ETHELINE JONES ACOX, 1915-1989. PAPERS, 1890-1984 and n.d. 1.0 linear foot

Etheline Acox has been an active member and officer of Friends of Amistad, the Center’s support group, which has chapters throughout the country. She is a graduate of Straight University and holds a Master’s degree from Atlanta University. Items are included about the fiftieth anniversary of the 1931 class of McDonogh No. 35 High School, and club and civic activities of the retired teacher.

GERTRUDE BANKS. PAPERS, ca. 1956-1985. 1.2 linear feet.

Gertrude Banks attended Lincoln School in Marion, Alabama. She is a member of the Chicago Chapter of Friends of Amistad and is giving her personal papers and items that she has collected on a continuing basis. Among the collected materials are items about the First Congregational Church of Marion and the Church of the Good Shepherd in Chicago, both U.C.C. institutions.

CAROL LOVETTE BRICE, 1916-1986. PAPERS, 1905-1986 and n.d. 5.6 linear feet, 4 OS packages, and 3 OS items.

Carol Brice was born in Indianapolis. She was taken at an early age to Sedalia, North Carolina by her father, John, who was a Congregational minister and chaplain of Palmer Memorial Institute there. She attended the Institute, which for a time was supported by the American Missionary Association, and travelled throughout the United States with the school’s Sedalia Singers. She graduated from the Association’s Talladega College in 1939. Having developed a fine contralto voice, she went to the Juillard Graduate School of Music in New York City on scholarship. She became the first African American to win the Walter H. Naumburg Award. The honor included a recital in Town Hall, in 1945. She appeared in such stage vehicles as Saratoga, Porgy and Bess, Show Boat, Carousel, and Regina. She sang with major symphony orchestras of the United States, including those of Pittsubrgh, Boston, San Francisco, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and the Hollywood Bowl. She performed in concerts throughout North American and in Europe and South America. In 1973, she became associate professor of music at the University of Oklahoma. The papers consist for the most part of correspondence, including letters of her father and of Charlotte Hawkins Brown, the founder of Palmer Memorial Institute, and programs for recitals and concerts, together with publicity before and reviews after the events.

CHARLOTTE JACKSON CHAMBLISS, PAPERS, 1962-1979 0.4 linear feet.

Charlotte Chambliss graduated from the A.M.A.’s Straight University. She moved to California, where she became a public school art teacher and received an Ed.D. degree. Her papers include correspondence, invitations, honors and awards, press clippings , programs, announcements, speeches, writings, travel brochures, and other collected items. Among the topics treated are teacher training, her books of poetry and prose, and her dissertation.

ROGER D. DICKERSON. PAPERS, 1965-1982. 1 OS box.

Roger Dickerson was born in New Orleans, where he attended Gilbert Academy, a secondary school associated with the New Orleans University (a Methodist school for Blacks), and a public school. He received his bachelor’s degree in music from Dillard University, which resulted from the merger of New Orleans University and Straight College of the American Missionary Association. He earned an M.M. degree from Indiana University in 1957. From 1959 to 1962, he studied musical composition in Vienna, Austria, as a Fulbright Fellow. He has won numerous awards and written many major orchestral pieces, including the New Orleans Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, commissioned by the American Bicentennial in 1976, the premiere of which was filmed and broadcast by the Public Broadcasting System in 1978. The items are mostly press clippings about Dickerson’s music.

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS, 1868-1963. PAPERS, 1803-1979. 96 reels of microfilm and 8 other items.

W.E.B. DuBois was, along with Booker T. Washington, perhaps the most prominent and influential leader of this generation. An educator, sociologist, author, editor, and pioneer of the black protest movement of the first half of the twentieth century. DuBois generated a great volume of personal papers. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, of French, Dutch, and African ancestry. He graduated from the A.M.A. related Fisk (1888). He studied at Harvard University, and became in 1895 the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from the school. His dissertation, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States, 1638-1870," was published as Volume I of the Harvard Historical Series in 1896. His book The Souls of Black Folk (1903) first brought him to nationwide attention. He was among the founders of the NAACP (1909) and became its director of research and editor of its monthly journal, The Crisis. His History of Black Reconstruction (1935) set off a series reinterpretations of history that continues to the present, representing a major part of the stimulus that has resulted in ethnic historical research centers such as Amistad. His career in the Pan-African Movement, African American politics, civil rights, scholarship, Communist Party politics, and other areas already has generated hundreds of major scholarly studies and popular treatments.

The Center has two groups of papers. The first, from 1887 to 1956, consists of seven reels of microfilm and eight other items from Fisk University and the Michigan Historical Collections. The second, from 1803 to 1979, comprises eighty-nine reels of microfilm of originals at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Together, these collections cover virtually every stage of his career.

VIVIAN ELLIS. PAPERS, 1968-1986, 1 OS box.

Vivian Ellis is a native of New Orleans and received a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from Dillard University. She is a former nurse with the United States armed forces in West Germany. The papers are mostly brochures and posters related to her activities as a painter. She has exhibited in West Germany, France, Yugoslavia, and other European countries. This is a continuing collection.

LUCILE LEVY HUTTON. PAPERS, ca. 1888-1982. 1.6 linear feet.

Lucile Hutton was born in New Orleans to parents who were members of Central Congregational Church. Her education began in the first grade of the elementary department of the A.M.A.’s Daniel Hand School at Straight University, now Dillard University. After graduating from the college preparatory and normal departments, she went to Oberlin Conservatory, where she received a B.A in music education. She then went to Northwestern University, where she earned her Master of Music degree. She taught in New Orleans public schools from 1916 to 1962, for the last twenty-three years as a supervisor of vocal music. She has been active in the Y.W.C.A., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the local B-Sharp Music Club (records of which Amistad holds), the Retired Teachers Association, the Women's Auxiliary of the Flint-Goodridge Hospital of Dillard University, Friends of Amistad, and the Dillard University Alumni Association, which awarded her its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1972. Long active as a leader of Central Congregational U.C.C., the records of which Amistad also holds, she has held various offices and has served as church historian, in which capacity she wrote a history book in honor of the centenary of the congregation in 1972. Her papers are rich in materials about Straight, Central, public schools, and black graduates of Oberlin. They include correspondence, photographs, press clippings, and other collected printed items.

ELSIE LEWIS. PAPERS, ca. 1863-1975 and n.d. 13.4 linear feet and 2 OS boxes.

Elsie Lewis graduated from Fisk University. She received a master's degree and doctorate in history from the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago, respectively. She taught history at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee; Howard University in Washington, D.C.; and Hunter College in New York City. At the time of her retirement from active scholarship because of illness, she was working on a biography of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, some of whose papers the Center has acquired. Most of the collection consists of her teaching materials about African American history generally. She was for many years the head of the history department at Howard.

HAZEL S. MOORE COLLECTION. 1911-1995. 11.0 linear feet.

Hazel Moore, a teacher, librarian, church historian and Deacon of Central Congregational U.C.C., was honored as an outstanding church woman by the U.C.C.’s General Synod. She received her A.B. Degree from Tougaloo College, her MSLS from Atlanta University, and has served as President of the New Orleans Chapter of Tougaloo Alumni, President and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the South Central Conference of the United Church of Christ. The collection includes early church records and Sunday School items; clippings and reports documenting her activities with the New Orleans Association, the Southern Women's Conference, U.C.C. and the South Central Conference Board of Directors.

OPHELIA B. TAYLOR PINKARD. PAPERS, 1921-1984. 0.8 linear feet.

Ophelia Pinkard graduated from Talladega College, an A.MA school in Alabama, and her papers contain three scrapbooks and many other collected items about the school. In addition, she is the archivist of Plymouth U.C.C. and has donated a large series of records of the church, which was founded under A.M.A. auspices in 1881.

RAYMOND J. PITTS. PAPERS, ca. 1967-1972 and n.d. 20.0 linear feet.

Raymond Pitts was born in Macon, Georgia, where he attended Ballard Normal School of the A.M.A. He earned the bachelor's cum laude in mathematics and physics at Talladega College (another A.M.A school) and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics and education at the University of Michigan. For eighteen years, Dr. Pitts served on the faculty of Fort Valley State College, where his introduction of the first campus statistics laboratory, the first all-state science fair in Georgia, and his statewide studies of math education in black high schools contributed greatly to the success of the teacher training programs at the school. He moved to California in 1956 to work in the state's public educational system. He introduced several innovative programs in math education that became the standard throughout the system. At his retirement in 1976, he was Dean for Academic Affairs on the staff of the chancellor of the California community colleges. Dr. Pitts has received awards or honors from the University of Michigan, the state of California, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the city of Pasadena, which named its human relations award after him. He is the author of Reflections on a Cherished Past, a volume of biographies, and reminiscences and photographs of alumni of Ballard Normal prepared for the grand reunion of 1980. The papers contain correspondence, notes, unpublished and published reports, press clippings, and other collected items. The collection is especially rich in information about public education in California in the 1960s and 70s. Dr. Pitts was responsible for the Center's having received the Records of Ballard Normal School listed elsewhere in this guide.

LULA B. REED. PAPERS, 1963-1986. 0.2 linear feet.

Mississippi-born Reed was reared in Memphis and received her collegiate education at LeMoyne, an A.M.A. school. She taught in Chicago and Memphis schools before retirement. The papers include photocopies of her publications and unpublished writings, clippings from the Commercial Appeal. and biographical data. An oral history interview on two audiocasettes was conducted by Dr. Clifton H. Johnson, Amistad's former executive director.

CHARLES BARTHELEMY ROUSSEVE, 1902-1993. PAPERS, ca. 1863-1992. 1.0 linear feet.

Charles B. Rousseve received his bachelor's degree from Straight University of the A.M.A. and his master's degree from Xavier University of the South, the only historically-black Roman Catholic institution of higher learning . Xavier published his Master’s thesis in 1937 as The Negro in Louisiana: Aspects of His History and Literature. He also wrote The Negro in New Orleans (1969) and articles and poetry for journals and anthologies. He was a long-time supporter of the Center and was a member of Amistad’s Board of Directors. The papers contain research notes for his writings on Louisiana black history, materials about his career as a teacher and principal in New Orleans public schools, and rare collected items dating from the nineteenth century relating to Louisiana’s Jim Crow Laws and the historic Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896.

ERIC STEELE WELLS, 1912-1973. PAPERS, 1857.1969. 2.8 linear feet.

Eric Wells attended Avery Institute of the American Missionary Association. The majority of his papers are about that school, his family history, and race relations. Most of the correspondence is from his grandparents and from persons who were teachers and students at Avery. Other items of note are sheet music, theater programs, and press clippings, and other collected items about African American history, the United Nations, Africa, and civil rights.

FANNIE C. WILLIAMS, 1882-1980. PAPERS, 1935 -1974. 0.8 linear feet.

Fannie Williams completed the college preparatory course at the A.MA.'s Straight University in 1904. From 1904 to 1908, she taught near her place of birth, Biloxi, Mississippi. From 1908 to 1916, she taught in New Orleans public schools. In 1920, she received Bachelor of Pedagogy and Bachelor of Arts degrees from what is now Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. In 1938, she earned a masters's degree at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From 1921 until her retirement in 1954, she was principal of Valena C. Jones School, a public school that set new, higher standards for education among African Americans in New Orleans. For many years, she also was the A.M.A. representative on the board of Dillard University, which had resulted from a merger of Straight and New Orleans universities. The papers comprise school yearbooks, photographs, and press clippings about the New Orleans black community, the school, the Y.M.C.A. and race relations.