Civil Rights Congress photograph collection

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Description: Photographs recording the activities, causes and individuals connected with the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) during the period of its existence, 1946-1955 as well as a few posters, fact sheets and photo album. Collection contains images of individuals, including defendants and their activities with regard to the cases supported by the CRC such as the Communist Party "17," Rosa Lee Ingram, Willie McGee, the Rosenburgs and the Trenton Six. Conferences like the Amnesty for Smith Act Victims Conference (1954) and the Bill of Rights Conference are represented in the Collection as is the "concentration camp" for leftists and political dissidents at Tule Lake, Calif. in an album with views of the guard tower, barbed wire fence and barracks. Important individuals associated with CRC like William Patterson, National Executive Secretary, Ben Davis, lawyer, communist and Smith Act defendant, and Paul Robeson, supporter who was also defended by CRC, figure prominently in the collection. Other persons such as Smith Act victims Claudia Jones, Pettis Perry, Marion Bachrach and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, to name only a few, appear in various folders, as do Richard Nixon, Tom Clark and Dashiell Hammett. The CRC activities visually documented are chiefly picketing for various causes, demonstrations, most notably at the Lincoln Memorial in support of Willie McGee, by forming human chains around the pillars, and public addresses, in one instance on a street corner, possibly in Harlem. There are also interesting images of women supporters waiting in an office and a living room for a jury verdict, assembling in a train station and at the Office of Paroles and Pardons. Other images record meetings, and the stoning of cars and the resulting damage to them from the Peekskill riot.
Names: Civil Rights Congress (U.S.) (Collector)
Dates / Origin: Date Created: 1935 - 1955 (Questionable)
Library locations: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division; Shelf locator: Sc Photo Civil Rights Congress Collection
Topics: Civil Rights Congress (U.S.); Communists -- United States; Political activists -- United States
Genres: Photographs
Notes: Biographical/historical: National organization established in 1946 to among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against ... labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities." The organization folded in 1955 under pressure from the United States Attorney General and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused the organization of being subversive
Physical Description: Extent: 490 items (.7 cu. ft., 4 boxes)
Type of Resource: Still image
Identifiers: RLIN/OCLC: NYPG087000330-F; NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b11527495; Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): d4e74d70-c628-012f-9f8c-58d385a7bc34

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William L. Patterson, executi…

The New York Public Library

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Civil Rights Congress photograph collection

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