American Race Crisis Lecture Series audio recordings
Online Access
Available digital items: https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/collections/NS070204.
Scope and Contents
The audio recordings and transcripts in this collection document lectures from a fifteen-week series on the race crisis in the United States, held in the spring of 1964 at the New School and organized by New School professor Daniel S. Anthony. The recorded speakers include Charles Abrams, Algernon D. Black, Dan W. Dodson, Milton A. Galamison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Louis Lomax, Melvin Tumin, Robert C. Weaver, and Roy Wilkins.
Open to the general public, the lectures were held in the New School auditorium at 66 West 12th Street in Greenwich Village. Topics discussed range from the impact of school integration, housing discrimination, affirmative action, the growing Black separatist movement, and motivations for racial prejudice. Dr. King opened the conference, and the recording of his talk consists only of the question and answer session following his address.
Dates
- 1964
Creator
- Abrams, Charles, 1902-1970 (Speaker, Person)
- Anthony, Daniel S. (Moderator, Person)
- Black, Algernon D. (Algernon David), 1900-1993 (Speaker, Person)
- Dodson, Dan W. (Speaker, Person)
- Galamison, Milton A. (Milton Arthur), 1923-1988 (Speaker, Person)
- King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 (Speaker, Person)
- Lomax, Louis E., 1922-1970 (Speaker, Person)
- Monserrat, Joseph (Speaker, Person)
- New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y. : 1919-1997) (Sponsor, Organization)
- Tumin, Melvin M. (Melvin Marvin), 1919-1994 (Speaker, Person)
- Weaver, Robert C. (Robert Clifton), 1907-1997 (Speaker, Person)
- Wilkins, Roy, 1901-1981 (Speaker, Person)
Extent
10 Analog Recordings
Language of Materials
All recordings and associated transcripts are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research use. Researchers must use digital access copies. Access to audio reels is restricted for reasons of preservation.
Conditions Governing Use
To publish all or part of any recording or transcription from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the New School Archives and Special Collections. Please contact: archivist@newschool.edu.
Historical Note
On September 1, 1963, at the height of the American civil rights movement, Daniel S. Anthony, a psychologist and instructor at the New School, sent a letter to William Birenbaum, dean of the New School for Social Research:
Anthony (born 1912), who was soon given the go-ahead to organize and moderate the American Race Crisis lecture series, had a background in addressing issues of racial discrimination and prejudice. He was a Ford Foundation fellow at the Urban Studies Center at Rutgers University and had served as executive director of the Mayor's Commission on Group Relations (later renamed the Newark Human Rights Commission) in Newark, New Jersey."I was somewhat shocked to find so few courses in the 1963 Bulletin relating directly to the current Negro Revolt taking place in America. In the hope that this omission might be corrected by the Spring semester, I am suggesting herewith what I feel could be a very exciting offering."
In February, 1964, Anthony’s challenge to Birenbaum was realized. The American Race Crisis, a fifteen-week course of lectures open to the public brought the nation’s leading civil rights leaders to the New School.
In the year following the series, great strides were made toward publishing the lectures in book form. For reasons not yet fully understood, the book was never published.
Arrangement
Organized chronologically according to date of recording.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The reels were transferred from the Raymond Fogelman Library following the establishment of the New School Archives. The digital file for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech was shared by the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections in 2016.
- Civil rights (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Civil rights movements -- United States (Subject) (Places) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Discrimination in education (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Discrimination in housing (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Race relations (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Racism (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Segregation (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Guide to the American Race Crisis Lecture Series audio recordings
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- New School Archives and Special Collections Staff
- Date
- May 18, 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin