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This collection contains the papers of Ernie McClintock (1937-2003), an American director, producer, actor, writer, teacher, and theatre artist who was a major force in the Black Arts Movement. He taught acting to hundreds of students across the country and directed award-winning plays in Harlem, New York (1960-1989), and Richmond, Virginia (1989-2003). The McClintock papers are a living archive for future drama students and communities interested in Black theatre. They represent the works and dreams of a Black and Gay theatre director who persisted in giving voice to the Black and multicultural communities where he lived. His work spanned beyond one dimensional categories, and he was well-known behind the scenes with famous actors, directors, and playwrights, and was the recipient of seven prestigious Audelco awards for excellence in Black theater. He worked with Tupac Shakur, Ossie Davis, James Earl Jones, Felicia Rashad, Morgan Freeman, Lou Gossett, Jr., Dr. Walter Turnbull, Woody King, Jr. and others. McClintock was committed to world class excellence in theatre and to introducing more Black theatre productions to the community. He directed over two hundred performances from classics like A Raisin in the Sun to Tupac Shakur's Rose Grew Out of Cement, and new plays written by young playwrights and actors like Derome Scott Smith in R.I.O.T. or Jerome Hairston. His personal papers and theatre papers are combined because his life and family were inseparable from the theatre. He also won the Billy Graham artistic excellence award in 2002. (There are two scripts in the collection written by Billy Graham about Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis). Too expansive to put in one category, anyone studying Black Theatre Arts will repeatedly come across the exemplary work of Ernie McClintock.

This collection contains briefings with preparatory materials, questions and notes for oral histories conducted as part of the Explorations in Black Leadership project. The briefings were often compiled by interns with the Institute for Public History and included interview questions, possible answers prepared for Julian Bond (the primary interviewer), biographical information, handwritten notes, and correspondence. The collection also includes audio and video cassettes, CDs, and DVDs of interviews and other project related materials.

Letters written from Lee to Manning Marius Kimmel, a fellow Confederate officer and to other acquaintances concerning former Confederate officers, Reconstruction and Kimmel's experiences fighting as a mercenary with Maximilian in Mexico. Includes letter, 4 November 1875, discussing the participation of Black people in the dedication of the equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson on Monument Avenue in Richmond and the typescript of the speech, 11 August 1875, made by W. H. Payne when nominating Lee for governor.

This collection is comprised of more than 700 letters written by Herman Recht (1908-1971), a Navy yeoman, from Camp Peary (U.S. Naval Construction Training Center), near Williamsburg, Virginia, between October 1943 and February 1946, to his wife, Esther, in Clairton, Pennsylvania. There are no letters from Esther because, as he wrote her, saving them would make him homesick.

This collection is composed of 69 Property Tax Books and 3 Land Tax Books for James City County, Virginia, 1866-1948, and 42 Property Tax Books and 2 Land Tax Books for Williamsburg, Virginia, 1865-1927.

This collection contains letters and paper ephemera written to Jeanie Schroeder, a young, white woman who fell in love, got pregnant during her pre-med studies at Northwestern University, and secretly married a young Black musician identified as Keith "Tiny" Leighton in the letters. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1940s to the 1950s. The content centers Jeanie Schroeder's courage in facing the difficulties of being seen as an unwed mother in the 1940's; young men going off to World War II, and women obtaining new careers and exploring the work place that was previously unavailable to them.

Includes letters to Spingarn, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from Lowell Thomas, Sumner Welles, Edward Steichen, Charles A. Beard, Henry F. Du Pont, H. L. Mencken, and Owen Roberts concerning horticultural matters. Also includes correspondence, 1938, of Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr., Walter White, and Springarn concerning remarks made by William E. Borah concerning lynching.

The John Newton Bell papers includes personal and professional correspondence from relatives, business associates and religious figures throughout Virginia and the greater Appalachia. Letters document subject areas including the Civil War, the hospitalization of women in mental health facilities, agricultural issues, and religious matters related to the Presbyterian Church.