THE AGE OF JIM CROW
The library contains a good mix of first- and third-person accounts of black life during
the age of Jim Crow. Personal memoirs and correspondence, organizational records, and
pertinent government material are each represented in the collection. Interviews are also
prevalent. See, for example, the material on the Tulsa race riot of 1921 in the papers of the
Duke University Oral History Program.
Over the next few years, the library hopes for substantial growth in materials related to
African-American life in the Jim Crow South. Special Collections has been selected as the
primary repository for an extensive, South-wide collection of interviews concerning the
period: "Behind the Veil: African-American Life in the Jim Crow South" (The project is being
conducted by the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and has been made possible by
funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities). We hope to supplement this future
deposit with as much personal correspondence, material culture, photographs, business data,
educational material, and organizational records as is possible.
As with material listed under other time periods, the collections listed are only
representative. Interested parties will profit from consulting the aforementioned collection
guides. The library's Rare Book Room, for example, contains a copy of The Negro
Directory of Raleigh, Franklinton, Durham, and Henderson (1922?). Also, materials
listed in this survey as "Post-World War II" are sometimes relevant to the Jim Crow era as
well, most notably the Fannie B. Rosser Papers, the Clydie Fullwood Scarborough Papers, the
Asa Timothy Spaulding Papers, and the Gordon Blaine Hancock papers.
