Head, James A., Sr.

Papers, 1925-1990

(AR 1133)

James Head was the owner of a Birmingham office supply company and active in many civic organizations. This collection includes material documenting Head’s involvement with the Civil Rights Commission, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

Size: 5 boxes

Jackson, Emory O.

Letters to Anne Rutledge, 1940-1975

(AR 1460)

Anne Rutledge was a student of Jackson's at Westfield High School. They remained friends and corresponded with each other for 35 years. Rutledge earned degrees from Alabama State University, Tuskegee, and Alabama A&M and made her career as a teacher, including 19 years as a history and political science professor at A&M. She retired in 1986 and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Rutledge has published several books of poetry including Double the Pleasure in 1988. These letters from Jackson address a variety of issues including Jackson's career and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and Rutledge's career as an artist and a teacher. The collection also includes a poem by Jackson called "I am the Negro Press" and a newspaper clipping on Rutledge.

Size: 1 box

Jackson, Emory O.

Papers, 1965-1975

(AR 70)

Emory Overton Jackson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia in 1908. His family moved to Birmingham in 1919, and Jackson attended Industrial High School (now Parker High School). After graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1932, Jackson taught at Carver High School in Dothan, Alabama, and at Westfield in Jefferson County. He served in World War II, and became the managing editor of the Birmingham World, Alabama's largest and oldest African-American newspaper, in 1941. He remained editor for the rest of his life. Jackson promoted voter registration, equal job opportunities and education for African Americans, and served on many boards and agencies, including Birmingham's Industrial Development Board. He was one of the founders of the Alabama Conference of NAACP Branches, and he served on the board of directors for the Fourth Avenue YMCA and the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity. Jackson died in Birmingham on September 10, 1975. The bulk of this collection is made up of material related to Emory Jackson's death. The collection also includes some personal correspondence, awards, honors, citations, membership cards, college and fraternity material, photographs, and editorials from the Birmingham World. Significantly more material relating to Jackson is found in the collection Birmingham World Office Files (AR 1102).

Size: 3 boxes

Jefferson County, Ala. Board of Education

Faculty Integration Papers, 1965-1973

(AR 747)

This collection contains correspondence, reports and court papers relating to the racial integration of faculty in the Jefferson County public school system.

Size: 1 box

Jefferson County Citizens’ Council

Records, 1964-1971

(AR 1763)

The first Citizens' Council was organized in Indianola, Mississippi in 1954, and eventually more than 60 Councils were organized in Alabama. A middle class alternative to the Ku Klux Klan, the Council used political and economic pressure to oppose racial integration. A substantial portion of the Jefferson County group came from the western areas of Birmingham and the western and northern areas of Jefferson County, including Bessemer, Warrior, Trafford, Gardendale, McCalla, and Fultondale. This collection contains minutes of meetings, membership lists, a copy of the guidebook and style manual The White Book of Citizens' Council Organization, and miscellaneous other material including a small amount of correspondence. The minutes and correspondence highlight the activities and concerns of the Citizens' Council, in particular concerns over the integration of schools. The group's activities included banquets and other events featuring guest speakers and campaigns to pressure politicians and business people to oppose racial integration. The records also show the decline of the Council movement in the late 1960s as the Jefferson County group lost membership and suffered near financial collapse.

Size: 1 box containing 359 pages

Jefferson County Coordinating Council of Social Forces

Interracial Committee, 1950-1956

(AR 535)

The Interracial Committee was established in 1951 by Birmingham white and African American leaders under the sponsorship of the Community Chest. The Commission was intended to facilitate communication between blacks and whites in Birmingham following a failed attempt to establish a local chapter of the National Urban League. The Commission was dissolved in 1956 after the Community Chest withdrew its support. The collection includes minutes of meetings.

Size: 2 reels microfilm

Jefferson County Coordinating Council of Social Forces

Papers, 1922-1968

(AR 16)

The Coordinating Council's Papers include minutes, records and other scrapbooks on Council activities, and annual reports (on microfilm) dating from 1939 through 1962. Aside from these annual reports, there are few records of the Council itself which date beyond 1951. The files of the Interracial Committee include minutes of organizational meetings, Executive Committee meetings, quarterly and annual meetings. Files of the Survey Committee, organized in 1951 to direct a survey of social and welfare needs in Jefferson County, include minutes, correspondence relating to the organization and staffing of a survey, and a report on preliminary recommendations for the scope of a survey. The collection also contains minutes of the Birmingham Service Organization, set up to provide recreation and other services for military men visiting or stationed in Birmingham. These minutes provide documentation of this group's activities, at least on a yearly basis, between 1952 and 1964, when it was disbanded.

Size: 1 reel microfilm

Jimerson, Norman C.

Oral History Interviews, 1992

(AR 1784)

In 1961, Norman Jimerson became the Executive Director of the Alabama Council on Human Relations, in Birmingham, Alabama. The Alabama Council was a state affiliate of the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Council. From his office in Birmingham, Jimerson traveled throughout the state visiting local chapters of the Alabama Council and attempted to establish lines of communication between the largely black Civil Rights leadership and demonstrators and the white business and civic leaders. He left the position in August 1964. This series of four oral history interviews, conducted by Norman Jimerson’s son Randall Jimerson in 1992, focus on the three years in which Norman Jimerson was the Executive Director of the Alabama Council on Human Relations and examine his role as a behind-the-scenes negotiator during the Civil Rights Movement.

Size: 1 box

Johnston, Paul

Papers, 1963-1980

(AR 99)

Paul Johnston is a Birmingham attorney. This collection contains personal and professional correspondence documenting Johnston’s involvement in civil rights cases, education, water fluoridation and other issues. The collection includes two files relating to Johnston’s defense of Gary Thomas Rowe, an FBI informant who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan and was present during the beating of Freedom Riders in Birmingham in 1961 and the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo following the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965.

Size: 4 boxes

Kennedy, Robert F.

Civil Rights Files on Alabama, 1961-1963

(AR 299)

This collection, photocopies of documents from the John F. Kennedy Library, contains correspondence and other material collected by Attorney General Kennedy relating to the Freedom Rides, the integration of the University of Alabama, civil rights activities in Birmingham and Gadsden, and meetings held with Alabama businessmen, attorneys and religious leaders.

Size: 1 box

King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Scrapbooks, 1956-1968

(AR 1205)

Newspaper clippings compiled by the staff of the Birmingham Public Library’s Southern History Department on King’s civil rights activities.

Size: 2 volumes

assorted business papers, photographs and scrapbooks. Among the photographs are images of civil rights protestors picketing the store in the early 1960s.

Size: 1 box

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