A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier PAPERS OF THE NAACP Part Segregation and Discrimination, 15 Complaints and Responses, 1940-1955 Series B: Administrative Files UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA PAPERS OF THE NAACP Part 15. Segregation and Discrimination, Complaints and Responses, 1940-1955 Series B: Administrative Files A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier PAPERS OF THE NAACP Part 15. Segregation and Discrimination, Complaints and Responses, 1940-1955 Series B: Administrative Files Edited by John H. Bracey, Jr. and August Meier Project Coordinator Randolph Boehm Guide compiled by Martin Schipper A microfilm project of UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA An Imprint of CIS 4520 East-West Highway * Bethesda, MD 20814-3389 Library of Congress Cataloglng-ln-Publication Data National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Papers of the NAACP. [microform] Accompanied by printed reel guides. Contents: pt. 1. Meetings of the Board of Directors, records of annual conferences, major speeches, and special reports, 1909-1950 / editorial adviser, August Meier; edited by Mark Fox--pt. 2. Personal correspondence of selected NAACP officials, 1919-1939 / editorial--[etc.]--pt. 15. Segregation and discrimination, complaints and responses, 1940-1955. 1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-Archives. 2. Afro-Americans--Civil Rights--History--20th century-Sources. 3. Afro- Americans--History--1877-1964--Sources. 4. United States--Race relations-Sources. I. Meier, August, 1923- . II. Boehm, Randolph. III. Title. E185.61 [Microfilm] 973'.0496073 86-892185 ISBN 1-55655-461-3 (microfilm : pt. 15B) Copyright© 1993 by University Publications of America. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-55655-461-3. TABLE OF CONTENTS Scope and Content Note vii Note on Sources xii Editorial Note xii Abbreviations xiii Reel Index Reel 1 Group II, Series A, General Office File Group II, Box A-10 American Bar Association 1 Group II, Boxes A-15-A-16 American Red Cross 1 Reel 2 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-16 cont. American Red Cross cont 3 Group II, Box A-18 Anderson, Marian 4 Reel 3 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-114 Bills 5 Group II, Box A-162 Buses for Colored Orchestras 5 Group II, Box A-170 Chinese Blood Bank 6 Group II, Box A-182 Civil Rights 6 Reels 4-5 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Boxes A-182 cont.-A-184 Civil Rights cont 7 Reel 6 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-184 cont. Civil Rights cont 11 Group II, Box A-322 Intermarriage 11 Group II, Box A-359 Leagues 11 Reel 7 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Boxes A-359 cont.-A-384 Leagues cont 12 Reel 8 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Boxes A-384 cont.-A-386 Leagues cont 13 Group II, Box A-430 "N" in Negro 14 Group II, Box A-448 Negress 14 Reel 9 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-453 Negroes in Crime Stories 15 Group II, Box A-460 Nurses 15 Group II, Box A-498 Publicity Protests 15 Reel 10-13 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Boxes A-498 cont.-A-502 Publicity Protests cont 16 Reel 14 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-502 cont. Publicity Protests cont 21 Group II, Box A-511 Robinson, Jackie 22 Group II, Box A-524 Senate Insult to Powell and Randolph 22 Group II, Box A-572 Sports 22 Group II, Box A-619 State Parks 22 Group II, Box A-626 Sydenham Hospital 22 Group II, Box A-633 Uncle Tom's Cabin 23 Reel 15 Group II, Series A, General Office File cont. Group II, Box A-641 United Seamen's Service 23 Group II, Box A-671 Washington Conference on Negro Needs 24 Group II, Box A-676 Young Men's Christian Association 24 Young Women's Christian Association 24 Young Men's Christian Association cont 24 Subject Index 25 SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE This edition includes files on the problem of racial segregation and discrimination in public facilities and within private organizations. The records cover the period between 1940 and 1955--the decade and a half leading up to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregationist practices unconstitutional. The files selected for the microfilm are from the General Office File of the NAACP collection. This is a companion to Part 15, Series A of Papers of the NAACP, which reproduces selections covering segregation and discrimination from the Legal Department File during the same period. Files on segregation and discrimination in other contexts have been made available as separate editions of UPA's microfilm collection, Papers of the NAACP. On public education, see Part 3, The Campaign for Educational Equality; on voter discrimination and disenfranchisement, Part 4, The Voting Rights Campaign; on segregation and discrimination in residential housing, Parts, The Campaign against Residential Segregation; on discrimination in the criminal justice system, Part 8, Discrimination in the CriminalJustice System; on segregation and discrimination in the Armed Forces, Part 9, Discrimination in the U.S. Armed Forces; on segregation and discrimination in the workplace, Part 10, Peonage, Labor and the New Deal; and Part 13, The NAACP and Labor, 1940- 1955. Records on discrimination and segregation in public facilities for the period before 1940 can be found in Part 11, Special Subject Files, 1912-1939 and in Part 12, Selected Branch Files, 1913-1939. Series B The bulk of the files in this edition predate the 1954 Brown decision. Thus the records on this microfilm provide valuable insights into how the NAACP worked to oppose segregation before there were federal grounds to attack the practice. As the files in the companion edition, Part 15, Series A, Segregation and Discrimination, Complaints and Responses, 1940-1955: Legal Department Files show, there were few opportunities to file court cases at the state level except in rare cases where the states had meaningful civil rights laws. Therefore, the NAACP focused its energies on political action and propaganda to pressure city councils, state legislatures, and the United States Congress to pass legislation that would make instances of racial segregation actionable in a court of law. Much of the present edition documents the political campaigns the NAACP waged to enact civil rights laws in the states and at the federal government level between 1940 and 1955. The files demonstrate that these political campaigns were of uneven effectiveness, but that they succeeded in forging important networks of pressure groups among the NAACP and liberal organizations, including labor unions. The public relations efforts of the national office and of branch NAACPs are particularly well documented. Another aspect of segregation and discrimination with which the NAACP contended was that within private organizations. In some cases, private associations discriminated in accepting memberships (as in the case of the American Bar Association); in other cases, private organizations practiced discrimination in the course of their programs (such as the segregated blood banks maintained by the American Red Cross). Before the Brown decision in 1954, the NAACP was left with few avenues of litigation against these practices. As the files in this edition show, however, the association responded in a variety of ways to the practices of private associations, ranging from diplomatic protests to denunciatory publicity campaigns. One area of private action that is especially well covered in this edition is the practice of using derogatory stereotypes to depict African-Americans in advertisements, radio, television, the motion picture industry, and other organs of American popular culture. A lengthy series in this edition under the heading "Publicity Protests" documents the association's responses to this problem. The series also sheds important light on the problem of racism in popular American culture between 1940 and 1955. Following are brief summaries of the major file series in the order in which they appear on the microfilm. American Red Cross. This series covers one of the private organizations that the NAACP tried to influence toward ending racially discriminatory policies. The Red Cross maintained segregated blood banks during World War II and in the 1940s, and the NAACP fought to persuade the organization to abandon the practice. The NAACP also protested racial discrimination by military service clubs sanctioned by the Red Cross and investigated allegations of racial discrimination in Red Cross disaster relief. (See also the Chinese Blood Bank series described on p. ix.) Marian Anderson. These files document several benefit concerts given by Marian Anderson for the NAACP. They also document the evolution of the singer's protest against segregationist seating practices at her concerts. The series also contains a survey of black performing artists on the issue of boycotting segregated audiences. There is also a small amount of information on Marian Anderson's famous Lincoln Memorial concert on Easter Sunday of 1939. Bills. There are three subjects covered by this series: NAACP testimony before Congress on proposed federal civil rights legislation in 1949; state legislative bills affecting civil rights, either in the form of eliminating segregation or promoting it; and bills to eliminate racial segregation in the District of Columbia. Buses for Colored Orchestras. This file concerns the World War II era segregation of African-American musicians traveling through the South to entertain American troops at military facilities.