WILLIS DUKE WEATHERFORD PAPERS, #3831, 1911-1969
Professional and personal papers of Weatherford, president of the Blue Ridge Assembly,
Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1906- 1944; president of the YMCA Graduate School, Nashville,
Tennessee, 1919-1946; trustee of Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, 1916-1962; faculty member of
Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, 1936- 1946; director of the Southern Appalachian
Studies Project, 1956- 1968; and lifelong student of race relations in the South. Materials
relating to African Americans can be found throughout the collection. The papers contain
information on the courses Weatherford taught at the YMCA Graduate School; problems of
interracial conferences in an era of segregation; his efforts to achieve racial equality in
YMCA institutions (1919-1936); and his activities in the Committee for Youth Work Among
Negroes (especially 1945). Weatherford's participation in a variety of interracial
organizations, especially the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and his research on race
relations are particularly well documented.