African American newspaper Mississippi Free Press.
• Marge Baroni Collection.  Box 7, Folder 6 includes a typed manuscript of Baroni’s memories of Mississippi Freedom Summer in Natchez, Mississippi.  Box 13, Folder 8 includes a prospectus for Freedom Summer.
• Sally Belfrage, Freedom Summer (New York:  Viking Press, 1965).  Memoir of white Freedom Summer worker.  Call Number:  E185.93 M6 B4.
• Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez, Letters from Mississippi (New York:  New American Library, 1966).  Publication of letters from Mississippi Freedom Summer activists.  Call Number:  E185.61 S95 1966.

• League of Women Voters of Mississippi Collection.  In Mississippi, the LWV avoided the issue of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.  The correspondence of state presidents and other files from the era document the group’s fear of retaliation and loss of membership if they adopted the national civil rights platform (Box 8 & 9).  Note:  This collection is stored at an off-site facility and requires advance notice at least two business days before intended visit.
• Fannie Lou Hamer Collection.  A former sharecropper and founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.  Box 2, Folders 1, 2, 5 & 6 contain material on the National Committee for Free Elections in Sunflower County, Mississippians United to Elect Negro Candidates, and the Voter Education Project.  Box 3, Folders 1 & 2 contain additional material related to voter registration.
• Gordon A. Martin Collection.  A U.S. Department of Justice attorney during the 1960s, Gordon A. Martin participated in voter registration litigation in Mississippi.  Collection contains court documents and exhibits from those cases (3 boxes).  See also, Martin’s memoir Count Them One by One (2010), Call Number:  JK1929 M7 M37 2010; and Brave Black Mississippi Witnesses Prove Racial Discrimination by Theron Lynd (2011) a recording of excerpted oral interviews Martin conducted with African American witnesses in the law suits, Call Number:  JK1929 M7 B7.

• A Primer for Delegates to the Democratic National Convention Who Haven’t Heard about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964).  Call Number:  JK2391 M5 M5 1964.
• Brief Submitted by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party for the Consideration of the Credentials Subcommittee of the Democratic National Convention… (1964). Call Number:  KF4893 M5.
• Fannie Lou Hamer Collection.  Box 2, Folders 3 through 5 contain MFDP material.
• Ed King Collection.  A white chaplain at Tougaloo College, Ed King was a prominent leader in the MFDP.  Box 2, Folders 14 & 15 contains material on MFDP.  Accession 00-620, Box 1, Folders 8, 17, 18, and 29 hold additional MFDP documents.
• Small Manuscripts.  Box 1978-3 contains a typed manuscript of Ed King’s memoirs, including his involvement in the MFDP.
• Thomas G. Abernethy Collection.  Abernethy represented northern Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943 to 1973.  Boxes 259 through 262 contain information on the Mississippi Election Contest of 1965-1966 when congressional allies of the MFDP contested the legality of the entire Mississippi congressional delegation on the grounds of deliberate disfranchisement of African American voters.  Note:  This collection is stored at an off-site facility and requires advance notice at least two business days before intended visit.

• Jamie L. Whitten Collection.  Jamie Whitten served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1941 to 1995.  Series 18, Boxes 1 through 3 contain files on school desegregation.  Note:  This collection is stored at an off-site facility and requires advance notice at least two business days before intended visit.
• Lela Karen Smith Hale Collection.  Oral history interviews with parents, teachers, and students who participated in the desegregation of two elementary schools in Marshall County, Mississippi.  Note:  This collection is stored at an off-site facility and requires advance notice at least two business days before intended visit.
• John C. Satterfield/American Bar Association Collection.  Time magazine referred to John C. Satterfield as “the most prominent segregationist lawyer in the country.”  He served as special counsel for a number of public school districts across Mississippi and the South seeking to delay desegregation in a consolidated case that reached the Supreme Court (see Boxes 46 through 51) Note:  This collection is stored at an off-site facility and requires advance notice at least two business days before intended visit.
• Fannie Lou Hamer Collection.  Box 3, Folder 7 contains material on school desegregation.
• John E. Phay Collection.  A digital collection of photographs which recorded the disparity between white and black segregated school systems in Mississippi in the late 1940s and 1950s.

• Ku Klux Klan Collection.  Assorted material from across the South (2 boxes).
• Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (Jackson, Mississippi Chapter) Collection.  Documents from 1964 to 1966 (1 box).
• Citizens Council Collection.  Material from 1947 to 1979 (3 boxes).  Part of this collection is available online in the Citizens Council digital collection.
• The Citizens’ Council.  Official newsletter of the group dating from 1955 to 1961.  Call Number:  HS1 C5.
• The Citizen.  Official journal of the Citizens’ Council from 1961 to 1989.  Call Number:  HS1 C5.
• Knox Collection of Extremist Literature Collection.  Literature from various organizations dating from 1942 to 1982 (12 boxes).

• Race Relations Collection.  Box 1, Folders 30 and 33 contains 1982-1983 programs on the 20^th anniversary of UM’s integration.
• James Meredith Small Manuscripts.  Box 1, Folder 2 holds the speech delivered by James Meredith at the 20^th anniversary of UM’s integration.
• Open Doors Collection.  Box 1, Folders 26 through 33 and Box 2, Folders 1 through 7 contain material from 2002 documenting UM’s 40^th anniversary of integration.
• Andrew P. Mullins Jr. Collection.  Box 1, Folder 32 contains documents related to the planning of the 50^th anniversary of UM’s integration.
• Civil Rights Commemoration Initiative Collection.  Material related to the installation of a civil rights memorial on the UM campus from inception to dedication (5 boxes).