Abstract: Records of the Scholarship, Education and Defense Fund for Racial Equality (SEDFRE), a fund-raising and legal defense arm of the Congress of Racial Equality, also involved in providing scholarships to minority students, organizing black communities, and training black leaders. Throughout its history, SEDFRE evolved from a predominantly fund-raising organization to an activist group dedicated to social change through grass-roots organizing and leadership development. Most of the records in the collection date from the period of SEDFRE's greatest activity during the mid-1960s, and consist of Administrative Files, which are the records of the executive director; Leadership Development Files; and Legal Department Files, collected and created by Carl Rachlin. Of the three, the files of the Legal Department are the largest and most comprehensive.