Memphis Cotton Makers Jubilee Program, 1955 May 9-14

This collection contains four program books, a diary, and a scrapbook related to the Memphis Cotton Makers’ Jubilee, an annual festival in Memphis, Tennessee, founded in 1935 by dentist Ransom Q. Venson and his wife Ethyl H. Venson to celebrate African American participation in the cotton industry.

The unbound scrapbook was created by Memphis native and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, student Ernestine Jones, winner of the 1951 “Spirit of Cotton” competition sponsored by the Jubilee for girls and women from historically Black colleges in the South. The scrapbook documents the 1951 contest and “Spirit of Cotton” tour (March 25 to April 24, 1951), during which Jones traveled to Washington, DC., Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, and Brookhaven and Alcorn, Mississippi, where she was interviewed by the Black press, met with white mayors and politicians, visited many Black colleges and schools, and modeled cotton clothing she had made. The diary by Jones relates the details of her tour, beginning on March 25, 1951, when they left Memphis, and ending on April 16, when they were in Houston. The scrapbook contains photographs, newspaper clippings, business cards, and memorabilia from the tour, including a clipping of Jones and Ethyl Venson meeting boxing heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles in New York, a clipping of Jones with John Sengstacke, editor of the Chicago Defender, and a typed unsigned note from educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune, apologizing for her absence from a tour-related luncheon in Washington, as well as materials related to other "Spirit of Cotton" contestants and a few items about Jones's upcoming marriage in summer 1951 to Pine Bluff A. M. & N. instructor Alvin Montero Brown.

The programs range from thirty-six to fifty pages and cover the years 1951, 1952, 1954, and 1955. Each program contains ads for Black-owned businesses in Memphis, items about committee members and the festival's royal court, and photographs and captions depicting many leading African American Memphis citizens, including W. C. Handy, natonal honorary president of the festival, along with some supportive white community members. There are a number of photographs depicting the "Spirit of Cotton" tour for each year. The programs also contain essays by R. Q. Venson, Ethyl Venson, Nat D. Williams, and others, explaining the origin and aims of the Jubilee.