University of Virginia Library

GUIDE TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY RESOURCES IN NORTH CAROLINA

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Timothy D. Pyatt, Editor

Compiled by
Linda Simmons Henry
Lisa Parker


This guide is a product of the North Carolina African American Archives Group, under the direction of:
Dean Benjamin F. Speller Jr.
School of Library and Information Science
North Carolina Central University
Grant Administrator and Project Codirector


David Moltke-Hansen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
David J. Olson, North Carolina Division of Archives and History
Project Codirectors


Funded in Part by
National Historical Publications & Records Commission
Grant #89-003


Published by the University Press of Virginia
Box 3608, University Station
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-3608


© 1996 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
All rights reserved
Electronic ISBN 8139-1744-1


Creation of the electronic text: Timothy D. Pyatt and the University Press of Virginia
Creation of digital images: Timothy D. Pyatt
Conversion to TEI.2-conformant markup: University Press of Virginia and the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center

CONDITIONS OF USE


By their use of these texts and images, users agree to follow these conditions of use:

  • These texts and images may not be used for any commercial purpose.
  • These texts in Guide to African-American Resources in North Carolinamay not be reproduced or redistributed without the written permission of the University Press of Virginia.
  • Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers for public use or for use by a set of subscribers. Institutions may, of course, make a link to the University Press of Virginia copies, subject to these conditions of use.
  • Images reproduced in this document may be protected by copyright. Users who contemplate reproducing materials for other than private use should make an additional effort to determine ownership and, if restricted, seek permission before reproducing them. Permission to publish must also be requested from the Manuscripts Department, CB 3926 Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27514
    (mss@email.unc.edu).

CONTENTS

  • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/PyaAfro3.html
    INTRODUCTION

    ASHEVILLE
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/ashe01.html
      Southern Highlands Research Center, Ramsey Library, University of North Carolina at Asheville
    CHAPEL HILL
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/chap01.html
      Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/chap02.html
      North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    CHARLOTTE
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/char01.html
      Inez Moore Parker Archives and Research Center, James B. Duke Memorial Library, Johnson C. Smith University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/char02.html
      Special Collections, Atkins Library, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/char03.html
      Archives, Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte
    DALLAS
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/dall01.html
      Gaston County Museum of Art & History
    DURHAM
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh01.html
      American Dance Festival Archives
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh02.html
      Duke University Archives
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh03.html
      Special Collections Library, Duke University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh04.html
      James E. Shepard Memorial Library, North Carolina Central University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh05.html
      African-American Resources Program, School of Library and Information Sciences, North Carolina Central University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/durh06.html
      Stanford L. Warren Branch Library
    ELIZABETH CITY
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/eliz01.html
      G. R. Little Library, Elizabeth City State University
    FAYETTEVILLE
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/faye01.html
      University Archives, Chesnutt Library, Fayetteville State University
    GREENSBORO
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/grns01.html
      Holgate Library, Bennett College
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/grns02.html
      Greensboro Public Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/grns03.html
      Special Collections/ University Archives, F. D. Bluford Library, North Carolina A & T State University
    GREENVILLE
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/grnv01.html
      Special Collections, Joyner Library, East Carolina University
    MONTREAT
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/mont01.html
      Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Department of History
    RALEIGH
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/rale01.html
      North Carolina State Archives
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/rale02.html
      Prezell R. Robinson Library, St. Augustine's College
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/rale03.html
      University Archives, North Carolina State University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/rale04.html
      Richard B. Harrison Public Library, Wake County Public Libraries
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/rale05.html
      Shaw University Library
    SALISBURY
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/sali01.html
      North Carolina Synod Archives, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/sali02.html
      Heritage Hall, Livingstone College
    WILMINGTON
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/wilm01.html
      William Madison Randall Library, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
    WINSTON-SALEM
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/wins01.html
      North Carolina Room, Forsyth County Public Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/wins02.html
      North Carolina Baptist Historical Collection, Wake Forest University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/wins03.html
      Rare Books & Manuscripts Department, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/wins04.html
      O'Kelly Library, Winston-Salem State University
    OTHER REPOSITORIES
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth01.html
      Carteret County Public Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth02.html
      Appalachian Collection, University Hall, Appalachian State University
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth03.html
      State and Local Historical Division, Cumberland County Public Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth04.html
      Special Collections/ University Archives, Jackson Library, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth05.html
      Sheppard Memorial Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth06.html
      Davidson Room, Davidson Community College
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth07.html
      Harnett County Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth08.html
      Appalachian Room, Mars Hill College
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth09.html
      North Carolina African-American Historical Society
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth10.html
      Local History Collection, Edgecombe County Public Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth11.html
      Brown Library
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth12.html
      Historical Collections Room, Rockingham Community College
    • http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/oth13.html
      Cape Fear Museum

INTRODUCTION

CHALLENGING HERITAGE: African-American Documentary Resources in North Carolina

North Carolina is rich in materials for the study of African- American history and life. Yet these important resources have never been adequately accessible. This guide is one step toward the correction of a glaring deficiency. Through it, for the first time, researchers can get a brief overview of the terrain of African-Americana holdings in the Tarheel State. Used together with a growing number of repository-level guides to African-Americana, this overview should make North Carolina's holdings of these important materials among the most accessible in the United States.

The guide is a product of the ongoing work of the North Carolina African American Archives Group. Organized in the fall of 1989, the Group has as its goals the promotion of the fuller documentation of the African-American experience in North Carolina; the support of the work of African-American collections, especially in historically black colleges and universities; the better preservation of, and enhanced access to, African-Americana holdings in the state, and promotion of the wider appreciation and use of the records of African Americans in North Carolina.

Fueling these ambitions has been recognition of the fact that North Carolina is in growing danger of losing important resources for the study of African-American history and life. Few members of the state's black community want to commit their personal records to the larger repositories in the state--institutions with which they have had few connections and from which they have not always been able to expect adequate attention to African-American subjects. On the other hand, few traditionally black institutions have had the financial, human, and physical resources to organize, preserve, and provide public access to their institutional records and holdings of private papers. Moreover, despite the riches in the written record, much of the African-American experience has never been committed to paper: it needs to be captured through oral histories, the recording of religious services, photographs, and other, non-textual means. Yet another factor militating against adequate documentation of African-American history and life, as North Carolina African American Archives Group members early realized, is the preoccupation of most institutional African-Americana collectors with slavery, Reconstruction, or Civil Rights and personages important in these stories; other dimensions and leaders of the African-American community have received much less concerted attention.

Despite this relative neglect, there are significant holdings in North Carolina repositories across the breadth of the African- American experience, as this guide makes clear. The guide is one outcome of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant, awarded in 1992, to North Carolina Central University on behalf of the North Carolina African American Archives Group. Another NHPRC-supported project, sponsored by Wayne State University, helped add data on oral history holdings. A National Endowment for the Humanities award, also to Wayne State's African-American Educational Archives project and North Carolina Central University, is supporting in-depth surveys of the archival holdings of North Carolina's eleven historically black colleges and universities. As these data are compiled and these institutions feel ready, repository-level guides will appear to deepen the summary presentations of holdings in this statewide guide and to complement the collection-level guides to the African-American holdings of some of the larger and better-funded archival repositories in the state.

North Carolina African American Archives Group members hope that wider knowledge of the more than 2,500 African-American collections and tens of thousands of volumes of printed works in the Tarheel State's more than forty-five repositories of these materials will lead private citizens, organizations, and businesses to deposit or donate their historical records in appropriate repositories. Members also hope that the Group's NHPRC-funded collection of data on the status of African-Americana holdings' organization, maintenance, and needs will inform future collaborative as well as individual institutional grant applications to leverage improvement of the documentation of the African-American experience and care of the African-American record in North Carolina. To this end, the Group is working with the North Carolina State Historical Records Advisory Board and the African-American Educational Archives Initiative.

Funding for the publication of the printed version of this guide was provided by the Randleigh Foundation Trust to the Southern Historical Collection of the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The University Press of Virginia is publisher of the guide in its electronic form, so is making its Virginia and the North Carolina state guides to African-Americana research resources available together in a visionary effort to enhance scholarship on African American history and life. As individual institutional guides are made available, they will be seamlessly linked to this electronic version of the statewide guide for North Carolina, providing access to the remarkable wealth of North Carolina African-Americana holdings. In their electronic forms, the statewide and individual repository guides will be regularly updated with support from Southern Historical Collection staff. This support is only possible because of the encouragement of University Librarians James Govan and Joe Hewitt and Associate University Librarian for Special Collections Marcella Grendler of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Researchers owe gratitude not only to the funders, compilers, editor, and publishers of this guide, but also to the leadership of Benjamin Speller, Dean of the School of Library and Information Science of North Carolina Central University, director of the NHPRC-funded needs assessment and survey project, and to David Olson, North Carolina State Archivist and NHPRC project codirector. That these men were able to draw on the time and knowledge of dozens of people from the archival, historical, and civic leadership circles of the sate is testimony to the respect in which they are held and to the broadening commitment of North Carolinians to a critical part of their story. Alderman Library staff members Michael Plunkett, Curator of Special Collections, and David Seaman, Coordinator of the Electronic Text Center, both provided much needed technical support and encouragement.


David Moltke-Hansen,
Director, Southern Historical Collection,
and NHPRC Project Codirector

Editor's Note

This guide contains entries of varying length and detail contributed by North Carolina repositories with original research materials documenting African Americans. Entries are arranged geographically by city and repository. Each entry gives the repository's address, telephone number (and fax, if available), hours of operation, and services offered. In several cases, INTERNET addresses are provided as well.

Every attempt has been made to make this guide as accurate as possible. Comments, additions, corrections, and revisions are welcome. Please send comments to Manuscripts Department, Wilson Library, MSS@email.unc.edu


Timothy D. Pyatt
Assistant Curator of Manuscripts
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill