District of Columbia Africana Archives Project

George Washington University's Special Collections Research Center and Africana Studies Program are partnering with five archives throughout the city to enhance access to previously unavailable research materials that document the history of the African diaspora in DC, the civil rights movements, the struggle for Home Rule, the rise of Black-owned businesses, the development of Howard University, slavery in the nation’s capital, jazz music in D.C., and the literary arts.

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Elias Blake, Jr. maintained an extensive file on the activities of South Africa and Africans during the 1980s. It's an interesting paradox to observe African Americans in their fight for freedom as well as their efforts and assistance in disassembling apartheid.

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Dr. Elias Blake Jr., whose professional and personal papers are held at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Library, was deeply involved in educational reform in the U.S. for most of his professional life. He received his MA from Howard University, and later returned to become a professor in the Education department, and served as the Director of Higher Educational Policy Research at the university in the 1980s. Blake was also a staunch supporter of the arts, particularly jazz, and while President of Clark College, was involved with the college’s Jazz Orchestra, which performed at the Kool Jazz Festival in Atlanta, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

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August 28th commemorates the 53rd anniversary of the March on Washington, D.C., for Jobs and Freedom. The March brought together roughly 250,000 Americans from all over the country and a variety of backgrounds in support of the passage of a civil rights bill to end racial segregation in schools, racial discrimination in hiring and housing, support the creation of jobs for the unemployed, and establish the minimum hourly wage at $2. While fear of the potential for violence led to the presence of a large police force and earlier attempts to dissuade organizers by politicians, the result was a peaceful demonstration with a powerful message of joy and hope for the future that culminated with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The March was televised and covered by media, and one of the members of the crowd documenting the events of the March was Robert S. Scurlock. The Scurlock family were professional African-American photographers based in Washington, D.C., and the family had a long history of photographing important moments in the black community; for example, Addison Scurlock, Robert’s father, photographed Marian Anderson’s 1933 performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after she was denied the right to perform at Constitution Hall. Robert’s documentation of the March on Washington is represented by color slides and photographs in the Scurlock Business Records at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History.

On August 27th, 1983, a 20th anniversary march occurred to address the progress made, the current issues, and the work that still needed to be done to achieve the message of the first march. Once again, Robert Scurlock photographed the events and created slides of the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington, D.C.

As we remember the original March on Washington, D.C., and as the attendees of the 20th anniversary march did, we reflect on the progress made and just how far we still have to go to achieve the future described.

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From Negroes as Cymbals to Blues People

Part of what is uniquely accessible by way of manuscripts and archives is early versions of work, and a window into the editorial process that led to the final product that is (more) widely available in the world beyond the processing table. In processing the papers of Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) –  renowned and prolific poet, playwright, professor and leader of the Black Arts movement and the Black Nationalist Marxist-Leninist Movement – at the Moorland-Springarn Research Center, I was very interested to find holograph and marked-up early typescript papers of the manuscript that eventually became Blues People: Negro Music in White America (1963) as it is known today. In the manuscript’s early stages, Jones/Baraka (he still went by his given name of Leroi Jones in the 1960s) had proposed to title the work “Negroes as Cymbals.” In this first image, we see editorial notes from “JG”, who is not a fan of Jones’ materialist approach of “examining the ‘underside of the cymbal’” (Image 1). In the second image, a later draft, we see Jones/Baraka had crossed out “Negroes as Cymbals” and replaced it with “Blues, Black and White America” (Image 2). In this third image from a draft of the final chapter of the book “The Modern Scene,” we see an edit where Jones/Baraka changed “poor Negroes” to “Blues People,” in a sentence that reads “Swing held no meaning for Blues people, nor was it expressive of the emotional life of most young Negroes after the war” (Image 3). Finally, inside a small notebook, there are notes where Jones/Baraka is thinking through the Blues, which may clue the curious into the thought progression from one title to the other (Images 4-6).

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The recent Supreme Court decision on Fisher v. University of Texas has brought the issue of Affirmative Action forcefully to the forefront of public discussion. 

There are some who have argued that the inequalities which Affirmative Action was designed to correct are ills of the past, and that in today’s society every citizen has an equal chance of being hired for a job or admitted to an educational program based solely on merit. One could easily assume with the court’s decision on Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 in favor of desegregated public schools or the 1965 Higher Education Act which, as amended, provides direct federal aid to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that we, as a nation, desegregated our public educational practices, corrected our enrollment quotas, and no longer had to actively, affirmatively concern ourselves with ensuring access to quality education for all citizens. 

However, one need look no further back in the court ledgers than the last twenty years to realize that we are still attempting to dismantle discriminatory selection processes in education. Mississippi’s system of public four-year universities was formally segregated by race from its inception in 1848 through 1962, when the first black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi by court order. Since that time, those universities maintained their racial make-up—although segregation was no longer being legally enforced it was still being informally upheld. In the landmark case Ayers v. Fordice, first decided in 1991, the Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed that “…the mere adoption and implementation of race-neutral policies was insufficient to demonstrate complete abandonment of the racially dual system.”

The court further stated that even after the State dismantled its formal, de jure system of segregation there may still be state action that is traceable to the State’s prior de jure segregation and that continues to foster segregation. The case was taken all the way up to the United States Supreme Court which affirmed the Mississippi court’s decision and compelled the state to take affirmative action to correct the disparities. 

Dr. Elias Blake Jr. spent the majority of his career studying and writing about education, particularly advocating for Black students. He served in numerous roles, including President, with the now-dissolved Institute for Services to Education through the 1970’s and founded the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) in 1969. Dr. Blake served as a special advisor for Ayers v. Fordice and many of his preparatory documents are included in his papers housed at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Dr. Blake also helped conduct a nationwide survey of the role of HBCUs in the education of Black students which he presented in various forms to scholars and policy makers—including President Richard Nixon. This data is included along-side his notes for Ayers v. Fordice.

Post submitted by Haley Bryant, DCAAP Processing Assistant 

Images:

1. Handwritten notes regarding Ayers v. Fordice (undated). Papers of Elias Blake Jr. Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

2. Data Table: Loss and Recovery of Progress, HCU’s and the Nation, Before and After the HCU ACT. (1977-1995). Papers of Elias Blake Jr. Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

3. Data Table: 50 States BA Fields by Race, Page 1. (1986-1995). Papers of Elias Blake Jr. Howard University, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

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While working with photographs can be a visually stimulating, photographs in large numbers that have been mixed together present a unique challenge. In the Scurlock Studio Records, AC618 at the National Museum of American History, NMAH, we had many boxes of portrait photographs of men and women, weddings, and group events that needed the photographs of each individual or event to be matched with its corresponding photographs. A similar situation occurred with the photographs of jazz events in the Floyd Levin Jazz Reference Collection, AC1222, at NMAH, taken by Floyd and Lucille Levin.

Matching photographs of individuals and events may seem fairly easy at first glance but it is actually incredibly tedious and time consuming. We had thousands of photographs and after seeing several hundred portrait sittings, minute facial features and clothing become very important in telling the difference between individuals. However, there is never enough space to layout all of the photographs and finding where you put a stack of photographs for an individual. When looking at weddings or events, the details of the buildings, clothing, and decorations become significant in telling one pink wedding a part from another pink wedding. 

With the jazz events held almost every year at the same location and with the same people attending, the buttons, rarely clear in the photographs, are sometimes the biggest clues in distinguishing one year from another. The process is the equivalent of playing a multilayered game of memory with the questions: Have I seen this person or event before? Where are did I put the rest of the photographs? being asked over and over. Of course, there are other ways to match photographs and other issues that complicate the process. For example, the individuals in the Scurlock portraits may have been photographed with different changes of clothing or at different times; now, the minute features of the face are important for determining if you are looking at the same person or a different individual. While processing the Levins’ photographs, we used date stamps on the back of the photographs to match events. However, this technique was only useful for the initial matching of photographs, because we quickly realized the Levins owned and used multiple cameras at events. As a result, the visual clues in the photographs were significant for matching differently sized and date stamped photographs for a single event with one another.

While the process was incredibly tedious and time consuming, the end result of a group of photographs of an individual being together or being able to look through an event leaves you with a very satisfying and accomplished feeling.

Post Submitted by Rebekah Keel, DCAAP Processing Assistant 

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In light of the recent passing of The GOAT Muhammad Ali, his legacy and fight not only in the ring but in life will forever be remembered.

While most people will remember Muhammad Ali for his amazing boxing, many  will also continue to remember his radical views and activism for the liberation of Blacks globally. As a very vocal figure in Black History, Ali never hesitated to express himself.

Black Sports Magazine was a magazine that launched in April 1971 in New York City and closed later that decade. The magazine was published on a monthly basis.

The magazine was the first major sports magazine aimed specifically at Blacks.The magazine was the brainchild of Allan P. Barron, who became President and Editor. Barron teamed with William L. Doneghy, who came aboard as Vice-President and Controller. In 1971, Bryant Gumbel became editor of the magazine, leaving the following year.

The magazine failed in the 1970s and ceased publication in 1978.

(From the Amiri Baraka Collection, Moorland-Springarn)

Kimberly Monroe, DCAAP Processing Assistant

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Charlotte Holloman was a concert singer, Broadway performer and voice teacher that gained national recognition for her artistic talents and philanthropic deeds. Her collection is filled with sheet and audio music. The vast majority of the records included in Charlotte Holloman’s collection are music recordings ranging in genre from Calypso to Opera. Yet, Buried in Holloman’s collection were the ABC recordings from the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. Those interested in and/or doing research on Kennedy, his assassination, and media representation of crucial moments like this one will undoubtedly find them interesting and well worth listening to. One of the many enjoyable things about processing the African American history collections at these repositories is finding the unexpected gems or items that are not typically associated with the historical figures. Such findings demonstrate how multifaceted these figures’ interests, lives and contributions were.

Charlotte Wesley Holloman Papers, Washingtoniana Archives, DC Public Library

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The Floyd Levin Jazz Research Collection at the National Museum of American History reflects the lifelong second career of LA textile manufacturer Floyd Levin as a jazz historian, journalist and, above all, avid collector. Along with his wife Lucille, Floyd came to amass an extraordinary amount of photographs and paper ephemera including posters, letters, articles and advertisements, concert programs and tickets-- even obituaries and personal wills-- related to jazz artists both well-known and obscure. As we consolidated these photographic and paper documents, however, we discovered a certain amount of small three-dimensional objects within our boxes of unprocessed materials. Normally, the art and artifacts division of the museum would accession and house these objects in their storage facilities, but apparently several small memorabilia objects such as buttons and pens and even some personal objects belonging to Barney Bigard or Louis Armstrong, did not make their way into the greater museum’s holdings.

The task then fell to us to house these materials by way of the, sometimes intricate, process of creating what’s called a sink mat; a custom-made “well” that secures an object in place. To make our sink mats, we first had to trace around our objects on pieces of blue board and then carefully cut out as many layers of blue board needed to create a “well” level to the height of the object. These “layers” were then glued together and ribbons were attached to the bottom of each “well” to help archivists and researchers lift the objects out. Once a sink mat is complete, it, along with the objects it holds, can be stored along with other archival materials in flat oversize boxes.

Select sink mats and their contents:

Duke Ellington buttons as well as pens from the 1989 Ellington Conference, held in Washington, D.C. from April 26-29.

A plate reading “La 2a Feria Industrial de Asiva a la Embajada Artistica de Louis Armstrong, Valparaiso Junio, 1962” from Valparaiso, Chile; a stamp for the “Louis Armstrong Statue Fund” which Floyd Levin founded; two containers of “Louis Armstrong Lip-Salve,” manufactured in Manheim, Germany and one very curious handkerchief, apparently stolen from Louis Armstrong’s Hollywood Palace on April 11, 1965.

A small box containing Barney Bigard’s clarinet reeds, as well as a clarinet reed case with his name inscribed on it.

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Leroy “Damu” Smith was a social justice activist born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1951. Smith graduated from high school and attended St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. While at St. John’s, Smith became the leader of the Organization of Afro-American Students and fought for a Black Studies program. After graduating from St. John’s, Smith moved to Washington D.C. where he would become involved with a series of community issues including anti-war efforts, combating police brutality, and equality within the healthcare system. However, Smith was most famously known for his work around environmental justice.

Smith’s dedication to environmental justice was unprecedented. His advocacy would eventually halt two major corporations from building chemical plants in historic Black communities in New Orleans. His commitment led him to create the Black Voices for Peace and the National Black Environmental Justice Network. He also worked with the National Alliance against Racial and Political Violence, the American Friends Service Committee, Greenpeace USA, National Black Independent Political Party, National Black Environmental Justice Network.

The images above feature Smith as keynote and guest speaker at the 6th Annual Environmental Justice Conference, Southern Community Labor Conference for Environmental Justice, and the “What’s Poisoning Our Communities” Conference.Smith’s activism did not go unrecognized. He was the recipient of the Malcolm X Community Service Award, National Bar Association Community Service Award, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Award, and the St. James Citizen for Jobs and the Environment Award. Although Smith died of colon cancer in 2006, his legacy lives on via his collection at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington D.C.

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Mark Hanna Watkins was an Afro-American linguist and anthropologist. He is remembered as the first known Black American to receive a Ph.D. in anthropology, and also the first American to write a grammar of an African language. Around 1930, he co-wrote A Grammar of Chichewa: A Bantu Language of British Central Africa, by which he set a standard and structuralist format for others to follow. Among numerous other papers, he also wrote “Bantu Languages” (pictured above) which was published in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th Edition. Watkins later became a professor of anthropology at Howard University, where he taught from 1947-1972, with a primary focus on African languages including Swahili and Yoruba. In addition to teaching, he served as Director of the African Language and Area Center while working to foster relationships between Africans and African American students at Howard. Above is a photograph of a Swahili class listening to guest speaker, Thomas Okelo-Odongo of Kenya, with Professor Mark Hanna Watkins observing.

The Mark Hanna Watkins papers are housed at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.  

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Thanks to collaborations with DCAAP and the GW library’s digital services unit, the GW university archives is bringing to light a previously obscure cache of documents that confirms the presence of enslaved laborers at the college prior to the civil war, and describes the college’s rationale for expelling a student who attempted to assist those enslaved men gain their freedom.

The year was 1847, the student’s name was Henry J. Arnold, and his crime was providing Abram, an enslaved man owned by an employee of the college, with $14 and a letter for an attorney with the intention that Abram would file a lawsuit to win his freedom. While the Arnold Case, as it was called, was not completely unknown in the history of George Washington University, it has been largely forgotten in both scholarly and common memory, and has never received the thorough historical examination it deserves.

The documentation, which has been reprocessed by DCAAP staff as a stand-alone collection, consists of drafts and copies of letters written by Columbian College’s then-president, Joel S. Bacon, to Arnold, his family and others who inquired or appealed to him about the matter. Without this critical documentation, the story of enslaved people at Columbian College may have been lost to history entirely or deemed apocryphal.

All of the letters in the collection have been scanned and are now freely available for study to anyone in the world. Additionally, since the handwriting in the letters may be difficult for some modern readers to decipher, we have scanned a partial transcript of the letters prepared as an academic article by Alex Dienst, the man who first uncovered them. Documentation accompanying the letters indicate that Dienst attempted to have the manuscript published in the early 20th century by a journal of southern history based in Washington, D.C., only to have it turned down “as it touched upon a local institution here and hence might arouse some feeling.” We are pleased to finally share it here for the first time.

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Elias Blake, Jr. was born in Brunswick, Georgia in 1929. Blake was an education scholar, and a champion of equality in higher education for blacks. He founded the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) in the 1970s, and garnered a great deal of financial support for HBCUs in this time period.

In this 1982 Commencement speech at the Tennessee State University in Nashville, housed in the Blake collection at the Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Blake outlines the unique and promising history of the university. As a result of a protracted legal effort, in 1979, the Tennessee State University joined two institutions into one: the original Tennessee State University was a HBCU dating back to the 1920s; and the University of Tennessee at Nashville was a white university built in the 1960s. In his speech he celebrates this uniquely inclusive and integrated institution, and enjoins graduates support the continuation of this legacy.

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“Golden Legacy magazine represents a pioneering effort in dispelling some of the misconceptions relating to the role that people of African descent have played in world history..”  The Golden Legacy website.

Growing up in Harlem in the 1930’s and ‘40s, Bertram A. Fitzgerald found a passion for history and literature through the Classics Illustrated comic series. He realized quickly, however, that stories of people of color and their real-life experiences were not included. In 1966, Fitzgerald leaped into comic book publishing with no prior experience in writing or publishing to produce The Golden Legacy series. Specifically targeted towards young people, the Golden Legacy series uses engaging and visually stunning images to directly confront topics like the realities and horrors of slavery, the Black experience beyond the American context, and significant but often marginalized personages and events in Black History. 

Frustrated by this lack of visibility, Fitzgerald enlisted his buddy Leo Carty in 1966 to draw up his first comic—a visual biography of leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint L’ouverture. While sifting through a box of assorted publications in the papers of former professor and scholar of education, Elias Blake Jr., at Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, I came across this brightly-colored inaugural comic, titled The Saga of Toussaint L’ouverture and the Birth of Haiti owned and inscribed by Blake’s wife, Mona. Mona Blake was a public school history and literature educator for much of her life. In order to get his illustrated history magazine into the hands of readers, Fitzgerald financially partnered with major corporations like the Coca-Cola company, AT&T, and Columbia Pictures who ensured that the comics were available in schools and libraries for free. 

After delving into the magazine, Fitzgerald’s achievement—establishing corporate, mainstream backing for these historically unacknowledged stories and people—becomes vastly more impressive. The narratives are readable, but thoroughly and easily translate complex yet very real facts of Black History to young readers. Over a decade of publishing the series grew to 16 volumes, but production was derailed in 1983 when Fitzgerald found himself embroiled in a copyright battle. Although the conflict was settled in Fitzgerald’s favor, production of new volumes has yet to recommence. Fitzgerald still serves as the Golden Legacy Publisher at the age of 83 from his home in New York. 

One can purchase the 16-volume pack in various forms from the Golden Legacy Website. 

For more black voices on comics and other nerdy things, check out Black Nerd Problems.

Biographical Information Here

Selected Images:

1. Cover of “The Saga of Toussaint L’ouverture and the Birth of Haiti”, Leo Carty, Fitzgerald Publishing Co., 1966. From the papers of Elias Blake, Jr. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

2. Subscription information,” The Saga of Toussaint L’ouverture and the Birth of Haiti”, Leo Carty, Fitzgerald Publishing Co., 1966. From the papers of Elias Blake, Jr. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

3. Opening Frame, “The Saga of Toussaint L’ouverture and the Birth of Haiti”, Leo Carty, Fitzgerald Publishing Co., 1966. From the papers of Elias Blake, Jr. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

4. First page, “The Saga of Toussaint L’ouverture and the Birth of Haiti”, Leo Carty, Fitzgerald Publishing Co., 1966. From the papers of Elias Blake, Jr. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

Post submitted by Haley Bryant, DCAAP Processing Assistant

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While processing the Duncan P. Schiedt Photograph Collection and the Floyd Levin Jazz Reference Collection at the National Museum of American History, we found several photographs of jazz musicians and Floyd Levin in the bathroom. The first photograph we found was of Duke Ellington in the bathtub and we laughed and moved on. However, we found photographs of Louis Armstrong and Barney Bigard sitting on the toilet and we wondered: what was the allure for jazz musicians and a collector of jazz to be photographed in the bathroom? We soon found herbal laxatives and learned Louis Armstrong was the spokesperson for Swiss Kriss Laxatives. His reason for being photographed in the bathroom was solved. 

After some quick searching, we learned Duke Ellington would write songs while in the bathtub with while eating chocolate ice cream and drinking scotch and milk. His valet would refill the warm water and drain the cooling water for him. His notes would be given to Billy Strayhorn, who would play them on the piano in the next room, and the process would carry on. 

Post submitted by Rebekah Keel, DCAAP Processing Assistant 

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Speeches Nelson Mandela gave while he was visiting in the United States in October of 1994. 

The first speech Nelson Mandela gave upon his arrival to the United States in 1994  was his speech located on the lawn of the White House. He was invited by President George H. Bush. The second speech was at the Joint Press Conference with President Bill Clinton. This meeting was about the changes that must must occur in the South Africa government. And the third speech he gave was when he won the Hunger Prize Award. He also received a Honorary Degree at Howard University in the area of African Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences (COAS).

Post submitted by Marisa Payne, DCAAP Processing Assistant 

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Visit your neighborhood library and check out more of Langston Hughes’ poetry or access his poetry and essays written about him through one of our online databases.

“I, Too”

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll be at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

Click for photo credits and quote credits.

Hughes, Langston. “I, Too.” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Ed. Arnold Rampersad. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. 46. Print.

"Langston Hughes.” Contemporary Heroes and Heroines. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1992. Biography in Context. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.