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

Collecting area: Political activism

LaGuer, Benjamin

Benjamin LaGuer Papers

ca. 1980-2020
20 30 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1149
Depiction of Benjamin LaGuer, photo by Patrick O'Coner
Benjamin LaGuer, photo by Patrick O'Coner

Benjamin LaGuer was born in the Bronx in 1963, lived in Puerto Rico with his mother between the ages of eleven and fifteen, and then moved back to the US, settling with his father in Leominster, Massachusetts. After serving in the US Army from 1980 until he received a general discharge under honorable conditions in 1983, LaGuer was arrested for raping and beating his elderly neighbor in Leominster. He maintained his innocence, rejecting a plea that could have released him after a couple years. His case went to trial, and he was convicted in 1984 by an all-white jury. He was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after fifteen years. LaGuer fought to prove his innocence and earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. LaGuer and his case brought together a diverse group of supporters, including Leslie Epstein, John Silber, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Story, and Deval Patrick, whose support was used against Patrick when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts. LaGuer was denied parole several times because he refused to admit guilt, and passed away from liver cancer on November 4, 2020, alone in a prison hospital.

The Benjamin LaGuer Papers include the ten boxes LaGuer was allowed to have with him in prison and contain his writings, correspondence, legal files documenting his attempts to prove his innocence, and personal effects. Added to this collection is material originally housed at Northeastern University, collected by Eric Goldscheider during the journalist’s time reporting on LaGuer and developing a close friendship.

Subjects

Criminal justice, Administration ofPrisoners--MassachusettsPrisons--Massachusetts

Contributors

Patrick, DevalSilber, John, 1926-2012
Restrictions: Family correspondence is under review and some portion might be closed.
Levins, Richard

Richard Levins Papers

1902-2016 Bulk: 1977-2004
21 boxes 23.51 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1142

Richard Levins, the John Rock Professor of Population Science who taught at Harvard University for nearly forty years, used his varied interests in ecology, mathematics, population genetics, and politics to form a multifaceted approach towards his studies. Focused on “looking at the whole” and understanding complex issues from a variety of perspectives, Levins was an active contributor to the disciplines of ecology, sustainable development, population dynamics, epidemiology, mathematical theorizing, and disparities in science. Rather than separating academic life from the political, Levins sought to intertwine the two subjects whenever possible. It was through these political connections that he met his wife, Rosario Morales, an author and poet from Puerto Rico. Following his marriage to Rosario, he became increasingly focused on the Puerto Rican independence movement and the mistreatment of the United States towards this territory. Along with holding professorship, Levins remained involved in research throughout his career, with topics including the spread and impact of infectious diseases as a result of a changing environment, human ecology, sustainable development, population dynamics in multi-species systems, agro-ecology, new and resurgent disease, philosophy of science in relation to complex systems, and third world science development.

The Richard Levins Papers spans the early years of his education to the end of his retirement years. Published writings, research materials, course materials, correspondence, and personal items bring multiple perspectives into this survey of Levins’s career and accomplishments.

Gift of Alejandro Levins, 2021
Language(s): Spanish

Subjects

Agricultural ecologyBiology--Social aspectsBiomathematicsCuba--Politics and governmentEcology--Mathematical modelsPopulation geneticsPuerto Rico--Politics and government

Contributors

Levins, RichardLewontin, Richard, 1929-2021

Types of material

ArticlesAudiocassettesCorrespondenceDrafts (documents)Notes (documents)Professional papersWritings (documents)
Lipshires, Sidney

Sidney Lipshires Papers

1932-2012
7 boxes 3.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 730
Depiction of Sidney Lipshires
Sidney Lipshires

Born on April 15, 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland to David and Minnie Lipshires, Sidney was raised in Northampton, Massachusetts where his father owned two shoe stores, David Boot Shop and The Bootery. He attended the Massachusetts State College for one year before transferring to the University of Chicago and was awarded a BA in economics in 1940. His years at the University of Chicago were transformative, Lipshires became politically active there and joined the Communist Party in 1939. Following graduation in 1941, he married Shirley Dvorin, a student in early childhood education; together they had two sons, Ellis and Bernard. Lipshires returned to western Massachusetts with his young family in the early 1940s, working as a labor organizer. He served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946 working as a clerk and interpreter with a medical battalion in France for over a year. Returning home, he ran for city alderman in Springfield on the Communist Party ticket in 1947. Lipshires married his second wife, Joann Breen Klein, in 1951 and on May 29, 1956, the same day his daughter Lisa was born, he was arrested under the Smith Act for his Communist Party activities. Before his case was brought to trial, the Smith Act was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Disillusioned with the Communist Party, he severed his ties with it in 1957, but continued to remain active in organized labor for the rest of his life. Earning his masters in 1965 and Ph.D. in 1971, Lipshires taught history at Manchester Community College in Connecticut for thirty years. During that time he worked with other campus leaders to establish a statewide union for teachers and other community college professionals, an experience he wrote about in his book, Giving Them Hell: How a College Professor Organized and Led a Successful Statewide Union. Sidney Lipshires died on January 6, 2011 at the age of 91.

Ranging from an autobiographical account that outlines his development as an activist (prepared in anticipation of a trial for conspiracy charges under the Smith Act) to drafts and notes relating to his book Giving Them Hell, the Sidney Lipshires Papers offers an overview of his role in the Communist Party and as a labor organizer. The collection also contains his testimony in a 1955 public hearing before the Special Commission to Study and Investigate Communism and Subversive Activities, photographs, and biographical materials.

Subjects

Communism--United States--HistoryCommunists--MassachusettsJews--Massachusetts--Northampton--HistoryJews--Political activity--United States--History--20th centuryLabor movement--United States--History--20th centuryLabor unions--United States--Officials and employees--Biography

Contributors

Lipshires, David MLipshires, Joann BLipshires, Sidney

Types of material

AutobiographiesPhotographsTestimonies
Mann, Eric

Eric Mann and Lian Hurst Mann Papers

1967-2007
22 boxes 11 linear feet
Call no.: MS 657
Depiction of Eric Mann, Dec. 1969<br />Photo by Jeff Albertson
Eric Mann, Dec. 1969
Photo by Jeff Albertson

Revolutionary organizers, writers, and theorists, Eric Mann and Lian Hurst Mann have been active in the struggle for civil rights for decades. The son of Jewish Socialist and labor organizer from New York, Mann came of age during the early phases of the Civil Rights movement and after graduating from Cornell (1964), he became field secretary for the Congress of Racial Equality. Increasingly radicalized through exposure to Black revolutionary nationalists, Mann took part in the Newark Community Union Project and became a leader in anti-imperialist opposition to the war in Vietnam as a New England regional coordinator for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later with the Revolutionary Youth Movement I — the Weatherman above-ground tendency of SDS. Following a militant demonstration at the Harvard Center for International Affairs late in 1969, Mann was convicted of assault on the basis of perjured testimony and sentenced to two years in prison. An organizer of his fellow prisoners even behind bars, he was “shipped out” often in the middle of the night, from prison to prison, spending the last year at Concord State Prison. After being released early in July 1971, he continued his prison activism through the Red Prison Movement. At the same time, as a writer, he earned a national audience for his book Comrade George: an account of the life, politics, and assassination of Soledad Brother George Jackson. Feeling himself at a low point in his radical career, Mann met Lian Hurst while vacationing in Mexico during the summer 1974. Hurst, a leader in the Berkeley Oakland Women’s Union, architect, and a strong Socialist Feminist, soon became his partner in life and politics, and Mann left Massachusetts to join with her in Berkeley. Hurst lead a group of women from BOWU who formed a “Thursday night group” and left the organization with the polemic, “socialist feminism is bourgeois feminism” all of whom moved towards integrating women’s liberation and Marxism-Leninism. At her urging, the two took part in Marxist Leninist party building, becoming union organizers with the United Auto Workers, and eventually moving to Los Angeles. Hurst was elected shop steward by her fellow workers as a known revolutionary. There, Mann led a campaign to keep the Van Nuys assembly plant open (1982-1992) — captured in his book, Taking on General Motors. They joined the August 29th Movement and its successor, the League of Revolutionary Struggle. They left LRS in 1984. In 1989, Mann and veterans of the GM Van Nuys Campaign formed the Labor/Community Strategy Center, which has been a primary focal points for their work ever since, helping to build consciousness, leadership, and organization within communities of color. Hurst became editor of AhoraNow, an innovative bilingual left publication that featured articles by Black and Latino working class leaders and helped initiate the center’s National School for Strategic Organizing. In 2003 Hurst wrote, “Socialist Feminism: Thoughts After 30 Years” for AhoraNow, a critical re-engagement of those important debates from an historical perspective after a 30 year reunion of BOWU’s key leaders. Mann’s latest book is Playbook For Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. Hurst and Mann continue to write and agitate in the cause of revolutionary change, particularly for oppressed communities of color.

The Mann-Hurst collection contains the records of two lives intertwined with one another with the cause of liberation of Black and Latino communities, women, and an internationalist pro-socialist anti-imperialism. Containing a nearly complete set of publications, the collection also contains early materials on Lian Hurst’s work with BOWU and the both Eric and Lian’s time as organizers for the UAW and their participation in the August 29th Movement and League of Revolutionary Struggle. Of particular interest are a series of letters home written by Eric during his imprisonment. The collection contains comparatively little on Hurst and Manns’ more recent work with the Labor/Strategy Strategy Center or Bus Riders Union

Subjects

August 29th MovementBerkeley Oakland Women's UnionCommunists--CaliforniaFeminismInternational Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of AmericaLabor unions--CaliforniaLeague of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L)Prisoners--MassachusettsRed Prison MovementsStudents for a Democratic Society (U.S.)

Contributors

Mann, Lian Hurst
Mass Voters for Fair Elections

Mass Voters for Fair Elections Records

1997-2005
14 boxes 21 linear feet
Call no.: MS 554

Since 1994 the Mass Voters for Fair Elections has been part of a national movement to minimize the role of money in elections. Watching both the cost of running a successful campaign and the role of fundraising increase, the organization led the fight to put the Clean Elections Initiative on the ballot in 1998. With overwhelming support for the initiative, the ballot question won only to be repealed by the Legislature in 2003. Until it ceased activity in 2007, Mass Voters for Fair Elections continued to work for reform in the electoral process not only to encourage more individuals to run for office, but also to affirm the principle “one person, one vote.”

The collection consists chiefly of subject files that document issues relating to elections and campaign reform addressed by the group and its volunteers. Also included: correspondence, meeting notes, publications, and mailings.

Subjects

Campaign funds--MassachusettsElections--MassachusettsMassachusetts--Politics and government--1951-Political campaigns--Massachusetts

Contributors

Mass Voters for Fair Elections
Massachusetts AFL-CIO

Massachusetts AFL-CIO Records

1902-1995
72 boxes 64 linear feet
Call no.: MS 369

Formed in 1887 as the Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Labor, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO currently represents the interests of over 400,000 working people in the Commonwealth. Like its parent organization, the national AFL-CIO, the Mass. AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization, a union of unions, and engages in political education, legislative action, organizing, and education and training.

The official records of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO provide insight into the aims and administrative workings of the organization. These includes a nearly complete run of proceedings and reports from its conventions since 1902, except for a five year gap 1919-1923, minutes and agendas for the meetings of the Executive Council, and the President’s files (1982- ). The collection is particularly strong in the period since about 1980.

Subjects

Labor unions--Massachusetts

Contributors

AFL-CIOMassachusetts AFL-CIO
Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann)

Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann) Records

1990-2008
6 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 840
Depiction of JoeJoe and Pres. Bill Downing at Boston Freedom Rally, 1996. Photo by Sam Robbins.
JoeJoe and Pres. Bill Downing at Boston Freedom Rally, 1996. Photo by Sam Robbins.

The Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition (MassCann) is a state affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Founded in October 1990 by a group of Boston-based activists, MassCann is a strictly grassroots not-for-profit group that works to ameliorate laws against the use and possession of marijuana and to raise public awareness about the potential of marijuana and hemp products. In addition to lobbying legislators and promoting ballot initiatives to decriminalize adult possession in the Commonwealth, MassCann sponsors public events, such as the landmark conferences held at Harvard Law School in 1991 and 1994, a series of Tax Day protests (1994-1998) calling for regulation and taxation of marijuana, and most famously the Boston Freedom Rally, the second largest anti-prohibition gathering in the country held annually since 1992.

The MassCann collection documents the work and interests of a grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to ending marijuana prohibition, from oganizational and administrative records relating to events it sponsors, particularly the Boston Freedom Rally, to promotional materials and materials relating to the legal environment, and medical marijuana. The collection also includes a wealth of video, compact discs, and audiotapes documenting MassCann events along with recordings of commerical programming on marijuana.

Subjects

Marijuana--Law and legislationMarijuana--Physiological effectMarijuana--Therapeutic use--Social aspects

Contributors

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (U.S.)

Types of material

Sound recordingsVideotapes
Meier, August, 1923-2003

August Meier Collection

1837-1984
3 boxes, 329 titles 34.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 844
Depiction of

A pioneer in African American history, August Meier was a model of an engaged academic, a prolific writer, active participant in the civil rights struggle, and staunch member of the NAACP, SNCC, and CORE. While pursuing graduate work at Columbia under Henry Steele Commager, Meier taught at a succession of Historical Black Colleges, including Tougaloo (1945-1949), Fisk (1953-1956), and Morgan State (1957-1964). His dissertation, completed in 1957, became the first of eleven books he wrote or edited, Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915 (1963), with much of later work conducted in collaboration with Elliott Rudwick and John Bracey. Meier joined the faculty at Kent State University in 1967 and remained there until his retirement in 1993. His much-anticipated monograph on the history of the NAACP had not been completed at the time of death in 2003.

Organized in two discrete parts, the Meier collection bookends a long career in the study of African American history. The first part of the collection is centered on Meier’s association with the Pioneer Youth summer camp in Rifton, N.Y., and his growing consciousness of the fundamental problems of race and class in American society, with some materials from his wartime years as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. The second part of the collection includes books collected by Meier during his academic career, mostly on African American history and culture. Titles range from works on the Civil Rights movement to literature and poetry of the late nineteenth century and Harlem Renaissance, works on slavery and antislavery, race theory, the South, and African American education and religion.

Subjects

African Americans--HistoryAntislavery movementsCamps--New York (State)Civil rights movementsCommunists--United StatesDepressions--1929Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt),1868-1963Oberlin College--StudentsPioneer Youth of AmericaRace relationsWorld War, 1939-1945

Contributors

Braunthal, Gerard, 1923-

Types of material

NewslettersSongbooks
Morehouse, Ward, 1929-

Ward Morehouse Papers

ca.1950-2012
120 boxes 180 linear feet
Call no.: MS 764
Depiction of Ward Morehouse at his desk in the Educational Resources Center, New Delhi, 1966
Ward Morehouse at his desk in the Educational Resources Center, New Delhi, 1966

A writer, educator, and activist for human rights and social justice, Ward Morehouse was a prominent critic of corporate power and globalization. Raised in a family of progressive political economists and academics in Wisconsin, Morehouse began his research in international political economy while a student at Yale (BA 1950, MA 1953) and embarked on a standard academic career path. After teaching political science at New York University for a time, he became director of international education at the Center for International and Comparative Studies in 1963, building a particularly strong program in India. However in 1976, conservative opposition to his political views led Morehouse to leave for a new post as president of the Council on International and Public Affairs (CIPA), a human rights organization he had helped found twenty years before. Throughout, he remained an activist at heart. Galvanized by the 1984 industrial disaster in Bhopal, India, he organized the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, and went on to form or work with many other organizations seeking to resist corporate power and build democracy, including the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) and the Permanent People’s Tribunal, operating the radical Apex Press. Morehouse died in June 2012 at the age of 83.

The Morehouse collection is a massive archive documenting six decades of research, writing, and activism. A prolific writer and editor, Morehouse left a deep record of his activities, his research and writing on corporate power, and the full breadth of his commitments in labor relations, alternative economics, “people’s law,” and peace.

Gift of Ward Morehouse and Carolyn Oppenheim, Nov. 2013

Subjects

Anti-globalization movementBhopal Union Carbide Plant Disaster, Bhopal, India, 1984EconomicsIndia--Economic conditions

Contributors

Apex PressCenter for International and Comparative StudiesCouncil on International and Public AffairsPermanent Peoples' TribunalProgram on Corporations, Law and Democracy
Mungo, Raymond, 1946-

Raymond Mungo Papers

1966-2008
6 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 659
Depiction of Raymond Mungo, 1967
Raymond Mungo, 1967

Born in a “howling blizzard” in February 1946, Raymond Mungo became one of the most evocative writers of the 1960s counterculture. Through more than fifteen books and hundreds of articles, Mungo has brought a wry sense of humor and radical sensibility to explorations of the minds and experiences of the generation that came of age against a backdrop of the struggles for civil rights and economic justice, of student revolts, Black Power, resistance to war, and experimentation in communal living.

Consisting of the original typescripts and manuscripts of ten of Raymond Mungo’s books, along with corrected and uncorrected galleys and a small number of letters from publishers. Among the other materials in the collection are thirteen photographs of Mungo taken by Clif Garboden and Peter Simon during and immediately after his undergraduate years at Boston University; a DVD containing motion pictures of life at Packer Corners in 1969 and 1977; and an irate letter from a writer regarding the status of poems he had submitted to Liberation News Service.

Subjects

Communal living--MassachusettsCommunal living--VermontLiberation News Service (Montague, Mass.)Montague Farm Community (Mass.)Nineteen SixtiesPacker Corners Community (Vt.)Porche, Verandah

Contributors

Garboden, ClifMungo, Raymond, 1946-Simon, Peter, 1947-

Types of material

Photographs