The Boyte Family Papers, 1941-1981, reflects the political and social activism and community organizing in at local, regional and national levels, of several members of the Boyte family. The collection focuses on the careers of Harry C. Boyte, political organizer and writer, in the 1960s and 1970s, and to a lesser extent his father, Harry G. Boyte, in the 1950s and 1960s. The collection chiefly contain printed material, including periodicals, flyers, brochures, pamphlets, posters and booklets; correspondence; and reports, minutes, notes and other organizational records. Also included are drafts of essays and articles, photographs, notebooks, and audio tapes.
Harry G. Boyte, left the American Red Cross to work in race relations. Eventually he was appointed the first white man on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Martin Luther King, Jr. Boyte's job search is documented by correspondence in the Harry G. Boyte Series. Contacts included the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, SCLC, the Southern Conference Education Fund, and the Southern Regional Council. The letters provide background information on Boyte's previous experience in Civil Rights projects. While on the staff of SCLC, he headed Operation Dialogue. There is material in the Correspondence and SCLC files of this series about this program intended to foster interracial communication.
Materials selected for this project pertain to Boyte’s relationship with the American Friends Service Committee and his civil rights activism in Greensboro in 1963.
For more information on this collection, please consult the
collection finding aid.