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Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2005085224
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Herbert Hill, civil rights activist, educator, author, and NAACP labor secretary, were given to the Library of Congress by Kathleen Cronin in 2006. A few items were received as gifts of Jane Latour and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 2005.
A VHS tape, audiocassettes, and reel-to-reel tapes have been transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division where they are identified as part of these papers.
Copyright in the unpublished writings of Herbert Hill in these papers and in other collections of in the custody of the Library of Congress is reserved. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division for further information.
The papers of Herbert Hill are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Division Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to site this collection should include the following information: Container number, Herbert Hill Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
The papers of Herbert Hill (1924-2004) span the years 1869-2004, with the bulk of the collection dating 1944-1999. The papers document Hill's career with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that commenced in 1948. Serving as the organization's labor secretary for twenty-six years, he fought racial discrimination by labor unions and tried to get government agencies that regulated unions and industries to be more effective in their enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. While with the NAACP and after leaving the organization in 1977, Hill also had a distinguished career as an author, editor, professor, and public speaker. He wrote and spoke on labor, racial, and other social issues and, though white, was an expert on African-American literature of the mid-twentieth century.
The Hill Papers, most of which are in English, are organized into six series: General Correspondence , Organizations and Projects , Legal File , Speeches and Writings , Subject File , and Oversize .
The General Correspondence contains letters exchanged with colleagues in the NAACP and other civil rights and social reform organizations; academicians, particularly in the fields of industrial relations, labor history, and African-American literature and culture; union officials and labor activists; writers, particularly African-American authors he edited and whose careers he followed; government officials; and friends.
General correspondents include James de T. Abajian, Derrick A. Bell, Faith Berry, Mary Frances Berry, Robert Bone, Louis L. Brin, George W. Brooks, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert L. Carter, Horace R. Cayton (1903-1970), Arthur J. Chapital, Kenneth Bancroft Clark, Peter Clecak, Thomas Cripps, Gloster B. Current ,William Demby, St. Clair Drake,, Melvin Drimmer, Robert F. Drinan, Eric Foner, Philip Sheldon Foner, William C. Gausmann, Barry L. Goldstein, Martin H. Gopen, William B. Gould, Louis R. Harlan, Sheldon H. Harris, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jeannette Hopkins, Irving Louis Horowitz, Samuel C. Jackson, Paul Jacobs, Julius Jacobson, Gilbert Jonas, James E. Jones, William Karp, Randall Kennedy, Milton R. Konvitz, Robert Laurnetz, John M. Lavine, Stanford M. Lyman, Manning Marable, F. Ray Marshall, François Masnata, Roberta McBride, James F. McNamara, August Meier, H. L. Mitchell, Henry Lee Moon, John A. Morsell, Daniel P. Moynihan, Gunnar Myrdal, Winn Newman, Paul H. Norgren, Akiko Ochiai, Otto H. Olsen, Kenneth Paff, Nell Irvin Painter, Benjamin Quarles, A. Philip Randolph, Joseph L. Rauh, Wilson Record, Sanford Ress, Sanford Jay Rosen, Abraham Rothberg, Alexander Saxton, Henry Schwarzschild, Raman K. Singh, Ronald T. Takaki, Mark V. Tushnet, Gilbert Ware, Stephen L. Wasby, Roy Wilkins, John Wolfers, and Richard Wright.
Files in the Organizations and Projects series document Hill's anti-discrimination work in labor markets when he was with the NAACP and as a professor of industrial relations and African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Files in the series relate to trade unions such as the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Textile Workers Union of America, and the United Packinghouse Workers of America, as well as to large economic sectors such as agriculture and the building trades, and industries such as aviation, electrical and communications, entertainment, paper making, petroleum and chemical, hospitality, maritime, and steel. The largest file documents Hill's effort to address ingrained patterns of racial discrimination in the building trade unions through “hometown plans” such as the Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia plans that aimed to establish affirmative action goals in the selection of minorities for union apprenticeship programs and in the hiring of a greater number of qualified minority craftsmen.
Hill took a close interest in union democracy movements, particularly the Teamsters for a Democratic Union within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and in unions representing employees of unions such as the Federation of Union Representatives that organized employees of the ILGW. He also followed African-American dissident movements within unions. Examples include the Trade Union Leadership Council and the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement within the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (United Auto Workers), and the black caucuses of the United Steel Workers, International Chemical Workers Union, American Federation of Teachers, and in the public transportation sector. There is also material on independent African-American labor organizations such as the Negro American Labor Council.
Also documented in the Organizations and Projects series are the federal, state, and local organizations that regulated unions and industrial sectors, investigated claims of racial discrimination, and enforced anti-discrimination laws and regulations. Some of the federal organizations include the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, National Labor Relations Board, President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, and the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Herbert Hill was not a lawyer but he wrote extensively on legal issues and corresponded with judges, academics, and members of the labor law and civil rights bar about the conduct of litigation and the ramifications of judicial opinions. Most of this correspondence in the General Correspondence and Legal File series. Hill frequently served as a consultant on cases or as an expert witness, and he followed important labor discrimination and civil rights cases closely. In the Legal File are case files tracking labor law, anti-discrimination, and civil rights issues through all levels of the federal courts and to a lesser degree state and local courts. Initial administrative grievance cases brought before regulatory agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the National Labor Relations Board are in the agency files in the Organizations and Projects series.
Herbert Hill was a prolific writer in the fields of industrial relations, labor history, racial discrimination in labor markets, civil rights, and African-American literature. He was a close friend of Richard Wright and edited two anthologies of black writing,
Other books by Hill documented in the Speeches and Writings include
Also included in the Speeches and Writings are extensive article and speech files. The alphabetical file of Hill's articles contains his longer works with background material and feedback correspondence. There is also a chronological file of his shorter articles.
The Subject File series includes an academic file documenting his visiting professorships and post-NAACP career at the University of Wisconsin, a personal and biographical file, and an extensive file of newspaper clippings.
The collection is arranged in six series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm2005085224
Correspondence with colleagues and friends with attached material.
Arranged chronologically.
Topical files, federal and state government records, case files,correspondence, trade union records, printed matter, research files, and miscellaneous material.
Arranged alphabetically by organization, project, economic sector, or topic.
Case files, dockets, case summaries, and other material relating to courts and legal organizations.
Some cases are arranged by jurisdictional court and thereunder alphabetically by name of case. Other material arranged alphabetically by subject or type of material, including files on railroad and steel company unions.
Articles, book drafts, speeches, correspondence, reviews, background and research material, permissions, contracts, and material relating to speaking engagements.
Arranged by type of writing with speaking material and writings by others filed at the end of the series.
Topical files, personal and biographical material, university teaching files, student papers, interviews, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous material.
Arranged alphabetically by topic or type of material.
Poster, printed matter, and African-American history calendar.
Arranged and described according to the series, containers, and folders from which the items were removed.