Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Photographer from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Photographs (prints and negatives) of student demonstrations at the University of Michigan, draft card burnings and other anti-Vietnam War protests, of the riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, of appearances of John Cage, Lyndon Johnson, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, John Sinclair, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, and Gerald Ford in Ann Arbor, and a meeting of Ku Klux Klan in Dearborn, Michigan.

The collection contains prints and 35 mm negatives of photographs taken between 1964 and 1980. The photographs primarily document student protests and other student political activities at the University of Michigan, as well as some other campus activities, including political speakers and social and musical events. Some events outside of Ann Arbor are also documented, including the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and a Ku Klux Klan meeting in Dearborn, Mich.

The photographs are arranged chronologically, and are described in the following list by topic and date. Some undated photographs are grouped at the end of the sequence. Although the bulk of the collection is made up of negatives, for most topics the collection also contains prints of selected frames. In some cases there are no prints, and in a few cases no negatives. The list indicates these cases.

Prints and negatives are filed in parallel sequences in the collection, both in the same order.

Agency of the city of Ann Arbor established in 1957 as the Human Relations Commission to investigate and deal with issues of racial discrimination in housing and employment. The name of the agency was changed in 1970 to the Human Rights Commission. The scope of the Commission came to include complaints of discrimination against women, gays, and the disabled. The record group provides substantial documentation of issues of racial discrimination in employment and housing in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the period of 1957 to 1993. Included are files relating to the establishment of the commission, minutes (through 1993 with some gaps), memoranda (1968-1970), topical files, early case files (1965-1970), and student intern projects and reports of members of the community practice program within the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

The record group provides substantial documentation of issues of racial discrimination in employment and housing in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the period of 1957 to 1993. Included are files relating to the establishment of the commission, minutes (through 1993 with some gaps), memoranda (1968-1970), topical files, early case files (1965-1970), and student intern projects and reports of members of the community practice program within the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

Digitized select documents relating to the Black Action Movement (BAM) I, II, and III on the University of Michigan campus, 1970-1987.

The following selection of documents, mostly from the records of the Office of the President with some articles from The Michigan Daily and the University Record, is intended to provide an overview of the Black Action Movement (BAM) demands and the university's immediate response in each of the three phases of the Black Action Movement. It represents a small portion of the documentation of BAM contained in the records of various university units, personal papers, photograph collections, and publications held by the Bentley Historical Library. All the records are open to researchers, subject to some limited restrictions (student records protected by FERPA; personnel records, and certain administrative records subject to review).

Student at the University of Michigan, collected materials relating to his interest in the radical causes and issues of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Bret Eynon collection consists of original and collected material relating to his interest in the radical causes and issues of the 1960s and 1970s. The files, arranged by topic, relate to the Black Action Movement (BAM) strike at the University of Michigan, John Sinclair, draft resistance, protests about the war in Vietnam, the Welfare Rights Organization, and feminism and the women's movement.

Records of the University of Michigan College of Engineering include histories, correspondence and topical files of deans; minutes of the executive and other committees; faculty records, including minutes of meetings and faculty biographies; miscellaneous student and alumni records; photographs, microfilm, digital files, and archived website.

The College of Engineering records date from 1860 to 2014 and measure 118.5 linear feet, 3 oversize folders, and 1,196 GB. The records document the internal activities of the College of Engineering, both administrative and academic, the role of the college as a unit of the University of Michigan, and research developments and trends over the years. Correspondence, meeting minutes, reports, financial records, and other material reflect changing research interests within the field of engineering as well as the curriculum development that has accompanied technological advances. Of particular interest are the files relating to outside work by faculty members, a question of enduring concern within the college. The records reflect the relations of the College of Engineering with private industry, especially through the documentation of funding from outside sources and the involvement of professors in outside research.

This record group pertains to the University of Michigan Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and to campus, regional, and national organizations devoted to political and civil rights causes from the 1960s to the 1990s. The collection includes print documents, photographs, and audio-visual material that document racial harassment incidents, political protests, scholarly conferences and symposia, MLK Day celebrations and black student life on the U-M campus. There are also materials about the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-apartheid and divestment movements of the 1980s. Originally a Center, the unit was formally recognized as a department of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts in 2011.

The records of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS; formerly known as the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, or CAAS) include correspondence, syllabi, clippings, publicity materials, photographs and audio and video recordings of campus speakers. The record group includes archival material that was originally collected and made available in DAAS's library relating to black activism and to organizations of interest to black students, faculty and staff, as well as DAAS's own organizational archives. Because these materials have been consulted and cited by researchers prior to their transfer to the Bentley in 2011, their original arrangement has been preserved so far as possible.

Paper and photographic records consist of three major series: Black student activism, 1969-2001 (5.5 linear feet), Blacks at U-M, 1969-2007 (4.5 linear feet) and Organizational archives of CAAS, 1962-2010 (17 linear feet) (formerly designated simply "Archives.") There is some overlap of subject matter. These categories reflect the organization of the materials imposed by CAAS librarians and archivists prior to transfer to the Bentley in 2011.

The following list identifies the greatest concentration of material relevant to some of the notable subjects in the collection:

1. The Black Action Movements (Boxes 1-2 and 55)
2. Incidents of on-campus harassment and responses (Boxes 1, 2, 4)
3. South Africa, apartheid, and divestment -- (Boxes 2, 3, 5)
4. Free South Africa Coordinating Committee (Box 3)
5. Washtenaw County Coalition Against Apartheid (Box 5)
6. United Coalition Against Racism and the Baker-Mandela Center (Boxes 1, 4, 5)
7. The Michigamua controversy (Box 3)
8. The Nelson Mandela Honorary Degree Petition (Boxes 3, 11)
9. Gulf War activism (Boxes 3, 4)

This record group also includes a large number of audio and video recordings of presentations, interviews, documentaries, and cultural performances from the 1970s to the 1990s. The recordings include several notable faculty members, visiting scholars, and activists, including Harold Cruse, Cornell West, Rita Dove, Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, Marian Wright Edelman and Rosa Parks.

The audio-visual material in the collection is organized is organized in to six series by format: Audio recordings on cassettes, 1975-2001 (486 cassettes, 9 linear feet), U-Matic videotapes, 1971-1989 (91 videotapes, 9.1 linear ft.) VHS videotapes, 1971-2004 (131 videotapes, 7 linear feet), Open reel videotapes, 1971-1980 (12 videotapes, 1 linear feet), Reel-to-reel audiotape, 1971, 1980 and undated (4 audiotapes, 0.3 linear feet) and Mini DVDs, 1999-2000 and undated (24 Mini-DVDs, 0.2 linear feet).

Law professor at the University of Michigan; the collection includes lecture notes, course materials, correspondence, writings, and topical files.

The George E. Palmer collection primarily contains notes and materials that Palmer used in teaching his classes. Several of his writings, as well as various pieces of correspondence that give insight into his research interests and personal character (especially his correspondence with Jack Dawson), can be found scattered throughout the collection. The collection is divided into four series: Trusts and Estates, Restitution, Guest Lecturing, and Topical Files.

Regent of the University of Michigan. Topical files relating to his activities as a regent and the issues and problems affecting the University of Michigan.

The Gerald R. Dunn collection consists of those materials accumulated as regent of the University of Michigan, 1969 to 1985. The files have been arranged into two alphabetical subseries: 1969-1976 files and 1977-1984 files. The files relate to such issues as affirmative action, the Black Action Movement, the discussion over the University's participation in DNA research, the development of the Flint and Dearborn campuses, student activism, and other issues during the presidencies of Robben W. Fleming and Harold Shapiro.

Jay Cassidy was a student photographer for The Michigan Daily from 1967 to 1970. The collection contains an inventory, background notes, negatives, a printed catalogue containing an image thumbnail and metadata for each image in the collection, and 4,882 digitized images of Cassidy's photography while at the University of Michigan. Subjects include student protests and anti-war demonstrations in Ann Arbor, Poor Peoples March/Resurrection City in Washington, D.C., Democratic primary campaigns of Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace, 1968 Democratic Party National Convention, 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival and a wide variety of campus activities. Cassidy digitized the images and created the printed catalogue in 2010.

The Jay Cassidy photograph collection covers Cassidy's student days at the University of Michigan (1967-1970). The collection consists of approximately 5000 original 35mm negatives and 4,882 digitized copies of the negatives. The images in the collection were taken while Cassidy was a photographer for the student publications The Michigan Daily and Michiganensian.

Cassidy took the original images on Kodak 35mm black and white film. The scanned images are black and white 5904 by 4000 resolution uncompressed tiff files. Cassidy catalogued each roll of film by subject and gave each frame a unique identifier, which is a combination of the category, date, roll number, and the scan number. The category abbreviations are as follows:

MD -- Assignments for the The Michigan Daily, 1968-1970

RFK -- Robert Kennedy Campaign, 1968

DNC --Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968

DC -- Inauguration and March on Washington, 1969

MNCN -- Photographs taken for Michiganensian, 1967-1968

Initially, the Bentley Historical Library asked Cassidy to consider donating a selection of the images he took from 1967 to 1970. Instead of selecting only a portion of images, however, Cassidy donated all of his negatives from 1967 to 1970. He digitally scanned the majority of the negatives. The bulk of these images have never been printed, and, according to Cassidy, were "barely examined by myself or another photo editor as we raced to get the daily paper out."[1] Only one or two of each sequence of photographs was used in The Michigan Daily. This collection, therefore, contains a series of images previously unavailable to researchers.

Cassidy's photographs for the campus yearbook, the Michiganensian, cover 1967 and 1968 and include images of homecoming parades, football, rugby, intramural sports, and campus groups such as Wyvern and Scabbard and Blade. He also photographed Engineering Council meetings discussing Vietnam War research and protests at a Dow Chemical Company stock holders meeting. Note: Most of the Michiganensian photos were not scanned and exist only as negatives.

His work for The Michigan Daily included diverse subjects. Among the most prominent were photographs of musical performances and visiting celebrities, politics, and campus unrest. Musical acts include concerts by Joan Baez, the Doors, MC5, Ramsey Lewis, Buffy Sainte Marie, and the 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival. A 1967 Johnny Carson Show at Hill Auditorium (negatives only) is covered as is an appearance by author Kurt Vonnegut at Canterbury House and film director Sam Fuller.

Off campus events photographed by Cassidy for The Michigan Daily include the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago (including police intervention in street protests), Richard Nixon's inauguration, March on Washington, Resurrection City and the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D. C., and 1968 political campaign stops in Indianapolis and Detroit by Robert F. Kennedy, George Wallace campaigning in Lansing, Eugene McCarthy in South Bend, Indiana, and a protest at Eastern Michigan University.

Other campus subjects include SDS meetings, the White Panther Party, Ann Arbor's police chief, a campus murder at University Towers, Welfare Mothers demonstration, the South University riot, the Ann Arbor Moratorium (Vietnam War protest), Army ROTC protests and a bombing of the campus ROTC building, a student rent strike, and Black Action Movement demonstrations.

The collection is organized as it was received. It consists of five series: Background Information, Digital Images, Original 35mm Camera Negatives, 1967-1970, Printed Catalogue of Digital Scans, 1967-1970, and Original 35mm Contact Sheets, 1967-1970. The strength of the collection lies in its documentation of student life and American politics in the late 1960s, an era of unrest on college campuses.

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Notes:

1. Jay Cassidy, Letter to Nancy Bartlett and Brian Williams, July 31, 2010, Jay Cassidy Photograph Collection, Box 1, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

Student at the University of Michigan, later lecturer in social work, and active member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW). Materials relating to the Black Action Movement (BAM) strike at the University of Michigan in 1970; papers detailing his involvement with the LRBW, the International Black Appeal (IBA), and other black organizations.

Madison Foster's papers document some of the most important currents of black activism of the 1960s and early 1970s, and provide a unique insight into the history of this period. The collection has been arranged into the following series: Black Action Movement; League of Revolutionary Black Workers; International Black Appeal; and Topical Files.