The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

Jay Richard Kennedy collection

Repository: Boston University. Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

Collection Description (CRHP): Jay Richard Kennedy was a novelist and screenwriter who engaged in civil rights activism. He received the Brotherhood Award of the Catholic Interracial Council in 1956 for furthering interracial action. This collection mainly contains materials related to his literary career as well as work as both a composer and lyricist and producer and writer of broadcasts of radio dramas. There are items related to civil rights and politics, especially the 1963 March on Washington and 1968 presidential campaign. There are videotapes of a film on Presidential candidate Nixon in 1968, one on Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, and one on the 1963 March on Washington. Photographs in this collection picture Kennedy with leaders of the March on Washington, with ten major leaders of the march at a TV panel discussion, with A. Philip Randolph and Whitney Young Jr. leaving the White House, and with Martin Luther King Jr. There are four reel-to-reel tapes of an interview with Hubert Humphrey.

This collection also includes an 18-page transcript of the TV panel discussion titled 'March on Washington . . . Report by the Leaders' that was moderated by Jay Richard Kennedy and of ten major leaders of the 1963 March on Washington: Martin Luther King Jr., Floyd McKissick, Walter Reuther, Martin Ahmann, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, Whitney Young Jr., Rabbi Joachim Prinz, and Dr. Eugene Carson Blake. It was a production of Metropolitan Broadcasting Television and aired on Thursday, August 29, 1963 from 7:30 to 8:30 in apparently Los Angeles, Kansas City, Washington (WTTG), and New York City (WNEW-TV).

Digital Status: No

Extent: 46 boxes, 1 package, 1 video box

Language: English

Interviewees: Martin Luther King Jr., Floyd McKissick, Walter Reuther, Martin Ahmann, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, Whitney Young Jr., Rabbi Joachim Prinz, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake

Rights (CRHP): Contact the repository which holds the collection for information on rights

Subjects:

African American civil rights workers
Catholics
Civil rights--Religious aspects
Congress of Racial Equality
Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978
Labor movement
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington, D.C., 1963
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
Race relations

Genres:

Interviews
Manuscripts
Photographs
Sound recordings
Transcripts
Videorecordings