Glad Tidings 2013: Wonderful Students and a Christmas Sermon from Reverend Black

It has been a while since I've posted, and things have been very busy with the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers project. We've finished work on one grant, and are beginning work with another grant-funded 16mm film preservation project. Preparations are underway for a busy Spring 2014 semester, which includes an official unveiling celebration of the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers; an academic panel discussion of the legacy of Reverend Black; and increased use of the collection in classes in the curriculum.

Along with my two exceedingly industrious student workers, Brandi Russell ('15) and Darcie Marquardt ('16), we have met our halfway mark to get 5,000 additional digital files into the digital collections.  Before I share the Christmas sermon, I want to share the goal-marking poster that Brandi was inspired to create completely on her own initiative -- it provides encouraging words along the way, and helps us appreciate our progress. With young people like this, we need not worry (as much!) about the future...Needless to say, it is a gift to have both Brandi and Darcie working on the project.

 

In the last few months we have put in hundreds of digital files of sermons into the digital collections. In this undated Christmas sermon entitled "Hours of God" from Sermons by Bible Book: Matthew (part 3) [image 14], Reverend Claude W. Black, Jr. preaches that the practice of love is redemptive of all the woes in the world:

The family experiences of love expressed at Christmas in giving and receiving gifts should be recognized as possessing world possibilities....."God so loved the world"  Love is not simply a family experience but can embrace the world as a redemptive power....

Love releases our gifts...

Love determines the character of our gifts...

Love is for you

With these thoughts to ponder, I wish all to have a celebratory season and a prosperous new year!

-- Donna Guerra

"Capitols, Washington and Austin," August 28, 1963

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the March for Jobs and Freedom (known as the March on Washington) in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963. Commemorative events are planned from August 21 - August 28, and may be followed at the anniversary Twitter account and  hashtag: #MLKDREAM50.
The original Washington march was attended by approximately 250,000 people, both African American and white. A quote from that day by Josephine Baker, the only official female speaker at the March on Washington, conveys something of the spirit of the occasion:

"You are together as salt and pepper, just as you should be; just as I've always wanted you to be, and the peoples of the world have always wanted you to be."

(begin at 22:37 mins., from Celebrity Participation in the March on Washington, see sources and audio link)

On the same day as the March on Washington, Reverend Black, along with other black, white, and brown Texas civil rights leaders, participated in a sympathy march in Austin, Texas. This post is about that particular march.

The Claude and ZerNona Black Papers contain many audiotape reels, the majority of which have now been digitized through a Summerlee Foundation grant. One of these reels is pictured here:

We are very grateful that with the gracious permission of Mr. Greg Martin, Director of Operations, Border Media/KTSA Radio, we are able to stream this important audio that documents the Austin march, Austin Civil Rights March, Speeches, and Interviews, 1963.

This recording was produced by a reporter from KTSA Radio, San Antonio, Texas. The tape begins with an interview by the reporter with Bob Joiner of the Indignant White Citizens Council (IWCC). The recording also includes a fragment of a speech on Mt. Sequoyah, Arkansas; speeches by Reverend Claude W. Black, Jr.; Booker T. Bonner; Moses LeRoy; Attorney William J. Durham, Dallas, president of the Texas Council of Voters; and an interview with Booker T. Bonner (the total playing time is 39:18 minutes).

In an informative chapter by Martin Kuhlman titled "The Civil Rights March in Austin, Texas, 1963," from the book Bricks Without Straw: A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas (see sources below), we get a clear sense of the Texas context of the Austin march. Then Texas Governor John Connally, well-known as a segregationist, presented opposition to the civil rights bill being proposed in Washington. The Democratic Coalition, comprised of African American, Anglo American and Mexican American leaders across Texas, was working against the poll tax and the rhetoric that Connally and other segregationists were using that encouraged "voluntary" integration. Reverend Black puts the point eloquently in this excerpt from his editorial, "The Decision Takers":

"Voluntary integration leaves the Negro where he has always been - subject to the will of another man, for no other reason than the color of his skin. Voluntary integration compels the Negro to cultivate the favor of the white individual in an effort to receive those benefits that should be granted to him as a responsible citizen. It is at this point that the Negro citizen must weight the benevolent attitude of the white politicians. I am sure that many Negroes are weary, as I am weary, of those programs that require that I play the part of a second class man in order to survive in a white community."

Included in the additional and many writings of Reverend Black available in our Digital Collections is a commentary with his reflections on the significance of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in Washington, D.C. as well as on the Austin, Texas Civil Rights March. His comments stress the ramifications for Negros who assume roles as leaders. 
Capitols, Washington and Austin, by Reverend Black, 1963

And, through the important film digitization work of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) in Austin, Texas, there is also a video from the Gordon Wilkison collection, Civil Rights Demonstration in Austin, 1963, that provides visual documentation of the Austin march.

In this time of commemoration of civil rights marches in 1963 and the issues represented, we can also celebrate access to the historical documents that  make study of them and social justice movements possible, and our appreciation for archives, donors, and all those who safeguard the evidence of our diverse history.


Sources:
Celebrity Participation in the March on Washington. (08/28/1963). Boston, MA: WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/march-bc109d-celebrity-participation-in-the-march-on-washington

Kuhlman, M. (1997). Chapter 9: The Civil Rights March on Austin, Texas, 1963. In, Bricks Without Straw: A Comprehensive History of African Americans in Texas (p. 153). Eakin Press (a.k.a. Sunbelt Media).  Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
(Permalink): http://libproxy.trinity.edu:80/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tih&AN=19177376&site=ehost-live

Texas State Historical Association, "Civil Rights." Retrieved 20 Aug 2013
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pkcfl

Student Days -- Reverend Black at Andover Newton Theological School, 1940s

Here at Trinity University, all anticipate the end of the semester, and student and faculty life is abuzz as projects and papers are due, and seniors wrap up their undergraduate life.  The digital collections contain two sets of photographs that represent Reverend Black's own time as a student at Andover Newton Theological Seminary (as it was called in those days) in Newton, Massachusetts, which he attended from 1940 to 1943.  The photographs are candid snapshots, primarily of Reverend Black and his fellow students studying, or enjoying leisure time and each others company in their residential dormitory.
Over the years of his life, Reverend Black often remarked that his time at the school was the first time he had ever lived in a non-segregated society. The experience was no doubt similar for other African Americans from the South attending Andover Newton Theological Seminary in the years before desegregation of the South. As is seen in the second photo, Samuel H. James, Jr. was also at the school at the time. He became Reverend S.H. James of the Second Baptist Church in San Antonio, was the first African American elected as councilman to the San Antonio city council, and was a founding civil rights leader in San Antonio in his own right.
Others who went on to become influential ministers also appear in some of the photographs, such as Alfonso Leon Lowry and Edward McCreary. The Trinity Digital Collections provides access to the thesis Reverend Black wrote to gain his degree, Communism as a Religion, made available by kind permission of the Franklin Trask Library at Andover Newton Theological School.

Claude W. Black, Jr. at study
Andover photos, part one 

Samuel H. James, Jr.

Andover photos, part one

Group photo
Andover photos, part one 

Student reflections Andover photos, part one

Playing chess

Andover photos, part two

The "Lunch Bunch"

Thanks to Jeremy Donald, our Faculty Technology Liaison Librarian, a "blog/share" button has been added to the all of the images in the Trinity Digital Collections to allow embedded sharing of images in blogs or websites. Below I have shared a photo from the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers, using the button:

Reverend Claude W. Black and the Lunch Bunch group, 2001

Link

A post on the blog of Elias Tzoc, a Digital Initiatives Librarian at Miami University, talks about the PHP and Java code he put together for this function, and I thought it would great to see if it would work with our collections. Happily, it does. If you use CONTENTdm and are interested in using this feature, Elias provides instructions for creating the "share-it" button.
The button provides greater potential for student and researcher access, as by clicking on the word "Link" below the image, it links back to the image in the Digital Collections, providing the information necessary to understand and properly credit the source.
The image seen here portrays a meeting of the "Lunch Bunch" (a monthly gathering of a variety of friends interested in local activism and social justice, and that Reverend Black met with from the 1960s at least until 2006). This particular 2001 meeting photo includes (from left to right) Arnold Flores, Herschel "Herky" Bernard, Reverend Black, Albert A. Peña, and Charles [surname undetermined].

Glad Tidings 2012 -- Updates and Themes

Glad tidings for researchers! Our web presence is growing, with the online appearance of the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers finding aid, as well as with initial digital content in the CONTENTdm Digital Collections.  Over time, most of the digitized items will be linked from the finding aid to the digital collections website. Wherever a green arrow is seen in the finding aid (like the one highlighted in the following image), clicking through will arrive at material in the digital collections. Green arrows that indicate the presence of digital content are also found within the body of the finding aid, but the initial arrow at the top allows the researcher to view all the linked digital content from the top of the finding aid without having to scroll through and find it.

 

Clicking through from the green arrow at the top of the finding aid to the item “The Christmas Message” will take the researcher to an editorial by Reverend Black, in which he expresses his thoughts on the spirit of Christmas, and how it is usually not found in commercial greeting cards. Here is the direct link to that editorial:
The Christmas Message, by Reverend Black, 1963

Regarding the spirit of Christmas, commercialism, and greeting cards, the collection also includes some ephemera directly related to this topic – African American Christmas cards, specifically, “The Christmas Soul” assortment, “18 Golden Trimmed Christmas Cards With Soul Sentiments.”

The cards were manufactured by a company called Merchant Prince, started by Berkeley G. Burrell, a businessman and advocate for minority enterprises, who was active in private and government-appointed positions.

In an article in Jet Magazine entitled "Greeting Card Firm to Pass $1 Million in Sales" (December 3, 1970, p.24), Mr. Burrell states that he started his business because the greeting card industry “has neglected the Black market and today’s strongly emerging attitude of self-pride and self-identification among Blacks.”  The cards in this set contain images such as a Black Mary and infant Jesus; Black three kings looking toward the star of the East; and, a Black drummer boy, among other depictions. The interior sentiments are predominantly religious, with wishes for peace. love and brotherhood.

Here's to many wishes for a happy holiday season, and for a productive new year, filled with digital content from the Claude and ZerNona Black Papers! 

-- Donna Morales Guerra, Project Archivist