Bernice Robinson papers

Correspondence, minutes, financial documents, literary productions, printed materials, photographic materials, and audio recordings document Bernice V. Robinson's role (late 1950s-1980s) as a teacher and social activist for voter education, adult literacy, and child development, with other materials (1960s-1980s) relating to her personal, religious, and social work. Biographical papers include transcripts of her oral history interview, detailing her life and family; race relations in Charleston; work in New York City; differences in segregation in the South and North; her work with the Charleston Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and with her cousin Septima Clark, Esau Jenkins, the Progressive Club, and Highlander Folk School, educating adults for voter registration and establishing schools on John's, Wadmalaw, and Edisto Islands; working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young, Rosa Parks, Dorothy Cotton, Hosea Williams, Bayard Rustin, Medgar Evers, and James Bevel; working for a variety of other civil rights related and social welfare programs; and her unsuccessful political career. The second series, Works, contains copies of speeches on a number of topics. Her correspondence includes letters from social activist and photographer Marion Palfi (1963); Guy and Candie Carawan (1988); Andrew Young, Jr. (1977) and others.

A series on her professional affiliations is divided into 18 sub-series documenting Robinson's work with Highlander Folk School, later Highlander Research and Education Center, (1957-1988, bulk 1957-1960s), with Myles Horton correspondence (1957-1988); materials from Highlander sponsored programs, including the Southwide Voter Education Internship Project, (1965); the South Carolina Citizenship School (1957-1960). Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) papers (1964-1969) include data regarding its history, structure and projects--with tributes regarding Martin Luther King, Jr. SCLC Citizenship Education Training Program papers (1963-1969) contain reports, workbooks, and materials used by Robinson in teaching reading and voter registration. Papers (1967-1970) on the South Carolina branch of the Voter Education Project, Inc., sponsored by the Southern Regional Council, include reports (1965-1966), booklets and charts. Materials (1964-1970) regarding Robinson's involvement with the Community Action Program, of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) detail a three month Community Action Technicians Training Program (CAT/CAP), in Madison, Wisconsin (1967); with post-CAT papers (1967-1968), as well. The South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers (SCCFW)/Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program papers (1966-1972) contain grant proposals, publications regarding its inception, structure, and reports (1970-1972) from Robinson's territory of Edisto, John's, Wadmalaw and Yonges Islands and Williamsburg County to supervisors and James E. Clyburn, Executive Director. Files on day care and child development organizations document the creation of, and Robinson's directorship (1971-1973) of the Yonges Island Day Care Center. Civil Rights Movement Oral History Project papers (of the Institutional Development and Economic Affairs Service [IDEAS]), include grant proposals, and carbons of letters, requesting interviews.

Robinson's political papers include correspondence and campaign materials regarding her candidacy to the South Carolina House of Representatives (1972, 1974); and campaign materials regarding Charles Pug Ravenel's unsuccessful bid the for United States Senate, and Robinson's work (1978) as field coordinator. Her church papers include minutes and correspondence, from the Board of Christian Social Concerns and the Program Council of the United Methodist Church; materials regarding Old Bethel United Methodist Church, Charleston, South Carolina; and speeches given at United Methodist Women conferences. Other materials documenting Robinson's association with African American and women's associations include those regarding the Charleston Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1955-1974, bulk 1970s); and papers regarding her sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho.

Audio-visual materials include reel to reel tapes, cassette user copies and transcripts of speeches for a lecture series, A decade of civil rights history, 1960-1970: the movement as viewed by participants at Loop College, Chicago, IL (1970), featuring Fannie Lou Hamer, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Rosa Parks, and John Lewis; with recordings for Guy Carawan's and Dr. Lawrence D. Reddick's speeches. The series also includes original and photocopied black and white photographs of Robinson and unidentified friends and family members, some originals from Avery's photographic collections. Miscellaneous and oversize materials include a small amount of photocopied newspaper clippings on various, mostly political, topics, and a SCLC newsletter SoulForce.

Note: Part of Robinson's oral history is published in Refuse to stand silently by: an oral history of grass roots social activism in America, edited by Eliot Wigginton. Bernice Robinson is interviewed in the documentary film, You got to move: stories of change in the South.