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Ralph Bunche Oral History Collection Howard University Digital Howard @ Howard University Manuscript Division Finding Aids Finding Aids 10-1-2015 Ralph Bunche Oral History Collection MSRC Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://dh.howard.edu/finaid_manu Recommended Citation Staff, MSRC, "Ralph Bunche Oral History Collection" (2015). Manuscript Division Finding Aids. 171. https://dh.howard.edu/finaid_manu/171 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Finding Aids at Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Manuscript Division Finding Aids by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FINDING AID TO THE RALPH JOHNSON BUNCHE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION Moorland-Spingarn Research Center Howard University Washington, D. C. December 1993 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people were responsible for the completion of this Finding Aid. I owe special recognition and gratitude to Karen L. Jefferson, Curator of the Manuscript Division, who initially suggested the idea of the publication and who has facilitated its development in scores of very important ways. Grateful thanks is also given to Thomas Battle, Center Director, who provided the guidance necessary to bring this project to its successful conclusion. A number of people volunteered their efforts during the long period that this publication was in process; most were for short but critical periods of time and helped keep the project moving. Particular acknowledgement must be made for the generous research services of Jean Currie Church, Moorland-Spingarn Chief Librarian, Elinor Des Verney Sinnette, former Chief Librarian and now retired, and Marcus Gathright, a Howard University student and part-time employee. I also want to thank D. Kamili Anderson who arrived in midproject. She took on the prodigious task of reading and abstracting the more than 8,000 pages of text for 175 transcripts not previously annotated. Her impressive organizational skills and abstracting ability have added immeasurably to the value of this resource. Her wonderfully good spirits also kept this daunting aspect of the project from overwhelming the Department's small staff. Additionally a very special thanks is given to Natasha Almonor, student intern, who provided administrative assistance to this phase of the project. I will be forever grateful to Joellen Pryce ElBashir, Senior Manuscript Librarian, who gave me all manner of support during the course of this project. I am particularly indebted to her for volunteering countless hours to proofread every entry for spelling errors, accuracy of detail and consistency of style. Avril J. Madison THE CIVIL RIGHTS DOCUMENTATION PROJECT In 1967, the Civil rights Documentation Project (CRDP) set out to chronicle systematically the civil rights era through a series of recorded interviews. This series, now known as the Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection, is a unique and comprehensive account of the civil rights movement. it captures for all time, the voices, thoughts, recollections and interpretations of leaders of the civil rights movement, members of its rank and file, supporters, activists involved in related activities and those who opposed the movement. It is an extraordinary record of a turbulent and transforming period of United States history. The Project was the brain child of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche and was supported by a major grant from the Fund for Advancement of Education. Dr. Bunche was then Under Secretary of the United Nations, Director of the Trusteeship Division and a member of the Board of Directors of the Fund. The Ford Foundation established the Fund in 1951 as an independent entity "to advance and improve formal or institutionalized education in North America." Over the next several years however, the Ford Trustees gradually brought the Fund under the control of the Foundation and eventually integrated it into its operations in 1967. Dr. Bunche proposed the Civil Rights Documentation Project in 1966, as one of the Fund’s final grants. Ultimately, through grants from both the Fund and the Ford Foundation, the Project became one of the largest oral history efforts focusing on civil rights and related matters. Acknowledging the enterprising nature of both the Fund and the Foundation’s support, CRDP Project Director, Dr. Vincent J. Browne, wrote in 1974: "It was through the support of the Fund for Advancement of Education and the Ford Foundation that the Civil Rights Documentation Project was made possible. It should be noted that their support included more than their financial generosity, but also their interest and willingness to fund an oral history project which in a way could be described as a very venturesome undertaking."1 The return on that investment made in 1967 has appreciated immeasurably. Scholars of the civil rights movement recognize the oral history collection as one of the most inclusive sources of its kind on civil rights, and have used it extensively. In the last two decades the collection has attracted hundreds of national and international scholars, and researchers and students at all levels xVincent J. Browne and Norma O. Leonard, Bibliography of Holdings of the Civil Rights Documentation Project, (Washington, D. C.: Howard University, 1974), xii. of academic preparation. It has also been used by writers, and radio, television and film producers. Taylor Branch, credits the collection in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954- 1963. David Garrow, in his Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1955-1968/ acknowledged the significance of the oral history interviews. Others have used it to develop scripts for radio and television documentaries, most notably the "Eyes on the Prize" series. Twenty-eight interviewers recorded more than 700 people during the life of the project. Some oral authors were interviewed more than once. As a group these individuals represent a broad range of civil rights activities. While many were well-known civil rights leaders at the time, a large number of them were known only to their local communities. In addition, there were interviews with several individuals who were generally opposed to the civil rights struggles of Blacks. The result is a collection that covers the widest possible spectrum of the civil rights field, as well as activities in other areas which were affected by the "movement.-" Eleven distinct categories of individuals were interviewed, including: 1. Persons involved as participants in such civil rights activities as sit-ins, voter registration drives, picket lines, boycotts, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the Selma March, and the Poor People’s Campaign. 2. Persons active in the implementation of court decisions in school desegregation cases. 3. Lawyers and judges handling civil rights cases. 4. National, state and local leaders of civil rights organizations. 5. Leaders in organizations giving significant support on behalf of civil rights activities. 6. Academicians and scholars who have focused attention on civil rights through their research and writing. 7. Officials of the national government including members of Congress and administrators in the executive branch. 8. State and local elected officials including members of state legislatures, city councils, and boards of education. 9. Persons supporting civil rights through their contributions or performances in such fields as the theater, music, art and literature. 10. University students, faculty and administrators at institutions where there was organized student activity relating directly to civil rights generally or to problems involving the rights of students on campus. 11. Persons opposed to particular aspects of the civil rights movement.2 In addition to the oral history interviews, the CRDP staff accumulated posters, pamphlets, flyers, correspondence, publications, photographs and ephemera for research and documentation. This material has been processed and is available for research as the Civil Rights Documentation Project Vertical File Collection. The primary focus of the Project was documentation of the 1960's civil rights movement. Despite this emphasis, considerable interview time was devoted to tracing the roots of that activism to earlier efforts. For example, several oral authors discuss the legal groundwork that led to the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 requiring the desegregation of the public schools. Others recount their involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, or in the 1957 desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, which required the employment of the National Guard. Still others help chronicle the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957--the first enactment by Congress on the subject since 1875.3 The Civil Rights Documentation Project officially ended, April 30, 1973, although it survived for another twelve months as an unfunded project. During its seven year life span, the Project was guided by a policy committee. Dr. Ralph J. Bunche chaired this body until his death in December 1971. He was succeeded by Stephen J. Wright, then Vice President of the College Entrance Examination Board. Dr. Vincent J. Browne was the Project Director.4 In 1973 the policy committee selected the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University as the permanent repository for the Project’s records. In honor of its principal founder, the Project’s accumulated oral history interviews were 2Ibid, viii-ix. 3Ibid, vi. 4Dr. Browne was also a faculty member of Howard University. He was appointed an instructor in political science in 1946. From 1955 to 1963, he served as Administrative Assistant to the University President. At the time that he was CRDP Project Director, Dr. Browne was also Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; a position he held from 1968 to 1971. He became Chairman of the Political Science Department in 1980 and held that position until his retirement in 1986. renamed the Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection.5 The Collection is now part of the Center’s Oral History Department. 5Browne, Bibliography of Holdings o f t h e Civil Rights Documentation Project,, xi.
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