?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
(CIVIL RIGHTS.) Freedom Summer archive of civil rights activist Karen Haberman Trusty. Approximately 100 items from 1963 and 1964 plus newspaper clippings; condition varies but generally only minor wear. Atlanta, GA and elsewhere, 1963-1964
Karen Haberman, a young white woman from Stony Brook, NY, was a student at Connecticut College when she became involved in the civil rights movement. She spent the fall of 1963 as an exchange student at Atlanta's Spelman College, where she joined the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was arrested three times at Atlanta sit-ins in January 1964. She then volunteered with SNCC for Freedom Summer in 1964: training volunteers in Ohio, working in the Atlanta communications office, being attacked by a mob at a George Wallace / KKK rally in July, and then working at the national SNCC office in Greenwood, MS as an overnight hotline operator.
Offered here is a collection of printed ephemera from her civil rights activism in 1963 and 1964, including many scarce or unique items from SNCC and Freedom Summer. Some of the highlights:
"Now is the Time for Action. Hookey for Freedom: Instead of School, the Streets." 14 x 8 1/2 inches; worn with several punctures, folds, and short tears. It was produced by the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights and SNCC for a student protest led by SNCC's John Lewis (see the report in the Atlanta Constitution, 8 January 1964). As the consignor recalled, it "was handed out at high schools throughout Atlanta in the Black neighborhoods. It resulted in many young students coming out to protest segregation. They increased the number of participants marching a great deal and gave heart to the somewhat flagging sit-ins." Emory University holds one of these small posters; none others have been traced. [Atlanta, GA, 7 January 1964].
"Mississippi Summer Project." 8 pages, 8 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, on one folding sheet. Illustrated tri-fold brochure soliciting volunteers and donations. Includes a 22 January 1964 illustration, and states that "applications must be received by mid-April." The consignor notes: "This was one of the most effective recruiting brochures for SNCC everywhere. The outside picture is amazing, and the inside has so much information." Atlanta, GA, early 1964.
"Freedom Singers, Sponsored by Connecticut College Civil Rights Club for the Benefit of . . . SNCC." Poster, 11 x 17 inches. The consignor recalls: "After being an exchange student to Spelman College I returned to the Connecticut College for Women in the spring of 1964. I arranged for a concert with the Freedom Singers to come to Connecticut College, and this is the poster I made." New London, CT: Grindstone Press, 22 March [1964].
"Mississippi," a draft of a Freedom Summer recruitment message. 2 pages, early photocopied typescript, urging volunteers to arrive by 7 June. "Where will you be, when the cry for help comes from Mississippi?" The consignor notes: "I believe it was one of the first drafts of recruiting materials. There is one error on the second page about the Freedom Schools and the subjects taught, which were much wider than stated in this letter. They included French, Black history, whatever the students wanted to learn about. Almost every freedom school produced their own newsletter." No place, spring 1964.
WATS Reports. 73 different reports plus a few duplicates. Each one or two pages, legal or letter sized, mostly original mimeograph (a few in later photocopy, a few with additional manuscript notes). SNCC had a dedicated WATS line (Wide Area Telephone Service, the predecessor of 1-800 numbers) dedicated to taking reports. This set is incomplete, but sometimes includes two or three reports from a single day. It includes reports from 3 June, then almost daily from 25 June to 1 August 1964, and finally 22 and 23 August 1964. The 2 July 1964 report is subtitled "Unofficial Report Taken by Karen Haberman." She recalls: "We took our reports from all over the South which included church burnings, bombings, beatings and the rest. I worked on the Wats line in Greenwood on the midnight to 8 am shift." No place, June-August 1964.
Mardon Walker. "Fulton County Jail, Atlanta, Ga." 3-page mimeograph recounting her experience after being jailed at a lunch counter protest. She was a fellow exchange student of the consignor's at Spelman. 13 January 1964.
5 issues of "The Student Voice." Each 4 pages on one folding sheet; reporting on Atlanta protests. Includes 18 November 1963, 14 January 1964, 27 January 1964 (2 copies), and 3 March 1964. Atlanta, GA, 1963-1964.
Group of 10 mimeographed SNCC / Summer Project memoranda: "Report from Marshall Jones who Just Returned from Selma, Alabama . . . 7 July 1964"; "Churches Burned or Bombed in Mississippi from Start of Summer Project to July 11, 1964"; "Mississippi Political Program"; "Prospectus for the Summer" (4 pages); "Mississippi Summer Project, Memorandum to Friends of SNCC Groups" (3 pages); "Materials Needed for the Mississippi Summer Project"; "FOS Group" (blank form); "Additions to the FOS List"; SNCC circular letter to "Dear Friends" bearing manuscript signature of Betty Garman; circular letter from the Harvard-Radcliffe Civil Rights Coordinating Committee, March 1964 (2 pages).
Also included are: a "Mississippi Summer Project Application Form"; an untitled carbon typescript draft of a SNCC press release with pencil edits, describing the arrest of 4 activists in Atlanta, [12 July 1964]; Guy and Candie Carawan's pamphlet "Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement: We Shall Overcome!" (New York: Oak Publications, 1963); 2 issues of the Atlanta Inquirer, 1 and 8 February 1964; and a pair of matching SNCC pinback buttons, each 3/4 inch.
With--additional approximately 25 pieces of memorabilia from Haberman Trusty's involvement in later civil rights events, 1980-2014: conferences, reunions, concerts, exhibits, her memoirs and notes, and more. Includes photographs or signed items from other activists such as Endesha Ida Mae Holland and Dorothy Height. A more detailed description of the later material is available upon request.
