The collection is arranged as 3 series:
The Community Brainstorming Conference Files document the
activities of, and Van Horne's participation in, the Community Brainstorming
Conference (CBC). Included are board meeting minutes, correspondence between Van
Horne and other board members, speaker details, and publicity for events hosted by
the CBC.
The General Correspondence File is an artificial series
assembled from files maintained in various locations in Van Horne's Mitchell Hall
office. The files are a combination of correspondence relating to the Afro-American
Studies Department, the Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the Community Brainstorming
Conference, and Van Horne's own scholarly work. In a few cases, the main
correspondent is specifically named in the folder heading, but this series is
primarily a chronological file of miscellaneous correspondence.
The Writings and Publications series consists primarily of
notes and drafts of various manuscripts and publications by Van Horne, as well as
correspondence between Van Horne and collaborators and publishers. Many of these
books and articles, particularly the ones pertaining directly to Africology as a
discipline, were seminal works in the field at the time of publication, and the
files include corrections and notes that illustrate Van Horne's thought process
during their composition.
