Research Guides: African and African American Studies at Harvard: Historical Sources: Archival Collections: Personal Archives

The Sarah Anoke Collection, 1973-2010 (HUM 51)

A collection of publications, ephemera, and records collected by Sarah Anoke (AB 2009). Chiefly produced by the Harvard Black Students Association (BSA) and chiefly dating from the mid-2000s, the collection documents the experience of black college students on the Harvard campus. Among the publications are inBLACK, Outlook, Oral Tradition, Black & Crimson, Harvard-Radcliffe Freshman Black Table, and the Black Guide to Life at Harvard. Ephemera, in the form of posters, programs, and flyers, documents events chiefly sponsored by the BSA, including senior thesis receptions, commencement and reunion activities, and a black leadership conference. Scattered early ephemera from the 1970s documents the Harvard-Radcliffe Afro-American Cultural Center, a predecessor organization to the BSA. Student organizations represented in the collection include the Harvard Black Students Association, the Association of Black Harvard Women, the Harvard Black Men's Forum, the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, BlackCAST, and the Harvard Spoken Word Society.

Open for research.

Records of the Standing Committee to Develop Afro-American Studies kept by Myles V. Lynk, 1969-1974 (HUM 365)

Dating from 1969 to 1974, the Records of the Standing Committee to Develop Afro-American Studies kept by Myles V. Lynk document Lynk’s work in the establishment of the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard in 1969. Notes, memoranda, letters, and reports were created by members of the full Standing Committee to Develop Afro-American Studies and its subcommittees. Topics addressed include curriculum development, faculty appointments, budgeting, library resources, and the formation of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

Box 1 of the Records of the Standing Committee to Develop Afro-American Studies kept by Myles V. Lynk is open for research. University records in Box 2 are restricted for 50 years from their date of creation. Student and personnel records in Box 2 are closed for 80 years from their date of creation. Specific restrictions are noted at the folder level in the finding aid.

Eileen Southern personal archive, 1936-1993 (HUM 253)

Eileen Jackson Southern (1920-2002) was a professor of Afro-American Studies and Music at Harvard University from 1975 to 1987. Southern was the first African-American woman to be appointed as a tenured full professor at Harvard and is considered a preeminent authority on Renaissance and African-American music. During Southern’s time at Harvard, she taught courses on African-American and Renaissance music and was also an advocate for the advancement and recognition of the Afro-American Studies Department, chairing the department from 1976 until 1979. In 1979, Southern received a prestigious National Endowment of Humanities grant to fund the research for her co-authored work African-American Traditions in Song, Sermon, Tale and Dance, 1600s-1920: An Annotated Bibliography of Literature, Collections, and Artworks. In 1987, Southern retired from Harvard as Professor Emeritus. Southern died in Port Charlotte, Florida in 2002 at the age of 82.

This collection is open for research with the following exceptions: access to University records in the collection is restricted for 50 years from their date of creation. Student records in the collection are closed for 80 years from their date of creation. These restrictions apply to the Correspondence files series and are noted at the folder level in the finding aid.

Papers of Nathan I. Huggins, 1927-1990 (inclusive) (HUGFP 91.20)

Nathan Huggins was W.E.B. Dubois Professor of History and Afro-American Studies and Director of the Dubois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard from 1980 to 1989. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, curriculum and lecture materials, diary, manuscripts and galleys for published works, project and grant proposals, audio tapes, printed materials, research notes and other papers relating to Nathan Huggins' work as professor of history and Afro-American studies and as a Harvard administrator.