Archives Unbound:
American Studies
 
Archives Unbound: American Studies

Supporting a deep dive into American culture, primary source materials in this collection help researchers explore music, art, literature, and cinema from all regions of the country in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Activism and Organizations

African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress, 1933-1947 - The National Negro Congress was established in 1936 to "secure the right of the Negro people to be free from Jim Crowism, segregation, discrimination, lynching, and mob violence" and "to promote the spirit of unity and cooperation between Negro and white people." It was conceived as a national coalition of church, labor, and civil rights organizations that would coordinate protest action in the face of deteriorating economic conditions for blacks. The National Negro Congress (NNC) was the culmination of the Communist Party's Depression-era effort to unite black and white workers and intellectuals in the fight for racial justice and marked the apex of Communist Party prestige in African American communities. This collection comprises of the voluminous working files of John P. Davis and successive executive secretaries of the National Negro Congress. Beginning with papers from 1933 that predate the formation of the National Negro Congress, the wide-ranging collection documents Davis’s involvement in the Negro Industrial League and includes the "Report Files" of Davis’s interest and work on the "Negro problem."

America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, The Vietnam Veterans Against the War - The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) started in 1967 with six Vietnam veterans marching for peace in New York City. The purpose of the organization was to give voice to the returning servicemen who opposed the ongoing war in Southeast Asia. From six soldiers in 1967, the ranks of the membership eventually grew to over 30,000. This publication consists of FBI reports dealing with every aspect of antiwar work carried out by the VVAW. The collection also includes surveillance of a variety of other antiwar groups and individuals, with an emphasis on student groups and Communist organizations.

Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s - Organized alphabetically by organization, this collection covers a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, cultural, and economic issues. It sheds light on internal organizations, personnel, and activities of some of the most prominent American radical groups and their movements to change American government and society.

Grassroots Civil Rights & Social Activism: FBI Files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. - The FBI files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. that make up this collection were assembled by Dr. Gerald Horne, author of Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party, and the breadth of issues addressed by these records is astounding. Davis served as a leader in the local, district, and national leadership bodies of the Communist Party USA and thus concerned himself with a broad range of organizational, political, and theoretical questions. There is news of grassroots organizing successes and failures, minutes from meetings held on all the levels on which Davis engaged, and reports from member-informers on all the major political and theoretical debates.

Greensboro Massacre, 1979 - On November 3, 1979, a rally and march of black industrial workers and Communists was planned in Greensboro, North Carolina against the Ku Klux Klan. The “Death to the Klan March” was to begin in a predominantly black housing project called Morningside Homes. Communist organizers publicly challenged the Klan to present themselves and "face the wrath of the people". During the rally, a caravan of cars containing Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party drove by the housing projects where the Communists and other anti-Klan activists were congregating. What then occurred is in dispute, from rock-throwing and taunts on both sides to the sound of gunfire and deaths of five protest marchers. This collection of FBI, local and state police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, shed new light on the motivations of the Communist organizers, the shootings, subsequent investigations, and efforts to heal the Greensboro community.

Liberation Movement in Africa and African America - The archive is based on the film title, Administrative Histories of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidency, Science and Technology.

Papers of Amiri Baraka, Poet Laureate of the Black Power Movement - Amiri Baraka is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist. As a young man in the 1960s, Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) galvanized a second Black Renaissance, the Black Arts movement. The ideological and political transformations of Amiri Baraka from a Beat poet in Greenwich Village into a militant political activist in Harlem and Newark were paradigmatic for the Black Revolt of the 1960s.

Republic of New Afrika - The FBI believed the Republic of New Afrika to be a seditious group and conducted raids on its meetings, which led to violent confrontations, and the arrest and repeated imprisonment of RNA leaders. The group was a target of the COINTELPRO operation by the federal authorities but was also subject to diverse Red Squad activities of Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department, among other cities. This collection provides documentation collected by the FBI through intelligence activities, informants, surveillance, and cooperation with local police departments. These documents chronicle the activities of the Republic of New Afrika national and local leaders, power struggles within the organization, its growing militancy, and its affiliations with other Black militant organizations.

The Hindu Conspiracy Cases: Activities of the Indian Independence Movement in the U.S., 1908-1933 - During World War I, Indian nationalists took advantage of Great Britain’s preoccupation with the European war by attempting to foment revolution in India to overthrow British rule. Their activities were aided politically and financially by the German Government. Indian nationalists in the United States were active in the independence movement effort through fundraising, arms buying, and propaganda through the Hindustan Ghadar newspaper published in San Francisco. The Justice Department and U.S. Attorney records reproduced herein primarily concern the U.S. government’s prosecution of these nationalists in the “Hindu Conspiracy Case” for violations of the Espionage Act (40 Stat. 217-231) arising from two major incidents. The Immigration and Naturalization Service records reproduced herein relate to efforts to revoke the citizenship of certain Indians naturalized as U.S. citizens, as well as to general efforts to exclude Indians from admission to the United States and Canada.

The Minutemen, 1963-1969: Evolution of the Militia Movement in America, Part I - The Minutemen was a militant anti-Communist organization formed in the early 1960s. The founder and head of the right-wing group was Robert Bolivar DePugh, a veterinary medicine entrepreneur from Norborne, Missouri. The Minutemen believed that Communism would soon take over all of America. The group armed themselves, and was preparing to take back the country from the “subversives.” The Minutemen organized themselves into small cells and stockpiled weapons for an anticipated counter-revolution.

War, Peace, and Democracy in America: Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 1940-1942 - The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA) was an advocacy organization formed in May 1940 to persuade the American public that the United States should supply the Allies with as much material and financial aid as possible to keep the U.S. out of the war. The wealth of CDAAA's publications shed light on the political attitudes of the time. Publications include flyers, pamphlets, cartoons, newsletters, newspaper advertisements and clippings, postcards, press releases, a syndicated column called "It Makes Sense", radio transcripts, speeches, petitions, and policy statements. The Subject Files document the many organizations to which the Committee was sympathetic, as well as the many isolationist organizations to which the Committee was opposed. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, CDAAA acknowledged that its work had come to an end, and in January 1942, it merged with the Council for Democracy to form Citizens for Victory To Win the War, To Win the Peace.

War, Peace, and Democracy in America: Fight for Freedom, Inc. Records, c. 1940-1942 - Fight for Freedom, Inc. (FFF), a national citizen's organization established in April 1941, was a leading proponent of full American participation in World War II. An offshoot of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, FFF was supported by average citizens, as well as prominent educators, labor leaders, authors and playwrights, clergy, stage and screen actors, newspapermen, and politicians. Pearl Harbor effectively ended the isolationist-interventionist debate, and by early 1942 FFF disbanded. Items in this collection consist of correspondence, subject files, memoranda, financial records, state and local organization materials, membership and contributor rosters, press releases and speeches, and printed ephemera such as posters, advertisements, and display items.