The University of Maine Racial Justice Collection is a curated collection of items compiled as part of an internship project to create an archive of primary sources by, from, and about the Black community and racial justice issues at the University of Maine and in the greater Bangor region. The Collection was created in response to the increased social awareness of racial justice issues in the United States following the death of George Floyd in the spring and summer of 2020.
The resources include theses, extracts from The Maine Campus student newspaper, newsletters, interviews, articles, posters, webpages, correspondence, and reports from University of Maine administrators, departments, student groups, and individual faculty, staff, students, and alumni. The material includes born digital items captured from the web and scans of analog items from records held in the University of Maine Archive.
The content was compiled by student intern Madison Riley and staff in Fogler Library from August 2020-April 2021.
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A Study of the Causes of Racial Friction as Represented in the Detroit, Beaumont, and Harlem Outbreaks
Evelyn B. Knight
This study has to do with the causes of racial friction as represented in the Detroit, Beaumont and Harlem outbreaks occurring in 1943. It will be pointed out that the incidental causes of such riots are symptoms leading to the exploratory job of finding the disease of "scapegoatism”. A survey of literature on the problem will bring about some understanding of the importance of racial prejudices and their relation to an international understanding. The opinions of experts in such fields as anthropology, economics, sociology, and psychology will be analyzed in an effort to determine how such friction may be eliminated in order to preserve American Democracy. Conclusions will be drawn from such sources in an attempt to prevent further infringement upon the rights of "all the people” by means of recognizing the symptoms resulting in friction.
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Correspondence between President Authur A. Hauck and Warren Brown regarding Information on Race Prejudices
Arthur A. Hauck and Warren Brown
A letter from Arthur A. Hauck, President of the University of Maine, to Evans Clark, Secretary of the Council for Democracy, written on September 30, 1943 in regards to President Hauck's membership with the Committee on the Group Life of Students of the National Association of State Universities and a discussion on 'Racial Problems and Student Attitudes and suggestions to help the conversation. Warren Brown, from the Council of Democracy, responded to President Hauck on November 1, 1943 stating that they sent material in regards to Black lives and to send back a reaction.
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Maine Campus_Editorial regarding Samuel Courtney
Maine Campus staff
Editorial from the University of Maine student newspaper The Maine Campus regarding of what they describe as a "hazing" incident of Black students Roger and Samuel Courtney who were tarred and feathered.
A photograph of the incident is featured in the collection.
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Photograph of Courtney Brothers Tarred and Feathered
Author Unknown
Photograph of two Black students Samuel and Roger Courtney tarred and feathered While at the time this incident was described as "hazing" incident carried out by University of Maine a modern interpretation, by scholars such as Karen Sieber, Humanities Specialist at the McGillicuddy Humanities Center, was that this was actually a racist attack.
Sieber has featured this incident in her, Visualizing the Red Summer database and archive on the topic of the Red Summer of 1919, a term given to a nationwide wave of violence against African Americans that year.
More information on this incident can be elsewhere in this collection.