The Ladinsky Papers are an alphabetical subject file documenting their mutual and separate professional and social action activities. The most extensive materials document AADAC-CORE in which both Jack and Judy played prominent roles. Although a relatively small body of documentation, these files add significantly to the information about AADAC in the national CORE records which are also held by the Historical Society. Here correspondence, notes, and committee papers document well the extensive planning required to organize the diverse actions undertaken by the group.
AADAC was formed in March 1960 by University of Michigan students in order to support the southern civil rights movement and to focus attention on the need for change within the local community. The group's first actions consisted of weekly picketing of local Kresge and Woolworth stores in order to protest segregated lunch counters in the south. This continued for nine months at which time attention shifted to discrimination in public accommodations (Newport Beach Club and Dearborn), housing and real estate (Rule 9 of the Michigan Corporate and Securities Commission), and employment (Ann Arbor News). AADAC affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the fall of 1960. At this time its membership numbered about 200.
AADAC organizational materials include two versions of the constitution, publicity materials, the CORE affiliation applications, clippings, and several official reports. Two folders contain meeting minutes. While some of the meetings are represented by typed minutes, the majority are represented by rough notes or handwritten proceedings. They list members present, actions taken, issues raised, and outcomes produced and also illustrate the division of responsibilities within the group. In addition, a file of general correspondence documents contacts between CORE officials such as Charles Oldham and Marvin Rich with the Ladinskys and Anna Holden, who became the coordinator in 1961. Of particular interest is a threatening “crackpot” letter to Judith that suggests the risk civil rights activists took. The correspondence also represents AADAC's work with Michigan groups like the Human Relations Commission, Michigan Friends of the South, and the Ann Arbor Fair Housing Association. Other general files contain newspaper clippings, publicity, and membership lists.
A number of the files relate to specific actions undertaken by the organization such as the nine months of picketing in 1960 at local Kresge's and Woolworth stores in support of lunch counter sit-ins in the south, and additional picketing done at the national Kresge's headquarters in Detroit in 1961. This activity is represented by affidavits of AADAC members, including both Jack and Judy, who were arrested in April 1960 for violation of a city ordinance, planning materials, instructions on picketing behavior, flyers and The Picketeer newsletter, and photographs. These records include substantial correspondence to Kresge officials, including an open letter to President Harry Cunningham and some responses. The papers also include copies of two calls to action as well as correspondence aimed at gaining support for these demonstrations. Of particular interest is a copy of a flyer with comment by the Kresge manager who posted it in his store's window and attached notes refuting its claims. Efforts to desegregate the Newport Beach Club in 1960 are documented by minutes of negotiating sessions with the club owner, statements of members who participated in the stand-in at the beach, and photographs. Other files document the Dearborn Freedom Ride, which was an effort to test the segregation policies of an all-white suburb near Detroit; a blood drive conducted in support of blacks in Fayette County, Tennessee who were harassed for registering to vote; publicity in support of Rule 9 of the Michigan Corporation and Securities Commission which outlawed discrimination in real estate sales; and correspondence concerning discriminatory advertising by the Ann Arbor News. Materials relating to the Dearborn Freedom Ride include a confidential report listing nearly 40 restaurants tested for segregation policies and the level of service provided. The Pat Stevens Night file refers to publicity AADAC provided for a Florida A&M student jailed for sit-in protests at a Tallahassee Woolworth lunch counter.
VOICE was an Ann Arbor political party in which the Ladinskys were active. Included are the party platform, candidate flyers, newsletters, minutes, correspondence indicating cooperation with liberal campus groups (including AADAC), and some financial records. News clippings outline the party's activities such as a food drive conducted for Southern sharecroppers in Fayette County.
The Ladinskys' other activities in Ann Arbor are documented by mimeographed papers on SDS conferences in Ann Arbor and small files on local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Democratic Party, and the Socialist Party/Social Democratic Federation (SP/SDF). In the file entitled “Ann Arbor Miscellany” is a student paper on black leadership in Ann Arbor.
Jack's years at the University of Missouri are represented by small files on Brotherhood Week, Columbia-CORE, and campus cooperatives. The co-op material relates to Crest House Cooperative, of which Jack served as president; in addition there is correspondence, draft by-laws, conference materials, and newsletters of the Central League of Campus Cooperatives (in which he was also active), and proceedings of a North American Student Cooperative League (NASCL) conference at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Although Ladinsky served as secretary and coordinator of the Columbia chapter of CORE there is little unique documentation here except for a few copies of the chapter newsletter.
The fragmentary University of Wisconsin materials include proposals and policy decisions of the 1970 Wisconsin Committee to Stop the War, which, in correspondence, addresses the issue of a professor who did not meet with classes to protest the war. The Center for Social Organization research materials include a letter of planning for Jack as part of a panel on “the Negro in the North.”
