ZerNona Stewart comes to San Antonio, 1943

ZerNona Stewart Black was a person who pursued her goals with energy, all throughout her life.  After completing a YWCA-USO course in New York City and field training at the USO office in El Paso, Texas, (then) ZerNona Stewart arrived in San Antonio in 1943. Shortly thereafter, she began her new position on July 5th of the same year, as assistant at the YWCA-USO at 112 Sycamore Street.

In the book, Grandpa Was a Preacher: A Letter to my Grandson (by Claude W. Black, Jr. with Taj I. Matthews, Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007), Reverend Black reveals his impression of ZerNona's qualities when first meeting her at the USO:

She told me that she had always set high goals for herself and felt the need to do more for others. I believed her...She was a go-getter.  (p. 53)

The Young Womens Christian Association (YWCA) was instrumental in the formation of United Service Organization clubs, or USOs, all over the United States. The USO club was formed to support the morale of military personnel and their families during the Second World War. As a reflection of the times, USO clubs were racially segregated (or not), based on the practice of local communities. The Sycamore Street USO was segregated, based on the Jim Crow practices in San Antonio at the time.

Later, ZerNona Stewart would become Director of the club.  Articles about her work and photographs of club programs and events appeared regularly in one of the local African American newspapers of the time, the San Antonio Register.  Again, from the book, Grandpa Was A Preacher, Reverend Black talks about ZerNona's work at the USO:

In my opinion, her leadership of the USO was outstanding. ZerNona had the ability to motivate those young people. She had created successful programs, provided job training, and improved the overall services that Colored USOs offered. (p. 51)

 It was in 1946 that ZerNona Stewart and Claude W. Black, Jr. would be married. I will share more on ZerNona Stewart Black's background and life in future posts.

In the Archival Trenches

It has been a few months since I began work with the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers here at Coates Library.  The majority of the first two months work was primarily a combination of surveying, physically acquiring, and preliminary accessioning and processing, all at once.  The following photos will give a glimpse into that journey.

  The collection in its raw state --

not for the faint of heart!

Sifting through dusty, deep piles of  materials (wearing nitrile gloves) across three rooms of a house, a remote office and an outdoor shed, has yielded approximately 100 cubic feet of an archival collection.  The three pictures seen above give a candid view into what an archivist might find as the original point of entry -- somewhere in there I had to find the collection. The endeavor took 120 hours of February and March afternoons. Happily, I found a very willing volunteer in Elias Guetaneh, who had been an intern extraordinaire for me at the City of San Antonio Municipal Archives and Records. Elias joined me for the March portion of this treasure hunt.  His cheerfulness, excellent eye, and enthusiasm (and height!) made the evaluation, heavy lifting, photographing, access to materials near the ceiling,  and copious note-taking much less daunting.
Spying original order was a challenge, but it was possible to find meaningful arrangement -- each physical location revealed rough time frames and materials relevant to them. The attic, for instance, had some of the earliest records (from the turn of the century), and most of the Baptist Convention materials (Reverend Black was active with the American Baptist Convention for many years), and most of ZerNona Black's community organization records and educational materials.

Progress, ready for pickup, as shown in the office

When packing materials up, I retained meaningful groupings whenever possible and made notes on the box itself and on a spreadsheet, giving each box a unique identifier with an indication of the room it came from.  In my experience, you never know how useful that information can be until after the fact, at the time of processing and creating the finding aid. Because the storage of the collection over many years has been in a hot attic, a turn-of-the-century home with highly fluctuating environmental conditions, and an outdoor shed, the materials are being treated anaerobically (no chemicals, but deprivation of oxygen in a vacuum chamber) for pests and cleaned by hepa vacuum. I eagerly await the arrival of a clean collection any day now.

After having gone through this process, I have laid eyes on most of the items in the collection. In addition, with all the documentation so far, I have started background research, put together a preservation supply order for the entire collection, begun solid work on the finding aid in Archon, and am exploring digitization needs and costs for formats that we cannot do in-house.
So, for now, "Onward, ho!"

Cloud Nine

This is the last weekend of Trinity University's production of Cloud Nine. Ticket information is available on the theatre website. Make sure you check it out!

It turns out that Trinity University performed this play back in 1985, just a few years after it was written. After seeing the two posters created for the 2012 production I wondered how the Theatre Department advertised for the previous iteration of the production. So, from the archives, the program for Trinity University's production of Cloud Nine in 1985:

Also, here's the review of the play from the Trinitonian in 1985:

Stratton, Sean. Everything's different on "Cloud Nine." (1985, October 25). Trinitonian, pp.7-8.

 

--Amy Roberson, Special Collections and Archives Librarian, Assistant Professor

Zero Mass

As Amy and I were shelving recently donated art books, we were intrigued by a Styrofoam box, covered in a cardboard sleeve, sitting casually between two other volumes. The mysterious packaging convinced us both that we should open it right away. Nested inside the Styrofoam package, were two harmless, unembellished items: a dark metallic book and a ball of fired clay a little smaller than my fist.

              
After the anticlimactic reveal, I removed the book from its package. The cover was made of metal, and the edges seemed to have been made intentionally sharp. The words emblazoned on the title page read “Zero Mass: The Art of Eric Orr” and beneath that was a signature “Tim, Thank you, Eric.” A quote on the next page, the lone image of a coffee stain on the one after that. Page 25 was blank and torn in half. The following section contained a segmented short story, the next, a series of quotes and the next, artworks. On my way through the book, I encountered the very center page, a blank expanse of soft red paper. Then followed a chapter entitled “Nexus,” containing a series of mathematical equations, and a section of letters to the artist.

              
At the end of the book there was a colophon with copyright information and the like. I did find two rather surprising facts there, however. The first was that what I thought was a coffee ring at the beginning of the book was not a coffee ring at all, but a rubber stamp of the artist’s blood. I’ll admit, I went back to examine it again more closely. The second fact was even more startling. The center page of soft red paper, the colophon told me, was handmade using kozo fibers and powdered mummy skull, and I’ll admit, I went back and touched it again.

              
I wasn’t sure exactly what Zero Mass was supposed to be. It contained everything and the kitchen sink, but what I really wished for was an instruction manual. Perhaps I don’t possess the sensibility necessary to appreciate Orr’s art, but I will always appreciate the ability to say to someone, “Come look at this book. Feel this red paper. Isn’t it soft?” 

--Kate Cuellar '15, Special Collections and Archives Student Assitant

Eighteen Negro Ministers Protest Selma Violence, March 10, 1965

This 1965 newspaper clipping from one of Reverend Black's carefully assembled scrapbooks is a powerful one.  From the March 10, 1965 edition of the San Antonio Light newspaper, it reveals how the power of place can be used to magnify an important message -- here, kneeling in prayer in front of the Alamo, eighteen ministers express solidarity with the peaceful voting rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. On March 7th of the same week, televisions across the nation showed Alabama policemen attacking the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers, in what would later be called "Bloody Sunday" by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

In Reverend Black's own words:

"We come to this place because we recognize it to be a symbol of freedom."

An Ode To Moody

This blog will also feature entries about the history of Trinity University as told by the items accessible through Special Collections and Archives. We will introduce the various types of materials we have as well at the tools you will need to locate (and even view!) some of those items.

As noted in a recent press release from University Communications, the William L. Moody, Jr. Engineering Science Building will be demolished in the near future. Special Collections and Archives recently received a new addition to our collection, a t-shirt celebrating Moody and engineering at Trinity University.

Trinity University Engineers T-Shirt

In fact, we have a number of t-shirts in our collection, from organizations such as Alpha Phi Omega, Phonathon, and more for your viewing pleasure. During the school year, we are open Monday-Friday, 1:15pm to 5pm. Check the Special Collections and Archives website for exceptions to those hours.

-Amy Roberson, Special Collections and Archives Librarian, Assistant Professor

Trinity University Acquires the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers

This is the first blog entry for the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers acquisition by the Special Collections and Archives in the Elizabeth Huth Coates Library, Trinity University.  I was hired as a project archivist for the collection in February 2012, and have been busy packing up the collection at the donor's home (I'll have more on that in the following posts -- an adventure in itself!).

I have posted a of couple images of the Trinity University press release from February 28, 2012, as it introduces the significance and the breadth of the collection. One important aspect of the collection is that it fills an historical need for primary resource material about the civil rights movement not only in the city of San Antonio but in the southwest region of the United States.

My entries in this blog will serve in part as a kind of travel diary, on the processing journey of this very large archival collection. It will also provide an opportunity to share discoveries along the way, so that the vigorous activity and influence of both Reverend Black and his wife, ZerNona, will become more widely known.

I look forward to posting here, so check back often!

-- Donna Morales Guerra, Project Archivist for the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers

Trinity University press release from February 28, 2012