The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Knox County Ohio black history digital archives

Repository: Kenyon College. Rural Life Center

Collection Description (CRHP): "The Community Within" explores two centuries of rural African American life through photographs, interviews with Black residents, and other historical materials. Themes include family life, work, religion, social life, and migration.

Origin Info: "The Community Within" project was a 1992-1993 American Studies Senior Seminar directed by Prof. Howard Sacks and Prof. Ric Sheffield.

Access Copy Note: Photographs and interview excerpts from "The Community Within" are accessible online at collection URL. Photographs, scanned documents, and other records are continuously added to the site. They include digital images of papers of fraternal and mutual aid organizations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as records of the local NAACP chapter organized in the late 1960s.

Collection URL: https://communitywithin.kenyon.edu/

Date(s): 1992-1993; ongoing

Digital Status: Partial

Extent: Most interviews exist in digital format; some are on audiocassette.

Language: English

Related Archival Items: In 2010, the Center was also pursuing three ongoing projects:

"IN THE SERVICE OF THY NEIGHBORS": This project seeks to discover the stories of Black men and women who worked as domestics, cooks, maids, housecleaners, gardeners, janitors, drivers, bellboys, and laundresses. Researchers plan to interview those workers, their children and grandchildren, and the people in whose homes they worked.


"CLUBS AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS": This project seeks to examine the histories of fraternal organizations, clubs, and social organizations, including Twentieth Century Club, Knights of Pythias (K of P), Order of Odd Fellows, Colored Women's Glee Club, Colored Women's Garden Club, Masonic Lodge, Elks Lodge, Ben Carter Post of the American Legion, and colored scout troops.

"SPORTS AND THE COLOR LINE": This project seeks to document the athletic undertakings of Black folks in Knox County. Some of these range from the Mt. Vernon Giants, a colored baseball team of the 1930s to all-Black basketball team, the Deacons, that played in the Mt. Vernon YMCA high school league of the late 1960s.

Rights (Extant): Access and use of the archives is limited to non-commercial purposes. Public acknowledgement and attribution of the source of any materials is a condition of such access or use.

Subjects:

African American athletes
African American businesspeople
African American churches--Ohio
African Americans--Civil rights--Ohio
African Americans--Ohio
Discrimination in employment
Discrimination in the military
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Negro leagues
Women--Societies and clubs

Genres:

Photographs
Sound recordings
Videorecordings