Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Detroit African American clergyman and civil rights activist. Papers accumulated by Franklin's daughter, Erma Franklin, relating to the life and career of her father; include biographical information, transcripts of oral interviews; scattered sermons and correspondence, including letters from daughter Aretha and from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; topical files about his church and civil rights activities; and photographs

The C. L. Franklin collection is a small but significant accumulation of materials relating to the life and career of this Detroit-based clergyman. Although the collection dates from the mid-1950s, most of the materials fall within the period of 1963 to 1984. The collection is comprised of photocopies and copyprints of materials made available to the library by Erma Franklin. The importance of the collection is for the sampling of Franklin sermons that have been preserved, for the scattered documentation of the important March of Freedom that took place in Detroit in the summer of 1963, and for the copyprints made of photographs of Franklin, his family and his friends and professional associates. The collection has been arranged into five series: Biographical Information, Various Papers, Topical Files, Photographs, and Sound Recordings.

Organization established to promote values of religious and racial tolerance; scrapbooks, program files, records of the women's division, and photographs.

The records have been arranged into the following series: Scrapbooks; Program files; Women's Division of the Greater Detroit Round Table; Photographs; Board of Directors; Different People…Common Ground workshop; and Miscellaneous. Although the records date from approximately 1941 to 2011, the individual series do not cover this span and thus a full record of the organization's history is missing.