The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Uncategorized

Amherst Friends for the Homeless

Amherst Friends for the Homeless Records

1989-2017
2 boxes .75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1004

Amherst Friends for the Homeless, Inc. was a corporation committed to operating a shelter for homeless single women and started in 1989. After researching homelessness in the area, the Social Concerns Committee of the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Amherst decided that the needs for emergency shelter were not being met in the community of Amherst, Hadley, Pelham, and Shutesbury. To help this problem, Amherst Friends for the Homeless opened Rosemary’s Place on December 11, 1989. However, it was shut down after less than two years of operation in 1991 when the Grove Street Inn, a new shelter for men and women, had opened in Northampton. The corporation continued with one event a year, called Shelter Sunday, in which volunteers went door-to-door for donations for the Amherst Survival Center, First Call for Help, Grove Street Inn, and Not Bread Alone. The organization was dissolved in 2017.

Included in this collection are the documents pertaining to the operations of Amherst Friends for the Homeless, including financial records, meeting minutes, Shelter Sunday records, and Rosemary’s Place records.

Gift of Aaron Bousel, 2017.

Subjects

Shelters for the homeless

Types of material

Minutes
Committee to Defend Johnny Imani Harris

Committee to Defend Johnny Imani Harris Collection

1973-1983 Bulk: 1974-1979
5 5 linear feet
Call no.: 1171

Committee to Defend Johnny Imani Harris pamphlet

Administrative records of the Committee to Defend Johnny Imani Harris, which supported efforts to free Imani (aka Johnny Harris) from death row in Alabama in the late 1970s early 1980s. Originally sentenced to five life terms for 4 small robberies and an alleged rape in 1970, Imani was eventually given the death penalty under Alabama’s capital offenses law due to an inadequate defense by his court appointed lawyers. Harris was put in the brutal Atmore Prison, where he experienced extreme racism, poor medical care, overcrowding, and slave wages. In 1972 the inmates organized a group called Inmates for Action (IFA) and led a work stoppage of over 1,200 prisoners. The prisoners were beaten by guards and the strike leaders were placed in isolation. Two years later, in 1974 an IFA member was beaten to death by guards. The prisoners reacted by capturing a cellblock and taking two guards hostage. In the ensuing take-back by the prison, a guard and IFA leader were killed. Harris and others were charged with the guard’s death. Imani was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.

The Committee worked throughout the 1970’s and 1980s for Harris’ freedom through endorsements, fundraising, and networking to national and international groups. Thanks to the participation of Amnesty International and other groups, Harris’s murder conviction was dismissed in 1987 after a new trial and he was given parole.

The records reflect the dedicated work of Tom Gardner, a civil rights and union organizer/journalist, and others on the Committee who tirelessly toiled on behalf of Harris to secure his freedom. Contained in the collection are the fruit of those efforts, including: fliers, clippings, correspondence, photographs, donor appeals, posters, buttons, legal documents, and additional administrative records of the Committee as well as material from Inmates for Action.

Gift of Tom Gardner, 2022

Subjects

African American prisonersDeath row inmatesPolitical prisoners--United StatesPrisoners--United StatesPrisons

Contributors

Johnny Imani HarrisThomas N. Gardner

Types of material

CorrespondenceFliersMailing listsPamphletsPosters
Pollack, Jeffrey

Jeffrey Pollack Records of The Sports Business Daily

1993-1998
13 boxes 19.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1187

The Sports Business Daily was started in February 1994 by American sports executive and business consultant Jeffrey Pollack (M.S. in Sport Management from UMass Amherst) at age 29. Initially published by Digital Sports Network, it was the first daily trade publication for the sports industry. Pollack modeled his concept on the political daily The Hotline. Its primary goal was to “cover the coverage,” or aggregate and organize daily news that was related to the business of sports. After assembling a small editorial, marketing, and sales team, The Sports Business Daily (SBD) launched on September 12, 1994. With Pollack as its president and publisher, SBD garnered a strong reputation among decision-makers in the industry. By the time Digital Sports Network and subsequently The Sports Business Daily was sold in 1996 to Interzine Productions, it was a recognized leader in sports industry news. In 1998 SBD was acquired by Street & Smith’s, which publishes Sports Business Journal, and is relied upon by top sports, entertainment, financial, and media executives worldwide.

The collection contains materials related to the founding and early years of The Sport Business Daily’s management and production. It includes correspondence, contracts, and financial and marketing information. Several boxes include original copies of the daily plus early prototype mock-ups and copies of the NBA Daily trade publication from 1995.

Weather Underground Collection

Weather Underground Organization Collection

1918-1978 Bulk: 1973-1978
5 boxes 2.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1145

The 1960s and 1970s were decades rich with activist organizations intent on radically transforming U.S. politics and society as well as striving to end racial and gender inequality. One such group was Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Launched in 1962, with the infamous Port Huron Statement, SDS helped the nascent anti-Vietnam war movement gain traction in 1965 by organizing the first national demonstration in Washington, D.C. Over the course of the next four years, the organization grew at a rapid pace, claiming over 300 chapters under its moniker. Arguments over tactics and strategy culminated during an eventful national convention in June of 1969 in which three factions, all claiming to represent “the true SDS”, split the organization apart.
               
The most notorious of these factions was the Weathermen, (later renamed the less patriarchal Weather Underground Organization [WUO]). The WUO aimed to spark revolution in the United States, initially, through the use of targeted political bombings, political communiques, and support of Black liberation movements. Following the March 1970 accidental self-bombing of three of its New York collective members, Ted Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins in a New York townhouse owned by Cathy Wilkerson’s father, the organization opted to conduct more targeted bombings where no one would be hurt.
               
After two-to three-years of high-profile bombings, including the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon, corporate buildings, and law enforcement institutions, with minimal impact, the organization began to consider how to regain influence with the greater Left. This began WUO’s “inversion” phase which included the publication of a book/manifesto titled Prairie Fire, the establishment of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, and a periodical, Osawatomie. The WUO’s Central Committee believed that this inversion strategy would allow them to influence and lead the greater anti-war/anti-imperialist movement.

The inversion strategy did not spark the all-encompassing revolution imagined by the WUO and members slowly began to surface, breaking apart the organization in the mid-late 1970s. While the WUO did not accomplish what they set out to do, their extreme tactics and notoriety with the FBI left lasting impressions on American society and the history of activism in the 1970s.
     
This small collection of materials donated by a member of the WUO includes books, pamphlets, manuscripts, notes, military manuals, maps of correctional facilities, and correspondence between members from 1973 to 1978, many of them coded through the use of letters replacing names. It also holds papers critical of  the WUO written by its own members between 1976 and 1978. This represents the period when Clayton Van Lydegaf gathered members in his “Cadre School”, to rigorously analyze and document how the organization fell apart, including a transcript from a recorded interview session in which Bernadine Dohrn repudiated all methods and practices of the WUO. These papers reflect the power struggle seen later within the WUO, as well as the contempt that many of its members grew to nurture for the organization as it strayed from its original purpose.

The collection also contains many political papers on subjects such as women and their place within the WUO, the anti-fascist movement, Black liberation movements, imperialism, and the origins of fascism. It also holds accounts of the WUO’s history, along with critiques, notes, and adaptations for their manifesto, Prairie Fire.

Gift of Jeff Perry, 2021

Subjects

FeminismImperialismRevolutionariesWeather Underground Organization--History

Types of material

CorrespondenceManuals (instructional materials)Notes (documents)Pamphlets