The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Jack Rabin collection on Alabama civil rights and southern activists

Repository: Pennsylvania State University. Special Collections Library

Collection Description (Extant): The collection is a compact but highly complex, multi-layered compilation of documents, sound recordings, and visual images. It includes records of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) (1955-1974); photographs and surveillance tapes of Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, and many others involved in sit-ins (early 1960s), the MIA (1963), the Selma March (1965), and the Poor People's Campaign (1968); oral histories of the white activists Clifford and Virginia Durr, John Beecher, and Myles Horton (late 1960s - 1975); and films of the African-American activists Luther Henderson (in Savannah, Georgia, 1964) and Stokely Carmichael (in Montgomery, Alabama, circa 1972). Other individuals represented in the collection include James L. Bevel, Anne Braden, Carl Braden, Ralph J. Bunche, Johnnie Rebecca Carr, James A. Dombrowski, James O. Eastland, James Forman, Charles Gomillion, Lester Hankerson, James A. Hood, John Lewis, Rufus A. Lewis, E.D. Nixon, Rosa Parks, Amelia Boynton Robinson, T.Y. Rogers, Fred Shuttlesworth, Don Slayman, Hosea Williams, Whitney Young, and Bob Zellner. Organizations represented include AFL-CIO, Alabama. Dept. of Public Safety. Investigative and Identification Division. Subversive Unit, American Nazi Party, Congress of Racial Equality, Defense Plant Corporation, Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.), Montgomery Improvement Association, National Socialist White People's Party, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

Access Copy Note: Audio of the oral histories is available online.

Collection URL: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/rabin.html

Date(s): 1941-2004

Digital Status: Yes

Extent: 3.15 cubic ft. and 371 items

Finding Aid URL: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/dam/psul/up/digital/findingaids/2907.htm

Language: English

Interviewees: Stokely Carmichael, Clifford Durr, Virginia Durr, John Beecher, Myles Horton

Rights (Extant): Access to most of the collection is unrestricted.

Subjects:

African American civil rights workers--Alabama
Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama
Civil rights movements--Alabama
Civil rights workers--Alabama
Highlander Folk School (Monteagle, Tenn.)
Women civil rights workers

Genres:

Interviews
Photographs
Sound recordings