Title: Robert Beech Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1963-1972 (bulk 1964-1967)

Creator:

• Beech, Robert, 1935-

Call Number: Mss 945; PH Mss 945

Quantity: 2.8 c.f. (7 archives boxes) and 136 photographs

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers, mainly 1964-1967, of Robert Beech, a civil rights volunteer with the Delta Ministry in Hattiesburg, Mississippi from May 1964 to September 1967, documenting his work with the Ministry as well as the social and political conditions of the rural African-American population of the Mississippi Delta region in the 1960s, and consisting of correspondence with other staff members, ministers, and leaders from other civil rights organizations. Much of the information regarding the conditions of rural African-Americans in Mississippi comes from the reports of former volunteers who wrote to Beech about their experiences in Mississippi and their reactions to the work being done there. Also included are many official reports of the Delta Ministry and other civil rights groups such as the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), as well as newsletters, photographs, pamphlets, and other published materials of the Ministry and other organizations.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00945

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Robert Beech, a United Presbyterian clergyman from Minnesota, served as director of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi office of the Delta Ministry from 1964 to 1967. He was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Beech attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and received his graduate degree from the University of Minnesota in 1957. After graduating from the McCormick Theological Seminary, he began work as a pastor at the United Presbyterian Church in Hebron, Illinois and at nearby Harvard, Illinois. When he heard that the National Council of Churches (NCC) was organizing groups of ministers to go to Mississippi to help bridge the communication gap between the African-American and white communities there, Beech signed up. Writing to a friend while at an orientation with the NCC in Oxford, Ohio, he wrote, “I feel very much at home in this movement. I know that God is leading me.”

Beech went to Mississippi in May 1964 as a volunteer for the Minister's Project. The project was organized by the NCC to bring in ministers, priests and rabbis from outside the state mainly to act as intermediaries between the African-American and white communities. Their work consisted of helping with voter registration, citizenship schools, seminars, and community service. Throughout the summer Beech worked to coordinate the efforts of other volunteers in the Hattiesburg area (also referred to as the Hattiesburg Project).

The NCC founded the Delta Ministry in September 1964 to continue the momentum brought about by the work of the ministers over the summer. It was funded by a variety of denominational church organizations from all over the world.

Beech had been effective as a volunteer during the Minister's Project, and at the end of the summer was asked by Warren McKenna, assistant director of the Delta Ministry, if he would run the newest branch office of the Ministry in the southern city of Hattiesburg. In September, Beech bought a house in Hattiesburg (no one was willing to rent to him because of his work) and moved there with his wife, Alice, and four sons.

Early on, the main goals of the Ministry were to provide immediate relief for the poorest of the state's residents. Volunteers worked to solicit donations of food, clothes and money, and to distribute these to residents who were not getting aid from the federal and state programs.

Much of the controversy surrounding the work of Beech, and of the Delta Ministry as a whole, was because Ministry staffers were from other, mostly northern, states. They were regarded as outside “agitators.” Like the other Delta Ministry offices, Beech immediately encountered resistance if not outright hostility by the white population in Hattiesburg due to his work with the Ministry. Even the church where he and his family attended service and Sunday school asked that he not attend any more when they found out he was a civil rights worker. (The church explained that they did not want to appear “liberal” by allowing his attendance at services.) He was often threatened and attacked by members of the white community. He was arrested and given jail time on several occasions, had a cross burned in his front yard, received many anonymous, threatening phone calls (some of which were documented by Alice), and had his house shot at. Some members of the white community were afraid to help him because of fear that they themselves would become the targets of reprisals from other whites.

By 1965, the Delta Ministry was expanding to include teaching adult literacy, community organization, and economic independence. Beech's work is distinguished by his ability to coordinate efforts among various organizations, supplying financial support or staff using Delta Ministry resources. He worked closely with leaders of other civil rights groups, federal agencies, church groups and ministers of other faiths. The Hattiesburg office assisted local and regional organizations such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), chapters of the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE), the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), and national groups like Head Start, COFO, the Poor People's Corporation (PPC), and others.

Beech left the Delta Ministry in early 1967 after they terminated him for failing to keep the office under budget (letter of termination, August 18, 1967). He taught classes in religion and sociology at Mary Holmes Junior College in West Point, Mississippi from 1967 to 1968. During his time in West Point he continued his civil rights work, serving as a board member for the National Missions. Beech left Mississippi in June of 1968, eventually moving back in Minnesota where he currently resides.

The Robert Beech Papers are arranged in five series: CORRESPONDENCE, WRITINGS/PUBLICITY, TEACHING, ORGANIZATIONS AND PROJECTS, and PHOTOGRAPHS.

The papers serve two general areas of research. The first is information on Beech himself and his work as director of the Hattiesburg Delta Ministry office, primarily documented in the CORRESPONDENCE, WRITINGS/PUBLICITY, and TEACHING series. The second is the more general work of the civil rights movement in the Delta region, reflected mostly in the ORGANIZATIONS/PROJECTS series, particularly the volunteers' reports of the Minister's Project.

Photographs document living conditions in the Delta region of Mississippi, show work at the Mt. Beulah Community Center, and illustrate various situations involving Beech.

CORRESPONDENCE

The correspondence is arranged into two main groups: outgoing and incoming. Both sections are about equal in volume and cover the same time period.

Letters from late 1964 to early 1967 comprise the densest period of correspondence. This is the same time period in which he served as director of the Hattiesburg office. Nearly all of the correspondence deals with the business of directing the Ministry. They refer to a wide range of issues and concerns. Many of the outgoing letters are aimed at establishing contacts among clergymen around the country, recruiting ministers and other volunteers for work in Mississippi, and thanking people for letters of support and donations. In many of the letters from 1964, Beech gives assessments of the situation in Hattiesburg and his reception by members of the black and white communities. Several letters deal with media representation of the Delta Ministry in which Beech tries to correct distorted reports about his work.

There are many personal letters from past volunteers and other civil rights workers, mostly from late 1964 and early 1965. Some of the letters from friends are signed with cheery salutations such as “See you in jail!” The correspondence to his family includes a letter to his mother (January 16, 1965), and one to his wife and children while he was volunteering for the Ministry Project before they moved to Mississippi with him (June 7, 1964).

The correspondence of Warren McKenna spans the summer of 1964 when he worked with Beech on the Minister's Project. After the summer, McKenna began working as assistant director for the Delta Ministry and asked Beech to run the Hattiesburg office.

WRITINGS/PUBLICITY

This series is small but gives the most direct information about Beech himself. It includes several published articles and newspaper clippings. There are also a few notes for his sermons. Included is a position paper Beech wrote in 1967 summarizing his work with the Delta Ministry and his plans for the future. Published articles by Beech include “Deep in the South” which appeared in Southern California Presbyterian (September 1967). Beech talks frankly about the racism he encountered in Mississippi in an interview from March 1966 published in The Commentator.

TEACHING

The teaching series stems from classes he taught at Mary Holmes Junior College at the end of his tenure with the Ministry. It includes lecture notes, exams, syllabi and reading lists for his Religion 101 and Sociology 101 classes.

ORGANIZATIONS/PROJECTS

The organizations and projects series is the largest in the collection. It consists mainly of operational records of the Delta Ministry, the Minister's Project and other civil rights organizations including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Poor People's Corporation, Committee on Religion and Race, Conference of Federated Organizations, Congress of Racial Equality, and Delta Opportunities Corporation.

The files of the Delta Ministry are mostly operational papers such as meeting minutes, reports by and about the Ministry, fact sheets and applications. The files of the Minister's Project are mostly made up of volunteers' reports of their experiences from the summer of 1964 and offer good insight into the Freedom Movement at that time. This file contains Beech's own reports that he wrote for the mailing list called Reports from Hattiesburg from May to August 1964, and give a day-by-day chronology of events and impressions.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs document the activities of Beech and the Delta Ministry including meetings, classes, services, and protests. The substandard living conditions of African Americans in Mississippi is documented as well. Also included is an image of Robert Kennedy in Mississippi.

In addition to the Beech records, the Society also houses the papers of two other Delta staffers, Harry J. Bowie (Mss 31) and Daniel J. Wacker (Mss 868).

The Wisconsin Historical Society has one of the richest collections of Civil Rights movement records in the nation, which includes more than 100 manuscript collections documenting the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. More than 25,000 pages from the Freedom Summer manuscripts are available online as the Freedom Summer Digital Collection.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Robert Beech, Bovey, Minnesota, 1998. Accession Number: M2000-077

Processing Information

Processed by Matt Appleby, May 2000.

Mss 945	Series: Correspondence
	Outgoing
Box   1 Folder   1	1964 May-1965 February Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
Box   1 Folder   2	1965 March-July
Box   1 Folder   3	1965 August-December
Box   1 Folder   4	1966 January-May
Box   1 Folder   5	1966 June-October
Box   2 Folder   1	1967 January-1968 May
	Incoming
Box   2 Folder   2	1964 January-August Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
Box   2 Folder   3	1964 September-December
Box   2 Folder   4	1965 January-March
Box   2 Folder   5	1965 April-June
Box   3 Folder   1	1965 July-October
Box   3 Folder   2	1965 November-1966 January
Box   3 Folder   3	1966 February-May
Box   3 Folder   4	1966 June-1969 October
Box   3 Folder   5	Warren McKenna correspondence, 1964
Box   3 Folder   6	Series: Writings/Publicity, 1964-1967	⇧
	Series: Teaching	⇧
Box   4 Folder   1	Mary Holmes Junior College, 1967-1968
	Series: Projects and Organizations	⇧
Box   4 Folder   2	Child Development Program/Head Start, 1965-1967
Box   4 Folder   3	Clay County Development Program, 1965-1966
Box   4 Folder   4	Committee on Religion and Race, 1964-1966
Box   4 Folder   5	Conference of Federated Organizations, 1964-1966 Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
	Delta Ministry
Box   5 Folder   1	Papers, 1964-1967
Box   5 Folder   2	Affidavits/Testimonies, 1964-1967
Box   5 Folder   3	Financial records, 1964-1967
Box   5 Folder   4	Reports, 1964-1967
Box   5 Folder   5	Volunteers, 1964-1968
Box   5 Folder   6	Delta Opportunities Corporation, 1965-1969
Box   5 Folder   7	Forrest County, 1965-1966
Box   5 Folder   8	Freedom City, 1965-1968
Box   5 Folder   9	Freedom Corporation, 1965
Box   6 Folder   1	Freedom Crafts, 1966-1972
Box   6 Folder   2	Freedom Information Service, 1964
Box   6 Folder   3	Freedom Schools, 1964 Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
Box   6 Folder   4	Laurel project, 1965
	Minister's project
Box   6 Folder   5	Records, 1964 Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
	Volunteers' reports
Box   6 Folder   6	1964 January-August 19 Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
Box   6 Folder   7	1964 August 20-December
Box   6 Folder   8	1965 January-1966 July
Box   6 Folder   9	Minnesota Task Force, 1965
Box   7 Folder   1	Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964-1965
Box   7 Folder   2	Mississippi Freedom Labor Union, 1965
Box   7 Folder   3	Other Community Organizations, 1965-1967
Box   7 Folder   4	Poor People's Corporation, 1964-1965
Box   7 Folder   5	Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1966
Box   7 Folder   6	Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, 1963-1964 Alternate Format: All or part has been digitized and is available online.
PH Mss 945	Series: Photographs	⇧
	Natchez poverty report
Mss 945 Box   1 Folder   1	Report text
Box   1 Folder   2	Beekman quarters
Box   1 Folder   3	Phelan's quarters
Box   1 Folder   4	South Wall Street
Box   1 Folder   5	Gold's Alley
Box   1 Folder   6	Taylor Alley
Box   1 Folder   7	North Wall Street
Box   1 Folder   8	De Marco Alley
Box   1 Folder   9	Griffin Alley
Box   1 Folder   10-45	Mississippi album photos
	Miscellaneous photos
Box   1 Folder   46	Robert Beech in Mississippi
Box   1 Folder   47-48	Delta Ministry activities
Box   1 Folder   49	Group
Box   1 Folder   50	RFK talking to Mrs. Lawrence, Mississippi
Box   1 Folder   51	Buildings
Box   1 Folder   52	Housing project