Research Catalog

Title

Ewart Guinier papers, 1910-1989.

Author

Guinier, Ewart.

Supplementary Content

Finding Aid

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Bok, Derek Curtis.
• Cuney, William Waring, 1906-1976.
• Du Bois, Shirley Graham, 1906-1977.
• Dunlop, John T. (John Thomas), 1914-2003.
• Ford, Franklin L. (Franklin Lewis), 1920-
• Guinier, Ewart.
• Harvard University. Afro-American Studies Department.
• Leonard, Walter J.
• Patterson, Orlando, 1940-
• Rosovsky, Henry.
• Stuckey, Sterling.
• Turner, James.
• Walters, Ronald W.

Description

23.7 lin. ft. (63 boxes).

Subjects

• Black people > Study and teaching
• Government employee unions > United States
• Harlem Affairs Committee
• African Americans scholars
• African American studies
• Association of African and Afro-American Students at Harvard and Radcliffe
• Harvard University Alumni and alumnae
• African American labor union members
• Labor movement > United States
• Harvard University Administration
• Community organization > Queens (New York, N.Y.)
• National Council of American-Soviet Friendship (U.S.)
• African AmericanxEducation
• Local government > Queens (New York, N.Y.)
• W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research
• Harvard University Faculty
• Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History
• Harvard University Employees
• Kilson, Martin
• African American college teachers > Selection and appointment
• Black studies
• Detente
• National Association of Black and Ethnic Studies Directors
• Local elections > New York (State) > New York
• Columbia University > Urban Center
• Student movements > United States
• Harvard University Strikes
• Jamaica Coordinating Committee
• Harvard University > Afro-American Studies Department
• Gulf Oil Corporation
• Harvard University > DuBois Institute
• New York (N.Y.) > Politics and government > Queens
• African American > Study and teaching > United States
• Panama Canal (Panama) > Social conditions
• Campaign literature
• Douglass Urban Corporation
• Community development > Queens (New York, N.Y.)
• Harvard-Radcliffe Afro-American Cultural Center
• Guinier, Ewart
• United Public Workers of America
• Community organization > New York (State) > New York > Queens
• Affirmative action programs
• Community development > New York (State) > New York > Queens
• Harvard University Curricula
• African American college students > Political activity
• African American college administrators
• Pan-African Liberation Committee
• Discrimination in employment > Law and legislation > United States
• Loyalty oaths > United States
• Labor unions and communism > United States
• Student Organization of Black Unity
• Urban League of Greater New York
• Discrimination in employment > Panama > Panama Canal
• Civil service > Minority employment

Note

• Photographs and recordings have been transferred to the Photograph and Prints and to the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Divisions.

Access (note)

• closed until 2041.

Source (note)

• Mrs. Eugenia Guinier.

Biography (note)

• Labor leader, former presidential candidate for the Borough of Manhattan, and the first chairman of Harvard University's Department of African American Studies.

Indexes/Finding Aids (note)

• Finding aid available in repository.

Processing Action (note)

• Processed.
• Cataloged.

Call Number

Sc MG 420

Author

Guinier, Ewart.

Title

Ewart Guinier papers, 1910-1989.

Summary

The Ewart Guinier Papers document Guinier's professional and political career as a labor leader and community organizer from 1938 to 1962, and his role in the founding and development of Harvard University's African American Studies Department (AASD) from 1969 to 1975. The Personal papers provide partial documentation on his childhood and migration to the United States, his employment in the Civil Service in New York, his military record, his association with the Urban League, the Urban Center at Columbia University and the Douglass Urban Corporation, his alumni affiliations and his membership in various professional and political organizations, including the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Boston Area Black Studies Consortium, the National Association of Black and Ethnic Studies Directors and the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. The Labor and politics series documents Guinier's career as Secretary-Treasurer of the United Public Workers of America union, his association with the American Labor Party as a candidate for the Manhattan Borough presidency in 1949, and his work in the 1950s and early 1960s with the Harlem Affairs Committee and the Jamaica Coordinating Council. The series consists primarily of correspondence, articles and speeches written by Guinier, minutes and reports of UPW's Executive council. Also included are printed matter files on labor discrimination in the Panama Canal Zone and the 1947 Loyalty Act.

Arranged chronologically, the General correspondence series deals for the most part with the day to day operation of the African American Studies Department and with Guinier's points of contention with Harvard University. Student groups throughout the country frequently wrote to Guinier seeking his assistance in establishing black studies programs at their schools. He also corresponded with other black studies scholars and administrators, including James Turner, John Henrik Clarke, Ronald Walters and Ster ing Stuckey. Harvard correspondents include Harvard President Derek Bok, his special assistant Walter Leonard, and deans John Dunlop, Franklin Ford and Henry Rosovsky. Guinier's early writings dealt with issues of labor and electoral politics. Other articles in the Writings and notes series relate to black studies issues and to the black experience at Harvard. His published and unpublished reviews encompass the work of David Levering Lewis and Nathan Huggins, Boris Bittker's book "The Case for Black Reparations" and the film "Kongi's Harvest." Guinier's speeches give a fuller sense of his thinking and the many controversial issues he confronted as an uncompromising critic of institutional racism within the university, and as an advocate for a black perspective in history. Conference materials in this series include transcriptions and reports for the 1972 Roslyn conference of black studies program directors.

The Harvard series forms the bulk of the collection and is divided into 12 subseries. The first subseries, History of the Department, chronicles the four main periods in the life of the department under Guinier's leadership: formation of the department, the first year of AASD, the Committee to Review AASD and the "First Three Year" report of the department. The DuBois Institute subseries is divided into three categories: early history, the university-wide concept, and general. Early history files document efforts by Guinier and the Standing Committee to Develop AASD to launch the Institute. The remainder of the subseries documents the work of two committees appointed by dean Dunlop and president Bok to develop the Institute on a university-wide basis, and Guinier's own efforts, assisted by AASD faculty and concentrators, to preserve a direct link between the two black entities within Harvard. Files for the Search for tenure are restricted until 2041. The Faculty and Concentrators subseries are divided into restricted and non-restricted materials. The Faculty files consist of biographical and bibliographic statements, writings and correspondence relating to activities or research projects of the department's teaching staff, tutors and fellows. The Concentrators files relate to procedures and requirements for majoring in African American studies and to activities of the African American Studies Concentrators.

Guinier kept a separate file for his recurring clashes with Martin Kilson, an African American professor of Government at Harvard who was particularly hostile to Guinier and the department. The Kilson-Guinier subseries includes articles by Kilson and Guinier published in the New York Times and the New York Amsterdam News, transcript of a television debate between the two, letters to Kilson and Guinier and their replies, articles criticizing Kilson's outlook on education, and student papers and projects inspired by the controversy. Letters and articles by Orlando Patterson, another outspoken critic of the African American Studies Department and its chairman, are located in the Faculty subseries. Materials for Guinier's courses taught at Harvard fall into two categories: mechanics of courses and student papers. His two main courses dealt with Blacks, labor and politics from 1919 to 1945, and with Black efforts at self-determination after 1945. The Faculty of Art and Sciences subseries consists mostly of general and administrative correspondence, agenda and minutes of Faculty Council meetings, and reports, all pertaining directly or indirectly to the African American Studies Department and its interaction with the university administration and the larger Harvard environment.

The Student activities and organizations subseries partially documents activities of the following groups: Harvard-Radcliffe Association of African and African American Students (Afro), the Harvard-Radcliffe African American Cultural Center, the Pan-African Liberation Committee (PALC) and the Student Organization for Black Unity. Student activities in this subseries refer primarily to the 1969 "Painters' Strike" and a 1972 campaign led by PALC and Afro to pressure Gulf Oil to provide better wages for its black employees in Angola. The Black studies in the United States series is divided into three groups: correspondence, a subject file, and a black studies programs subseries. Major categories in the subject file include blacks at Harvard, blacks on white campuses and printed matter. The files for individual black studies programs include conference papers and programs, proposals for new courses and new programs, catalogues of courses, reports, and articles by and about scholars associated with each school. The Vertical file was an important complement to the reading list for Guinier's classes. The bulk of this series is arranged alphabetically, according to subject headings selected by Guinier. The entire series consists of newspaper and magazine articles, conference programs, mimeographed letters and reports, newsletters, factsheets and selected student papers, and represents a valuable source of information on black politics from 1969 to 1975.

Access

Student records, personnel and tenure files closed until 2041.

Biography

Labor leader, former presidential candidate for the Borough of Manhattan, and the first chairman of Harvard University's Department of African American Studies. Born in Panama of West Indian parents in 1910, Ewart Guinier migrated to the United States in 1925 and studied at Harvard University, the City University of New York, Columbia University and New York University. He became the International Secretary of the United Public Workers of America in 1940, and was the Liberal Party candidate for the presidency of the Borough of Manhattan in 1949. In the 1930s, Guinier helped organize community efforts to break the traditional pattern of lily-white employment in the main shopping district in Harlem and to open jobs for African Americans in New York's public transportion system. An active figure in progressive and labor circles, he served as vice-president of the National Negro Labor Council in the 1950s, and also worked with the National Urban League, the Harlem Affairs Committee and the Jamaica Coordinating Council. He served as the first chairman of the African American Studies Department at Harvard University from 1969 to 1976, and held a full professorship until his retirement in 1980. Ewart Guinier died in 1990.

Indexes

Finding aid available in repository.

Connect to:

Finding Aid

Local Subject

Community organization -- Queens (New York, N.Y.)

Community development -- Queens (New York, N.Y.)

Local government -- Queens (New York, N.Y.)

Black studies.

African American studies.

Added Author

Guinier, Ewart.

Rosovsky, Henry.

Patterson, Orlando, 1940-

Turner, James.

Walters, Ronald W.

Stuckey, Sterling.

Du Bois, Shirley Graham, 1906-1977.

Dunlop, John T. (John Thomas), 1914-2003.

Ford, Franklin L. (Franklin Lewis), 1920-

Leonard, Walter J.

Bok, Derek Curtis.

Cuney, William Waring, 1906-1976.

Harvard University. Afro-American Studies Department.

Research Call Number

Sc MG 420