Summary Information
Congress of Racial Equality. Boston Chapter: Records
1963-1965
- Congress of Racial Equality. Boston Chapter (Mass.)
Mss 148
0.2 c.f. (1 archives box)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Correspondence, a 1959 constitution, notes, printed matter, and clippings, documenting the organization and activities of the Boston chapter of CORE (1948- ), especially the work of its employment committee and its efforts to attain integrated advertising by major local and national companies. Major correspondents include Edward M. Kennedy and Eric Sevareid.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00148 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Organized in September of 1948, the Greater Boston Committee of Racial Equality had a membership of sixty by the April 1949 date of its affiliation with the national Congress of Racial Equality. Local chapters of CORE are self-governing and develop autonomous programs within the philosophic outline of the national organization. Boston CORE, with standing committees on education, action, survey, newsletter, and the executive, concentrated on investigating the policies of hotels toward Negroes, and a fund-raising campaign for CORE-HOUSE, a proposed interracial cooperative house that never materialized. Activity lagged during 1951 and the Committee ceased to function. An effort initiated in the summer of 1958 to reorganize the Boston chapter of CORE was realized by November of that year. The nucleus of less than twenty active members established a steering committee and an action committee, and in 1959 the group again affiliated with the national organization. During this early period, and until 1961, the formal organization of national CORE was itself in a state of flux. Until national director James Farmer was succeeded by Floyd Bixler McKissick (national chairman from 1963) CORE followed its stated policy as a national federation of local interracial groups working to abolish racial discrimination by direct, nonviolent methods. But in July of 1966 CORE articulated a philosophy of Black Power and self-defense rather than nonviolence, which was reflected in the positions of policy taken by most local chapters.
Scope and Content Note
These records of the Greater Boston Committee of Racial Equality, covering only the years 1963-1965, are those which had been in the possession of Professor Richard D. Brown of the Department of History, Oberlin College. Brown was active in Boston CORE's employment committee as a graduate student at Harvard in the 1960s, and the records reflect this activity of the organization and CORE's interest in “integrated” advertising of major local and national companies and utilities. The collection comprises both manuscript and printed materials. The manuscript category consists of general correspondence, an operational file, miscellaneous notes, and statements on the employment policy and practice of the First National Bank of Boston. The printed materials include brochures, reports, periodicals, copies of “integrated” advertisements, and newspaper clippings. In each category the material is limited but representative.
Much of the correspondence is to and from Richard D. Brown; some to Alan Gartner. Of note is a Xeroxed letter from Senator Edward M. Kennedy to Alan Gartner, March 9, 1963; a copy of a letter from M.J. McDermott to Governor George Wallace of Alabama, April 2, 1965; and a letter from Eric Sevareid to Richard D. Brown, June 22, 1965 with a copy of a script for Sevareid's remarks on the Walter Cronkite news broadcast of June 8, 1965.
The Operational File contains the constitution of the Greater Boston Committee of Racial Equality as adopted April 13, 1959, and miscellaneous lists, e.g. a “Partial Listing of Greater Boston Negro Civic, Social and Fraternal Organizations,” March 5, 1964, and a “Mailing List.”
The Miscellaneous Notes were probably compiled by Richard D. Brown in his CORE related activities. They consist of an outline of a meeting with Milton Rosenberg of the New York State Commission on Human Rights, January 5, 1965; notes on a telephone conversation with Malcolm Peabody, chairman of the Massachusetts Governor's Advisory Committee on Civil Rights, January 12, 1965; and a miscellany of notations relating to the employment of Negroes through the offices of Boston CORE.
Among the pamphlets and brochures included in the printed materials are some state of Massachusetts literature on employment and housing discrimination, a report on “The Boston Negro Market” in the 1960s, a statement of Governor John A. Volpe's Civil Rights Program, and the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin, “Income, Education and Unemployment in Neighborhoods, Boston, Massachusetts,” January 1963. There are also a very few CORE publications as well as a few copies of “integrated” advertisements, and newspaper clippings referring to employment practices of various Boston banks and miscellaneous related subjects.
Related Material
Related materials in the custody of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin are the records of the Congress of Racial Equality (Mss 14), and the Alan Gartner Papers (Mss 126). Documents in Mss 14 directly concerned with the Boston Chapter of CORE are found in series 3, box 1, folder 10; in series 5, box 54, folder 5; and in Series 5, box 13, folders 8-9. Alan Gartner was chairman of the Boston chapter of CORE in the early 1960s.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Professor Richard D. Brown, Oberlin, Ohio, August 27, 1969 and December 8, 1969. Accession Number: M69-266, M69-425
Processed by Joanne Hohler, January 20, 1971.
Contents List
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Box
1
Folder
1
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Correspondence - General, 1964-1965 and undated
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Box
1
Folder
2
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Operational File, 1959-1965
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Box
1
Folder
3
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Miscellaneous Notes, 1963-1965 and undated
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Box
1
Folder
4
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Employment policy and practice of the First National Bank of Boston, 1964-1965
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Box
1
Folder
5
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Printed and near-print pamphlets, brochures, reports, and periodicals, 1963-1965
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Box
1
Folder
6
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Copies of “integrated” advertisements of Massachusetts and national concerns, circa 1963-1965
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Box
1
Folder
7
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Newspaper clippings, 1963-1965
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