GORDON BLAINE HANCOCK PAPERS. 525 items
Papers of clergyman, educator, journalist, and civil rights spokesman of Richmond,
Virginia, Gordon Blaine Hancock (1884-1970). Hancock was professor of economics and sociology
at Virginia Union University in Richmond where he taught one of the nation's first race
relation courses and helped to organize the Torrance School of Race Relations in 1931. The
Bulk of the collection consists of photocopies of Hancock's newspaper column, "Between the
Lines", which he wrote from 1928 to 1965 and was syndicated to some
114 black newspapers. In the column, Hancock addressed black social, economic, political and
education concerns. Some material relates to the Southern Regional Council and its 1942
meeting in North Carolina where members published their post-war demands as the "Durham
Manifesto." Among Hancock's correspondents were Benjamin E. Mays, Guy B. Johnson and Jessie
Daniel Ames. Materials in the collection were compiled by Duke Professor Raymond Gavins for
his study The Perils and Prospects of Southern Black Leadership.