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University of Minnesota

Kathryn A. Martin Library

Inclusive Local History Project

Making Superior, WI and Northern MN sources on indigenous people, people of color, women, and LGBTIQA2S+ people more accessible

Resources at Duluth Public Library

  • Survey of Duluth Blacks prepared for Duluth Area Economic Development by the Institute of Afro-American Awareness
    Date: 1976
    Description:  This report was cooperative project between the Institute of Afro-american Awareness and Duluth Area Ecomonic Development to generate demographic and attitudinal data on African American citizens of Duluth, Minnesota. This information was stated as crucial for the IAAA's attempts at community organization and human service program development
    Materials available online: Not available online.
    Access Notes: This resource is part of the Duluth Public Library's Duluth and Minnesota collections, and can be used in the library.

  • Institute of Afro-American Awareness Newsletter
    Dates: Feb. 1978 - Oct. 1978, Dec. 1978, Dec. 1979, June 1980 - Nov. 1980, Jan. 1981 - Dec. 1981, Jan. 1983, Oct. 1983 - May 1984, Dec. 1984 - Jan. 1985, Dec. 1985 - Feb. 1986, May/June 1986, and Aug. 1986 - Feb. 1987.
    Description: The IAAA was a Duluth non-profit organization which described itself as a community-based organization designed to "help alleviate problems specific to the Black population in Greater Duluth, serve as a consciousness raising group for the non-Black population, and serve as a resource center for organizations and individuals interested in learning about the perspectives of the Black community."
    Materials available online: Not available online.
    Access Notes: This resource is part of the Duluth Public Library's Duluth and Minnesota collections, and can be used in the library.

Resources at the University of Minnesota Duluth

  • William F. Maupins papers
    Date Range:  1958-1969
    Description:  William F. Maupins was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1922. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 1951. Maupins served as the President of the Duluth Chapter of the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, from 1958-1969. The collection largely consists of correspondence, legal documents, and news clippings dealing with civil rights issues.
    Materials available online: Not available online.
    Access Notes:  These materials are available for use at the UMD Archives and Special Collections. For more information or to make an appointment, email libarchives@d.umn.edu or call (218) 726-8526.
  • Concerned Citizens for Central Hillside Community Center records
    Date Range: 1972-1978
    Description: The collection consists of correspondence, minutes from 1977, 1978, articles of incorporation, articles of incorporation for Institute of Afro-American Awareness, constitution and by-laws; an abstract from about 1972 “to marshal the resources of the black community; Urban Renewal Plan for Central Hillside Area, November 1972.
    Materials available online: Not available online.
    Access Notes: These materials are available for use at the UMD Archives and Special Collections. For more information or to make an appointment, email libarchives@d.umn.edu or call (218) 726-8526.
  • Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee records
    Date Range:     2001-2006
    Description: On June 15, 1920, three young African-American men -- Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie -- who had been wrongly accused of raping a white woman were abducted from the Duluth City Jail. A mob of five to ten thousand people savagely beat and tortured these three young men, then hanged them from a lamppost. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee was formed following a vigil marking the 80th anniversary of this event. The vigil and the idea for a memorial resulted from conversations between Heidi Bakk-Hansen and community activist Henry Banks while Bakk-Hansen was researching her article "Duluth's Lingering Shame." The article was published on June 7, 2000 in the Ripsaw News. The Memorial Committee organized to acknowledge this painful piece of Duluth's history, to create a memorial at the site of the lynching, and to support Duluth in becoming a more just and inclusive community. After three years of work by the committee, a Memorial Plaza including inscriptions and sculptural representations of the young men was dedicated on October 10, 2003 on Second Avenue East and First Street, kitty corner from the lynching site. The Committee's ongoing work includes community education, a scholarship program, curriculum development, and a website.The collection consists of Committee meeting agendas, minutes, and financial statements; a limited amount of correspondence and publications; educational materials, student reaction papers to classroom presentations on the lynchings and racism, and scholarship essays; and Heidi Bakk-Hansen's notes for her Ripsaw article.
    Materials available online: Not available online
    Access Notes: These materials are available for use at the UMD Archives and Special Collections. For more information or to make an appointment, email libarchives@d.umn.edu or call (218) 726-8526.
  • Lurline J. Baker-Kent oral history interview concerning women in politics
    Date: 1979
    Description: Lurline Baker-Kent was born in Mississippi and lived in Duluth, Minnesota for 14 years before moving to St. Paul in 1982. She graduated cum laude from the College of St. Scholastica, was elected to the Duluth School Board in 1975, and served one term. Lurline Baker-Kent worked as a probation officer, and was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections in 1982. At the time of her oral history interview, in 1979, she was a Job Development Specialist at Arrowhead Regional Corrections in Duluth. The collection consists of three audio recordings of an interview with Lurline Baker. The interview was conducted as a part of the Women in Politics Oral History Project and took place on January 12, 1979. A transcript of this interview is available. In the interview Lurline Baker talked about her own personal philosophy regarding work and politics, about being a black woman in Duluth, Minnesota and in politics, about her role on the Duluth School Board, the issues she felt were important, and about the campaign she ran for the school board in 1975.
    Materials available online: Not available online.
    Access Notes: These materials are available for use at the UMD Archives and Special Collections. For more information or to make an appointment, email libarchives@d.umn.edu or call (218) 726-8526.
  • Duluth African-American Oral History Project
    Date: November 2016 - February 2017
    Description: The African American Oral History Project was initiated by the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial Committee to aid in the documentation of the history of Duluth’s African American community. In some ways this project is an extension of the oral history project conducted by David Vassor Taylor in the early 1970s. The funding came from a Legacy Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. The African American Oral History Project includes interviews designed to document particular aspects of Duluth’s history and/or important local institutions, such as the Institute for Afro-American Awareness, the local branch of NAACP, St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal, Calvary Baptist Church and the Juneteenth Celebration committee, as well as document African American life more generally. The interviews were conducted between November 2016 and February 2017.
    Taken as a group, these interviews were conducted in order to document the many aspects of life in Duluth, particularly as experienced by African Americans. Business people, educators, laborers, commercial seamen, fire fighters, military veterans, civil employees, community activists and other civic leaders of various kinds, as well as regular folks, were interviewed. Some interviews are brief, lasting 60 minutes or less; others are more extensive, lasting up to three or more hours. The interviewees talk about their parents, their upbringing (often outside Duluth), their experiences in school, their careers, and their achievements. They discuss everyday life as well as the big events in the history they lived. The interviewees offer their own perspective on events, and while there are many areas of agreement, there are events that they each remember in their own ways.
    The collection consists of digital files containing 12 audio interviews, transcripts for the interviews, biographies of interviewees, and other supporting materials.
    Materials available online: Duluth African-American Oral History Project
    Access Notes: These materials are available online through UMedia. For more information, email libarchives@d.umn.edu or call (218) 726-8526.

Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Superior

  • UW-Superior Yearbooks and Student Newspapers
    Date Range: 1960s - present
    Collection Description:  Yearbooks and student newspapers include information on the Black Student Union, which has been active on campus since its formation in 1971. This organization was preceeded by the student Afro-American Society, which formed in the mid-to-late 1960s.
    Materials available online:  All yearbooks have been digitized and are available online. Students newspapers through 2007 have been digitized and are available online.
    Access Notes:  These materials are freely available on the web and can be accessed from anywhere. Physical copies of these materials can also be viewed at the archives. Appointments are strongly encouraged. See https://library.uwsuper.edu/specialcollections for information on contacting the archives.

Resources at the College of St. Scholastica

  • The College of St. Scholastica Archives
    Date Range: 1903 - present
    Description: No separate name is given to St. Scholastica's collections related to African American history, but as this college has always been dedicated to inclusion and diversity to honor its Catholic Benedictine values, unique records to support African American studies are in this archives.
    Materials in the Archives include historical documents, student publications such as newspapers and yearbooks, college publications such as catalogs and magazines, and departmental and committee documents. The archives also contains over 150,000 images including photographs, slides, and negatives and recordings both audio and visual. The 300+ recordings have all been digitized in order to preserve them from obsolete formats.
    Materials available online:  College publications (1903 to present), photographs (1909 to present)
    Access Notes:  These materials are open for viewing. Advance notification is strongly encouraged so someone will be able to assist you. Please email librarian Heidi Johnson who volunteers for the Archives at hjohnso2@css.edu or call the Library (218-723-6140) for further help.