African American Voices and History in University Collections

Retiring from long careers in urban ministry and social work in 1934, Indiana University alumni Frank O. Beck and his wife Daisy returned to their alma mater to serve as unofficial counselors to the student body and the administration. Collection consists of correspondence, research, publications, biographical material, and records relating to their gift of Beck Chapel. Prominent in the collection are Frank’s research and writing on race relations, aging, and social and economic equality in Chicago.

Camilla Williams was an internationally acclaimed soprano opera vocalist who broke racial bias barriers in society as well as professionally. Miss Williams came to Indiana University in 1977 as a professor of voice at the Jacobs School of Music. The collection contains performance posters, correspondence, clippings about her career and former student’s accomplishments, photographs, awards, plaques, and scrapbooks.

Leon E. Pettiway was a professor of criminology at Indiana University from 1994-2012. One of his major contributions to the field were a product of his research for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) where he employed the assistance of former offenders and recovered drug users to conduct interviews of active drug users and offenders in North Philadelphia. His books Honey, Honey, Miss Thang: Being Black, Gay, and on the Streets (1996) and Workin' It: Women Living through Drugs and Crimes (1997) each gained Pettiway national recognition for being one of the first to observe how race, class, and gender intersect and influence the criminal behavior of urban individuals. This collection consists of interviews conducted as part of that project as well as the data that resulted from them.

Sally Lied received her M.S. in Education from Indiana University in 1963, her Ed.D in 1972 and J.D. in 1974. She also worked for the university as a residential counselor at Foster Quadrangle and later director of the Foster Project. This collection includes materials pertaining to social movements and residential programs at IU in the late 1960s, as well as materials from Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968.

Charlie Nelms (b. 1946) served in executive leadership roles for the Indiana University system for a total of twenty-four years between 1978 and 2007. This collection spans Nelms’ personal life and professional career in university administration at IU and other institutions. The collection includes writings, correspondence, publications and reports, and ephemera.

Black Focus was a newsletter published in the early 1980s by the Black Culture Center. The purpose of the newsletter was to provide more responsible coverage of Black campus news and to establish communication among Black students.

The Indiana University Student Senate was formed in 1948 due in large part to the influence of IU President Herman B Wells. The Student Senate was charged with upholding the ideals proclaimed in the Student Government Constitution. This collection is predominantly comprised of administrative files such as meetings minutes, bills and resolutions, and subject files covering the period 1938 through 1979.

Student government at Indiana University was officially formed in April 1948 due in large part to the influence of IU President Herman B Wells. Following a series of name changes, student government in 1973 became known as the Indiana University Student Association (IUSA), as it is known today. This collection consists of the records of the IUSA including: Meeting minutes and agendas; resolutions; administrative files; records of the IUSA President , Vice-President for Senate/ Congress, Vice- President for Administration, Treasurer and the Supreme Court; association, committee and department files; and issue, project and subject files. These records primarily cover the period from 1973-2010.

The Union Board serves as the governing body for the Indiana Memorial Union, which organizes various events and activities for students on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. Established in 1909, the Union Board has since developed into the largest student programming body at Indiana University. The Collection consists of minutes of Union Board meetings and a variety of administrative documents and materials related to past programs, activities, and events.

The Student Religious Cabinet existed as a student group at Indiana University from 1938 to at least 1951. The Student Religious Cabinet’s purpose was to promote interest in religion, bring about fellowship among students of diverse religious affiliations, and sponsor activities meant to counteract religious and racial injustice. The collection contains meeting notes and attendance records from 1938 to 1951 and publications including The Voice of Religion on Indiana University Campus, Communique, pamphlets from a War-Time Victory for Brotherhood program held from 1943 until 1945, and the Campus Home Front , another student publication concerned with the war effort, published in 1943.

Omega Psi Phi is a predominantly African American fraternity. The Zeta Epsilon chapter was chartered at Indiana University in 1947. The collection consists of records created and collected by the Zeta Epsilon chapter and includes program materials, minutes and reports from national, district, and local meetings.

The Spectator began its existence as a weekly student newspaper in January 1966, when it was recognized as a registered Indiana University organization by the I.U. Board of Student Publications. This charter was revoked by the university administration in 1968, but the paper remained in publication as an independent paper in Bloomington, Indiana until 1970.

The Black Student Voice was a newsletter published by the "Office of Afro-American Affairs" at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This group was established by Black student activists in the spring of 1968 as a means of advocating for the creation of a formal university office to oversee the academic, social, and financial wellbeing of Black students, faculty, and staff, as well as an academic program in Black Studies. The collection contains four issues of The Black Student Voice newsletter, which the Office published weekly throughout the month of July 1968.

The African American Arts Institute (AAAI) is the nation's first and only credit-bearing university program dedicated to the performance and promotion of Black music and dance. An ongoing project, the Archives has partnered with AAAI to scan and add their photograph collection to the Archives photo database. The collection includes photographs, negatives, and born digital images dating from 1977.

The IU Archives holds a vast photograph and negative collection that comprises approximately two-million images. The majority of these were shot by Indiana University’s Photographic Services Department, Athletic Department, and News Bureau. The remaining images were shot mostly by local professional photographers, alumni, and faculty.

Will Counts was a photographer nearly his entire life, and for 32 years served as a Professor of Journalism at Indiana University. He worked for the Arkansas-Democrat in Little Rock, Arkansas, and The Associated Press in Chicago, but is well known for the photographs he shot of desegregation at Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. His book, A Life is More Than A Moment, documents the event through his images and text. Additional Little Rock photos can be found in the general photo database: https://go.iu.edu/3I6h

Charles Weever Cushman, amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time he extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.

The Indiana University Bicentennial Oral History Project began in 2008 with volunteers from the Office of the President and Indiana University Archives interviewing alumni from IU Bloomington. The project was staffed through the Office of the Bicentennial in 2016 and expanded to interviewing alumni, faculty, and staff at all Indiana University campuses. The mission of this project is to record, preserve, and make available to future generations the memories and experiences of IU alumni, faculty, and staff university-wide. Capturing an institutional history of IU that is not written solely from the perspective of administrators, with a focus on documenting underrepresented voices, helps to provide a better understanding of the broader history of Indiana University.

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