Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm85061711
Collection material in English with French
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 Faith Berry, author, editor, and professor, were given to the Library of Congress by Berry in 1984, 1995, 1998, and 2009.
Part I of the papers of Faith Berry was processed by Margaret McAleer in 1991. The finding aid was revised in 2010. Additional material was processed as Part II by Joseph Brooks with the assistance of Rosa Hernandez in 2022.
Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Sound recordings have been transferred to the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. Three issues of the French periodical
Copyright in the unpublished writings of Faith Berry in these papers and in other collections in the custody of the Library of Congress is reserved. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division for further information.
Restrictions apply governing the use, photoduplication, or publication of items in this collection. Consult reference staff in the Manuscript Division for information concerning these restrictions. In addition, many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Roman numeral designating the Part followed by a colon and container number, Faith Berry Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Faith Berry (1939-2017), excluding research material, cover the period 1963-2009, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1971 to 1983. The papers concern Berry's research on the life and literary career of poet Langston Hughes, her collaboration with pioneering African American literature scholar J. Saunders Redding on an anthology of his works, her membership on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored (NAACP) Task Force on Africa (1976-1977), and her work as a television scriptwriter. Berry's involvement in the women's movement is also documented, principally her membership on the President's Advisory Committee for Women, her contract work with the Department of Labor Women's Bureau (1979-1980), and her attendance at the United Nations Decade for Women Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark (1980). The collection is organized into two parts. Further description of each part follows.
Part I, excluding research material, spans the years 1963-1984, and is organized into five series: Langston Hughes , National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Task Force on Africa , Women's Issues , Kissinger in Retrospect , and Oversize .
The Langston Hughes series consists in part of files generated through Berry's decade-long research on the poet's life and work. The Langston Hughes (1901-1967) files include correspondence, photocopies of research material, a program from a memorial service, and various articles written by Berry about Hughes. Correspondence consists of letters to federal, state, and local agencies concerning Hughes's birth and possible marriage, his parents' marriage, the death of an infant sibling, and his father's life after separating from Hughes's mother. Correspondence also includes Berry's Freedom of Information Act requests for documents located among the State Department records at the National Archives and Records Administration concerning Hughes's alleged communist activities. Photocopied material includes a lengthy run of correspondence between Hughes and Rinehart and Company publishers between 1953 and 1960. Berry received access to this correspondence from Theodore S. Amussen, a former vice-president of the company and later editor-in-chief at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Finally, the research files include an original program from a memorial service for Hughes held on 25 May 1967 at the Benta Funeral Home in Harlem.
Berry's research culminated in the publication of
The second series concerns Berry's membership between 1976 and 1977 on NAACP Task Force on Africa . The NAACP board of directors created the task force in September 1976, commissioning it to conduct a thorough study of current conditions in Africa and to advise the board in the creation of an African policy. Berry was selected as a member of the task force in part because of her expertise in the field of communications. Organized into four teams, the task force visited southern African countries during the spring of 1977 in order to meet with African leaders and gather firsthand information. Berry visited Botswana, Rhodesia, Tanzania, and Zambia as a member of the team chaired by Franklin Williams, president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and former United States ambassador to Ghana.
Papers relating to the task force document the group's organization and activities and include correspondence, memoranda, drafts of reports, minutes, itineraries, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Subject files , consisting largely of printed matter, provide background information on Africa in general and the countries visited by the Williams team specifically. Printed material includes publications from the African Fund and the American Committee on Africa; government publications made available to the task force by the African countries visited; and material published by various African nationalist organizations such as the United African National Council, the Zimbabwe African National Union, and the Zimbabwe United People's Organization. The subject files also contain photocopies of official correspondence and reports, transcripts of interviews, and miscellaneous printed matter documenting Berry's research on African media as well as original pamphlets, information sheets, and application forms she collected on American mercenaries employed in the Rhodesian army.
The Women's Issues series concerns Berry's involvement in the women's movement through her employment with the President's Advisory Committee for Women (PACW) and her contract work with the Department of Labor Women's Bureau between 1979 and 1980. The PACW, chaired by Lynda Johnson Robb, was established by Jimmy Carter in 1979 to serve as heir to the National Advisory Committee for Women, formerly headed by Bella S. Abzug. Berry served as media coordinator for the PACW from July 1979 until March 1980, a tenure represented in the Women's Issues series by correspondence, memoranda, minutes, proposals, and newspaper clippings. Following her resignation from PACW, Berry undertook contract work for the Department of Labor Women's Bureau where she wrote speeches for the bureau's director, Alexis M. Herman, and oversaw various press and media projects. Memoranda, proposals, invoices, and drafts of speeches document her work for the bureau.
In 1980 Berry attended the United Nations Decade for Women Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a representative of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) to the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum. Immediately before traveling to Copenhagen, Berry visited Morocco as the NCNW's representative in the Transcentury Women-to-Women exchange program. The Women's Issues series contains brochures, programs, schedules, reports, notes, press releases, and newspaper clippings from the Mid-Decade conference, the NCNW Second International Seminar, and the Transcentury Women-to-Women program.
Subject files complete the Women's Issues series. These consist largely of research materials, including newspaper clippings, magazine articles, papers, reports, notes, and miscellaneous printed matter on such issues as education, employment, the Equal Rights Amendment, military, minority women, and social security. Various women's conferences between 1976 and 1982 are documented through programs, proceedings, newspaper clippings, reports, and memoranda. More than half of these conferences focused specifically on minority women.
Printed ephemera scattered throughout the Women's Issues series provides insight into the women's movement between 1976 and 1982. Brochures, leaflets, and pamphlets reveal how women organized themselves on the local, national, and international levels and document issues of greatest concern. The PACW files include an unpublished, in-house directory of more than 275 women's organizations in existence between 1979 and 1980. The directory consists of detailed information sheets on the nature and services of each organization and occasionally includes publications and other printed material issued by the organization. Printed ephemera collected by Berry in Copenhagen during the Mid-Decade Conference includes material on communications, education, feminism, health, child care, peace, ecology, human rights, politics, violence, and work. Some of these materials are organized by subject, while other files pertaining to a specific country or region are arranged alphabetically by place of origin. More than thirty-five countries or regions are represented. Finally, the Women's Issues subject files include printed matter from more than sixty women's organizations and publications in the United States. This material is arranged alphabetically by name of organization or publication.
The penultimate series,
The final series of Part I consists of an Oversize consisting of a resolution of the District of Columbia City Council recognizing Berry's work towards promoting public awareness and appreciation of Langston Hughes within the Washington, D.C. community, and posters pulled from the Women's Issues series.
Notable correspondents in the collection include Theodore M. Berry, Broadus N. Butler, Alexis M. Herman, Franklin Williams, and Margaret Bush Wilson.
Part II spans, excluding research material, 1970-2009 and is organized into four series: Langston Hughes, J. Saunders Redding, Miscellany, and Oversize.
This Langston Hughes series in Part II supplements and expands on material in the Langston Hughes series of Part I. This Langston Hughes series includes files, mostly correspondence, on the two literary executors of the Langston Hughes estate, playwright and theater founder George Houston Bass, and poet Arna Bontemps. Also part of the series are files on Hughes's friends and associates Berry talked to, corresponded with, or researched while preparing
Berry did two stints, in 1987 and 1992, as guest editor of the
The 1992 commemorative issue of the
Throughout the Langston Hughes series are files related to Berry's search for Hughes's more radical and socially critical poems and prose in obscure literary magazines to solidify Hughes's reputation as a revolutionary writer. Berry's findings were published as
The Part II Langston Hughes series also includes his Federal Bureau of Investigation case file, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, that delves into Hughes's alleged Communist activities, affiliations, and sympathies. A related file includes Berry's correspondence with FBI officials, notably Director Clarence M. Kelley.
The J. Saunders Redding series includes material Berry compiled as editor of
The Miscellany series documents Berry's association with two writers' groups, the National Writers Union and Washington Independent Writers. The series also includes Berry's writings for English and French language publications such as
The Oversize series of Part II consists of two photographs of Hughes from the 1930s, with a child in the Soviet Union and with a German Shepherd dog on a beach, respectively.
This collection is arranged in two parts composed of nine series:
Part I:
Part II:
Correspondence, photocopies of research material, copyedited manuscript, book reviews, radio transcript, newspaper clippings, and other printed matter pertaining to Berry's research on the life of poet Langston Hughes and her efforts to increase public recognition of Hughes's literary contributions as a twentieth-century man of letters.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material.
Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, drafts of reports, printed matter, background material, photographs, and newspaper clippings pertaining to Berry's participation on the NAACP Task Force on Africa between 1976 and 1977.
Separated into administrative and subject files and arranged alphabetically therein by topic or type of material.
Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, invoices, reports, speeches, press releases, brochures, printed matter, and newspaper clippings relating to Berry's work with the President's Advisory Committee for Women and the Department of Labor Women's Bureau; her attendance at the United Nations Decade for Women Mid-Decade Conference, the Second International Seminar of the National Council of Negro Women, and the Transcentury Women-to-Women Program; and her research on women's issues between 1977 and 1983.
Arranged largely sequentially according to activity and alphabetically therein by topic. Miscellaneous subject files comprise the final grouping.
Working script for a documentary program written and produced by Berry for WETA/TV-FM public television in Washington, D.C.
Posters and a printed resolution.
Arranged and described according to the series, boxes, and folders from which the items were removed.
Correspondence, poems, published and draft articles, photographs, research files, Federal Bureau of Investigation case files, books, newspaper and magazine clippings, and miscellaneous material related to Faith Berry's research for her biography of the poet Langston Hughes and for commemorative projects based on the life and works of the poet.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material.
Published and draft articles by and about Redding, correspondence, pasteup book chapters, photographs, speeches, topical files, and miscellaneous material related to
Arranged alphabetically by type of material.
Files documenting Berry's consulting business and her employment at the National Gallery of Art and WETA, a public broadcasting station, topical files, and her published writings.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material.
Photographs.
Arranged and described according to the series, boxes, and folder from which the items were removed.