Boyte Family Papers
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- Draft news article by Harry G. Boyte
- This June 7, 1963 draft of an article was written by Harry G. Boyte for the North American Newspaper Alliance, and concerns recent civil rights demonstrations in Greensboro. Boyte begins the article by detailing recent racial violence in Lexington, North Carolina. He then discusses Greensboro Mayor David Schenck's decision to support the desegregation of business facilities, in response to mass protests in the city. He writes of mass arrests, including his own and Jesse Jackson's, that followed an earlier demonstration in Greensboro, and concludes by detailing police abuse during the arrests and at the jail.
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- Harry G. Boyte's employment with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- This essay written by Janet Boyte circa 1963, details her husband, Harry G. Boyte's, employment with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and his views on civil rights. Using quotations from Harry and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Boyte discusses the importance of an integrated civil rights movement. Boyte outlines the challenges of her husband working as the only white employee at SCLC, as well as his efforts to challenge the white establishment. She concludes the essay by recalling a meeting Boyte and SCLC staff had with Atlanta ministers and business executives that led to the desegregation of local restroom facilities.
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- Letter from Harry G. Boyte to Sid Goldberg
- This June 13, 1963 letter from Harry G. Boyte to North American Newspaper Alliance editor Sid Goldberg details an altercation Boyte had with Greensboro Police Department Captain William Jackson while taking notes for a news article on local demonstrations for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Boyte writes that he feels Jackson was out to get him after he was arrested for participating in a Thanksgiving 1962 protest. He also shares his feelings on the importance of discussing civil rights in North Carolina, and what he feels is the impending future of the civil rights movement.
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- Letter from Richard Ramsay to Harry G. Boyte
- In this January 23, 1964 letter to Harry G. Boyte, Richard Ramsay informs Boyte of a rally to be held in Greensboro for the anniversary of the February 1, 1960 Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins. Ramsay compares civil rights activities in Greensboro to those in Atlanta claiming both cities tend to "rest on their laurels without seriously working to finish the job of intergration." Ramsay also relays news about the large demonstrations in Chapel Hill held in support of an open accommodations ordinance.
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- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) membership card
- This well-worn membership card for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) belonged to activist Harry G. Boyte.
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- Notes regarding meetings with Sarah Herbin and Tartt Bell
- These notes, dated April 23, 1963, relate to meetings the unidentified author, presumably Harry Boyte, had with Sarah Herbin and Tartt Bell, both of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)and residents of Greensboro. Comments from both Herbin and Bell, who were active in various Greensboro civil rights actions, give historical perspective and a some insight into the climate surrounding efforts to Greensboro desegregate businesses around 1963.<br><br>The notes state that Herbin, AFSC Associate Director of Merit Employment, feels that no gains have been made in hiring African Americans in Greensboro, and that the climate of opinion has not changed in her ten years of working with the AFSC. The writer also notes Herbin's opinion that there is a lack of movement leadership in the Greensboro African American community, and if a militant leader were to appear, the present leadership would "clobber" him/her. Regarding the conversation with Tartt Bell, it is noted that Bell advises the writer not to attend a meeting in Norfolk, and that he/she has a "tendency to undertake activities which disturbed people and communities." The notes also state that Bell believes the Southern Christian Education Fund (SCEF) is a communist organization that should be barred from the Southern Inter-Agency Conference, and that the writer should end relations with them.
