Racism

Scope and Contents This item is a small, four-paneled propaganda pamphlet published in 1920 by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, reprinting an article titled "Scum o’ the Melting-Pot" originally written by journalist Herbert Kaufman. The pamphlet, designed for mass distribution, presents a nativist, anti-immigrant narrative warning of the alleged cultural and racial “subversion” of the United States by immigrants deemed non-Anglo-Saxon.Kaufman’s article invokes early twentieth-century eugenicist and...

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One broadside from an 1816-1837 contemporary Bobalition series that satirized the annual July 14th Abolition Day celebrations for African Americans. This broadside has an imprint from "The Flying Booksellers," a woodcut image, and text in three columns.

Scope and Contents This typed letter, sent by retired Admiral John G. Crommelin in his role as trustee of the Elmore County White Citizens' Council (Wetumpka, Alabama), is addressed to Senator William Knowland regarding the Civil Rights Bill that Knowland had sponsored. In the letter, Crommelin accuses Jewish individuals of promoting the bill and claims that Knowland was influenced to sponsor it. He protests the construction of National Guard armories in Alabama, asserting that they could be staffed by federal...

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Two letters from Jos. (Joseph?) J. France, a nineteenth-century medical school student from Ghana at the University of Pennsylvania, to his benefactor Dr. Sims in Leopoldville in the Congo. There is also one letter from A. Sims to a Dr. Beckley that discusses France.

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Impression of seal used by the Klan in, Alabama Sylacauga during the 1910s and 1920s.

Scope and Contents This collection consists of three items related to the long-running boycott of Coors beer, a campaign that spanned nearly twenty years and was supported by anti-racist activists, feminists, union organizers, and the LGBT community. The boycott targeted Coors for its alleged discriminatory labor practices, conservative political ties, and anti-union stance.Included in the collection are:An unused bumper sticker (3 x 12 inches) promoting the boycott; an 8.5 x 11-inch...

Scope and Contents This item is a small propaganda poster titled "This Man is a Political Prisoner," issued by the United Klans of America (UKA) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1969. Measuring 8.5 x 11 inches, the poster is printed in blue, red, and black ink on card stock. The design promotes UKA Imperial Wizard Robert M. Shelton as a victim of government persecution following his 1969 imprisonment for contempt of Congress, after he refused to surrender Klan membership rolls to federal investigators. The poster...

Scope and Contents This item is a broadside titled "Save Our Land Join the Klan," created by the United Klans of America, circa 1960s. Measuring 8.5 x 11 inches and printed in black ink on thick stock paper, the broadside features a stylized image of a robed Klansman atop a rearing horse, holding a flaming cross. The slogan "For God and Country" is printed across a grass-covered landscape, accompanied by the recruitment address: "Join the Klan, P.O. Box 2369, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 35401." The item is notable...

Scope and Contents This item is a tri-fold recruitment brochure titled "An Introduction to the United Klans of America," published circa 1970 by the organization’s national office in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Printed on green cardstock, the brochure outlines the UKA’s ideological and organizational mission, and serves as a primer for prospective members. It includes a stylized history of the Ku Klux Klan following the Civil War, a summary of the group’s core values (“Americanism First,” “Benevolence,” and...

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A Communist Party report on the South, which describes its natural resources, the poverty and exploitation of its farmers, sharecroppers and tenants, and the root if its "backwardness": the "national oppression of the Negro people in the Black Belt." The report concludes with the Communist Party's commitment to fighting white chauvinism and in uniting mass organizations in the struggle against the oppression of African Americans.

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One pamphlet containing speeches from The Clansman andThe Leopard's Spots, which were two Thomas Dixon Jr. novels popularized by Southern segregationists. Dixon's raisonneurs expound on the "inability of Blacks to rise above primitiveness" and their increasing "threat" to White civilization following their emancipation.

Scope and Contents This broadside contains excerpts from a 1957 speech by E.C. Barnard, a Mobile City Commission candidate and a leader in the local Ku Klux Klan. The document reflects the segregationist rhetoric of the period and serves as a historical artifact of the mid-twentieth-century struggle for civil rights in the American South.The 1957 local election in Mobile was a pivotal moment, with Joseph Langan, a moderate with progressive views on race, running against Barnard. The election also...