CR. Civil Rights and Social Justice
Collecting Area
Identifier: CR
Queens College students and faculty have a rich history of participation in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, as well as other struggles for social justice. Starting in 2009, Special Collections and Archives (SCA) began collecting materials from alumni, faculty, and community members involved in these movements. The collections document projects like Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) project in 1965, as well as local and campus chapters of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SCA also has smaller quantities of materials related to McCarthyism and LGBTQIA activism. SCA continues to incorporate a broader array of voices, organizations, and eras in this collecting area.
Found in 38 Collections and/or Records:
Mark Levy Papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0046
Abstract
The Mark Levy Collection documents the volunteer experiences of Mark Levy and his wife, Betty Bollinger Levy, in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. Most items date from June to August 1964, including correspondence, photographs, curriculum, lesson plans, student essays and newsletters, printed materials, clippings, and ephemera. There are binders of preparatory training materials and memorandums for accepted applicants. Photographs document orientation at Western College for...
Dates:
1959-2008
Martin Luther King Jr. at Queens College in 1965 Collection
Collection
Identifier: SCA-0121
Scope and Contents
Transcript and audio clips of Martin Luther King Jr's speech at Queens College at the Colden Center on May 13, 1965, as well as press coverage of the speech.
Dates:
May, 1965
Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Change records
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0083
Abstract
The Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Change was created to continue the goals and ideals of Michael Harrington, a professor at Queens College who campaigned for social change and reform. The bulk of the Michael Harrington Center records consist of papers, news letters and journals published by the center.
Dates:
circa 1990s-2000s (1991-2016)
Michael Wenger Papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0048
Abstract
The Michael Wenger Collection documents the Student Help Project and other activism on the Queens College campus during the 1960s. The Student Help Project was initiated by Queens College students, including Michael Wenger, and Queens College Education Department professors Dr. Rachel Weddington and Dr. Sidney Simon. This project brought tutoring services to under-served children in South Jamaica, Queens and Prince Edward County, Virginia. Wenger chaired the organization in 1964, but the...
Dates:
1963-2009, bulk 1963-1965; Majority of material found within 1963 - 1965
Michael Wreszin Papers
Collection
Identifier: SCA-0049
Abstract
Professor, activist, radical, and biographer, the Michael Wreszin collection contains a large number of documents related to American radical culture of the 20th century. A large portion of the collection is devoted to the 20th century radical, Dwight Macdonald, of whom Wreszin wrote a biography, and other New York Intellectuals. The collection also holds documents related to the history of radical activities in New York from the 1960's to 1980's, including protests and activism on Queens...
Dates:
1912 - 2014
Moshe Shur Papers
Collection — Box 1: Series Series 1; Series Series 2; Series Series 3; Series Series 4
Identifier: SCA-0050
Abstract
Rabbi Moshe Shur is an adjunct Professor of Jewish History at Queens College of the City University of New York. During the summers of 1965 and 1966, as a student at Columbia University, Rabbi Shur traveled to Orangeburg, South Carolina to register black voters as a part of the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) program. The Moshe Shur Papers contain newspaper clippings from the events surrounding the two summers Shur spend in the South, newspapers from the days...
Dates:
1965-2008; Majority of material found in 1968 - 1968
Oscar Shaftel Papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0052
Abstract
The Oscar Shaftel papers contains correspondence, flyers, press clippings, memos, press releases, transcripts of testimony, and subject files documenting student activism at
Queens College in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the effect of McCarthyism on academic freedom in New York State. Oscar Shaftel, one of the original faculty members at
Queens College, was fired in 1953 under Section 903 of the New York City Charter for refusing to testify in front of the Senate Internal Security...
Dates:
1932 - 2009
Phyllis Padow-Sederbaum Papers
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0056
Abstract
Phyllis Padow-Sederbaum graduated with honors from Queens College in 1965 with a major in sociology. At Queens College, she worked with the Student Help Project to provide free tutoring services to under-served schoolchildren in South Jamaica, Queens and Prince Edward County, Virginia. During the summer of 1963, Padow-Sederbaum was one of sixteen Queens College students who lived with black families in Farmville, Virginia and tutored African American children who had been denied formal...
Dates:
1961-2000
Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Ephemera
Collection — Box 1
Identifier: SCA-0111
Scope and Contents
Ephemera documenting PSC-CUNY contract campaigns and other activities. Includes t-shirts, buttons, posters, and fliers.
Dates:
2000 - 2023
Queens College Campus Unrest Collection
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: SCA-0030
Abstract:
The Queens College Campus Unrest Collection contains papers, correspondence, and flyers regarding the Spring 1969 sit-in protest of the social science building by the Ad Hoc Committee to End Political Suppression. The protest was in defense of the three members of the Students for a Democratic Society who were arrested and charged for leading a protest for the removal of General Electric recruiters from QC campus. The sit-in lasted four days resulting in the arrests of thirty-eight students...
Dates:
1968-1970
