Anna Holland – Page 2 – News from the Archives

May 04 2021

Janice Beran and the Persistence of 6-on-6 Basketball in Iowa

Posted on May 4, 2021 by Anna Holland

This post was written by IWA Graduate Assistant, Erik Henderson

In 1891, James Naismith invented the sport of basketball in Massachusetts at what is now Springfield College. In the early 1900s, the game was adopted for women throughout America especially in small town Iowa. The first Iowa State Championship for girls was played in 1920, the same year women received the right

Women practicing basketball, undated, Janice Beran papers, Box 3, Iowa Women’s Archives.

to vote. In 1934, Iowa transitioned into two-court, six-on-six women’s basketball. However, the introduction of Title IX began to slow the popularity of 6-on-6 women’s basketball. The opportunity to play basketball at the collegiate and state level pushed more women towards 5-on-5. Ultimately, 6-on-6 play began to phase out and was officially discontinued in 1993.

In 1993, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Janice Beran delivered her speech “Why Only in Iowa North [illegible] of Sport History.” It describes some key factors in why 6-on-6 women’s basketball survived in Iowa an era when all other programs were being disbanded. Beran was a professor in the College of Education at Iowa State University until her retirement in 1994. The Janice A. Beran papers primarily consist of published and unpublished articles, and research files concerning her work on women and African Americans in sport. Her research on the history of Iowa girls’ high school basketball culminated in a book published in 1993, From Six-on-Six to Full Court Press: A Century of Iowa Girls’ Basketball. This post will not be a highlight of Beran and her book, rather a dive into why the 6-on-6 basketball lasted in Iowa after other programs around the country were eliminated.

Beran first positions the reader to consider the importance of high school sporting events to small towns. She wrote:

Pennant team cheering, February 1930, Janice Beran papers, Box 3, Iowa Women’s Archives.

In the rural areas where the tradition is strongest everyone from newborn babe to the oldest great grandma attends this most important event on the week’s calendar. Those great grandmas were once on the court vividly recall the heady excitement, the ups and the downs, the centrality, basketball had in their lives as high school students.

As a former high school and collegiate athlete, I have those same feelings about my athletic journey. The energy athletes receive from the community and from the opposition can fuel someone beyond their known potential. Small town engagement and passion for sporting events in Iowa was the catalyst for the longevity on women’s 6-on-6 basketball.

For this speech and many others, Beran sought advice and information from experts through interviews, some of which are preserved in her papers at IWA. From the information received from interviewees, Beran listed ten possible reasons why 6-on-6 basketball survived in Iowa, while other states disbanded the program. Many of the reasons other programs were ended was often due to preconceived stereotypes placed on young women due to the ideologies of the early 20^th century. She lists the ten reason as well as brief explanation (we list the first few), leaving the reader with possible future concerns.

Male advocacy for girls’ basketball was a principal factor. She mentions four men who “were instrumental in starting the federation and ensuring that girls had a competitive basketball program.”
There was no single dominant female physical educator in Iowa like in surrounding states; “leading female physical educators were against competition between schools and favored providing a broad range of participation opportunities rather than using the limited gym time to training a few girls to play basketball.”
In rural and small-town schools between 1920’s-60s there was less demand on gym space. “In the small towns the girls’ coach was often the boys’ coach so it was simple for him to arrange for equal practice for both teams.”
Basketball was not viewed as too physical[ly] taxing for girls in rural communities. “Descendants of pioneers, rural women were accustomed to heavy farm work.
High schools became the hub of rural community life and “basketball for girls filled an entertainment void in rural communities.”

The list above are just the first five reasons for the durability of Iowa women and girls’ basketball. It details the collaborative effort not just from women athletes but also community members.

After a good run in the NCAA Basketball tournament by the Hawkeyes, and be a D-III athlete, I realize we all cannot we be Caitlin Clark and be the leading scorer for the Iowa women’s basketball team as a freshman and hold two state records for Iowa as a high schooler. Nor can we be Luka Garza, named the best player in Iowa men’s basketball history and named Player of the Year. However, some of us can be and are the people that watch, analyzes, and research the nature of sports, just like Janice Ann Beran. We can be a part of a sector of society that we enjoy without being the focal point. As a beacon of hope for retired collegiate athletes like myself, in 1992 Beran was the first to win the Central District Scholar Award from the Central District Association of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

Feb 25 2021

What Would You Attempt to Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Anna Holland

This post is by IWA Graduate Assistant Erik Henderson

Taking a risk can be one of the most difficult things you must do. However, how would it feel knowing that you cannot fail no matter what you do? One thing that holds us back in life is our clouded judgment when making a major move. Mary Grefe pushed herself and others to go for things they want and dream big by creating opportunities for young women to branch out into technical and scientific careers.

Mary Arlene Cruikshank Grefe was an educator, social activist, politician, and businesswoman. Grefe grew up on her family’s farm in the Algona area and graduated from Morningside College with a B.A. in English and Speech in January 1943. Grefe had been active in the women’s movement for many years through her involvement with the Educational Foundation of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

Grefe was the national president of the AAUW from 1979 to 1981 and the AAUW Educational Foundation president. A few years prior, Grefe published articles relating to adult education, leadership techniques, the women’s movement, and a leadership manual with Claire Fulcher titled Techniques for Organizational Effectiveness (1973).

Grefe’s 1994 speech “What Would You Attempt to Do if You Knew You Could Not Fail?”

Within the Mary Grefe papers, there is a speech titled “What Would You Attempt To Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?” She gave the speech for Career Conference, “The Road Less Traveled,” on October 13th, 1994, because Iowa State University (where the conference was hosted) wanted to break the stereotype that young women had to get pushed down a path of “gendered work.” She said they could cross over into other fields as well with a little “self-esteem and confidence…a person with self-esteem and confidence is halfway to any goal” The point of the speech for Grefe was to push back against the idea of gendered work while suggesting that young women can build a career in fields like math and science.

Many people, myself included, do not want to take risks because they are worried about what other people will think about them, and they stay in their comfort zone. Grefe stated, “as parents, we have to encourage our children to get out of the comfort zone. When your child fell off the bike the first time, did you say soothingly, it is too hard for you, let’s put the bike away and go back to the same and comforting tricycle? You know that you did not.” Grefe’s example of a young child trying to ride a bike for the first time and falling shows us we need to be consistent in the endeavors we are pursuing. We cannot give up or quit the first time we try something new because it does not go our way. What we should do is “remember that we are role models. Someone is watching to see how we handle crises.” Every day we are faced with temptation and fear. For young women and men coming up, they need a person to look to for motivation when things get tough. Having that role model works as a refresher to know that you can slip, but you will be able to get back up to keep going!

Though Grefe was committed to progressing the women’s movement, she was just as committed to education. In her early career, she taught high school, a junior college, then served twelve years on the Des Moines school board, twice as president. In 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed her as his personal representative to the UNESCO World Conference on Adult Education in Tokyo, Japan. President Gerald Ford appointed her to the National Advisory Council on Adult Education beginning in 1974 and was its chair in 1976. Grefe was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1980.

Dec 01 2020

Edna Griffin, Civil Rights Activist

Posted on December 1, 2020April 14, 2021 by Anna Holland

This post is the tenth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the collections of the Iowa Women’s Archives. The series ran weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020.

This past summer, we have seen a nationwide movement for change. In Iowa City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, and elsewhere, peaceful protests have faced backlash from citizens and the police. People seeking change today might be interested in Edna Griffin, who led a boycott of the Katz Drug Store in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1948 and pushed persistently for what she knew was right, even at personal risk. Born in Kentucky in 1909, Griffin attended Fisk University and moved to Des Moines with her husband in 1947. The Edna Griffin Papers, preserved in the Iowa Women’s Archives, include documents relating to the successful 1948 lawsuit against the Katz Drug Store – State vs. Des Moines – which are richly supplemented by Griffin’s 400-page FBI file that provides insight into an otherwise sparsely documented life of activism. You can view these documents in the Iowa Digital library.

During the 1940s, the United States remained a largely segregated country. Although Iowa had laws against segregation, they were not consistently enforced. Iowa’s first civil rights law was passed in 1884 to outlaw discrimination in “inns, public conveyances, barber shops, theaters, and other places of public amusement,” the law was rarely enforced. In 1892, the law was modified to include “restaurants, chophouses, lunch counters and all other places where refreshments are served.” Still with no practical enforcement mechanism, over the next 30 years, Iowa’s supreme court determined only three cases based on the civil rights law. Due to a strenuous effort by the Des Moines branch of the NAACP, the law was amended again in 1923 so that violations could be heard by a local magistrate rather than a grand jury.

Protestors picketed Katz Drug Store after its proprietor refused to serve Black customers.

On July 7, 1948, Edna Griffin, John Bibbs, Leonard Hudson and Griffin’s infant daughter, Phyllis, entered Katz Drug Store at the intersection of 7th and Locust streets in Des Moines. Hudson needed to make a purchase, so Griffin and Bibbs decided to sit at the lunch counter to order ice cream sundaes. A waitress came over, took their orders, then proceeded to fulfill them. In the process, “a young white man came and whispered a message into her ear” (Lawrence, 2008, p. 298). After this, the party was told that Katz’s lunch counter didn’t serve “colored” customers. The encounter resulted in a criminal case, a prolonged court battle, and a boycott of Katz Drug Store. During it all, Katz and his defenders tried to portray Griffin as disruptive and stirring up trouble rather than as a woman who had been denied her rights under Iowa law. You can read more about the Katz boycott in the article by Noah Lawrence, “Since it is my right, I would like to have it: Edna Griffin and the Katz Drug Store Desegregation Movement” published in the Annals of Iowa.

Edna Griffin’s activism eventually earned her fame and respect, but at the time, she was not universally lauded. Her FBI files, gathered between 1945 and 1967, are a testimony to the skepticism and derision she confronted on a daily basis. Only later was she recognized for her contribution to civil rights in Iowa. She was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Iowa African Americans’ Hall of Fame in 1999. You can also see her featured in Katy Swalwell’s 2018 picture book, Amazing Iowa Women.

Sep 14 2020

Reuben Gaines Memoir of Being Black in Buxton, Iowa

Posted on September 14, 2020October 6, 2020 by Anna Holland

This post by IWA Graduate Assistant, Erik Henderson, is the eighth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women’s Archives collections. The series ran weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020.

The once prosperous coal mining town, Buxton, Iowa, approximately thirty minutes southwest of Oskaloosa was the home of hardworking Black citizens from the Virginia to immigrants from Sweden and Slovakia. The Reuben Gaines memoir from the Frances Hawthorne collection details wise anecdotes, notable events such as Madame C.J. Walker visiting Buxton and the rise and fall of this ghost town. The memoir was donated to the Iowa Women’s Archives by Hawthorne in 2003, a part of research material on Buxton to uncover the history of Black Iowans. Some of the stories shared by Reuben Gaines Jr will not only entertain you with their delivery, tone, and descriptiveness, but give readers a diverse depiction of the town’s people and a vision for what life could be like without biases.

A crowd in front of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Buxton, Iowa (date unknown). Frances Hawthorne papers, Iowa Women’s Archives

Black Americans being the majority populace of Buxton, coexisting alongside White Americans, with no true sense of segregation or discrimination made this town noteworthy. In the 1905 census, the town boasted about the community having 2,700 Black Americans and 1,991 White Americans. Buxton was founded in 1873 by the Consolidation Coal Company (CCC) that worked for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Benjamin Buxton was the namesake of and main planner of the town of Buxton, then he took over as superintendent from his father, John Buxton, in 1896 until 1909.

The town thrived in its early days on the high demand for coal. Buxton’s community members enjoyed their days off by being together. Parades and large groups of people between Monroe Mercantile Store and the YMCA was something of the norm. Gaines remembers the good times they had at parties on weekends “on this Saturday night we had planned a party with music; dancing with card playing with a prize being contributed to the best Bridge Playing couple (21).” Then later reflects on one occasion a young fellow, Scottie Bolton, took on the nickname “the human fly (25)” after climbing to the top of the YMCA building with no ladder or support.

Black and white children learned together in Mrs. Minnie B. London’s class at Sixth Street School in Buxton, 1907 – 1908. Frances Hawthorne papers, Iowa Women’s Archives

The life expectancy of the miners was shortened due to days being long and dangerous. However, to the citizens of Buxton, the risk was worth the reward. When Reuben first began work at the CCC, he got a piece of steel struck in his right eye and “every time I would lower the lid of my eye, it would scrape and cut going up or down (26).” Gaines Jr. later got it removed in Albia, a town not too far from Buxton, because no one in Buxton wanted that responsibility.

Along with the various tales, Gaines Jr described the range of personalities you would find in Buxton. In a way, it highlighted the members of upper-class while recognizing that they faced conflicts as well. There was tension between the CCC and a prominent inventor of Buxton named Jackson Brookins, Gaines expounded on the friction between the two, “he discovered something that science was unfamiliar with at this time…It was not long before he had a miniature locomotive and Railroad cars and was known as ‘the Jackson Brookins Train Control’…The engine had yellow; green and red lights that came on automatically according to its proximity to other trains in the same block.” Ultimately, the failed negotiation between the two parties resulted in the CCC backing out, taking the blueprints, and stealing Brookins invention without compensation. A lesson that I took from that experience is not to necessarily trust everyone with your goals because you never know the intentions.

On a lighter note, the description of what life was like for those of different socio-economic backgrounds was most riveting.

For Gaines, who moved from a deserted coal mining town to Buxton, the thought of his new community becoming a ghost town set in as a reality once people began moving out. Though, Buxton had it struggles, people from all walks of life were able to live together in harmony. But by 1919, the population dwindled down to about 400 people and around 1927 is when the last mine in Buxton closed. The lack of demand for coal due to the change in machinery drove people out of Buxton and into neighboring mining towns or segregated communities such as Waterloo and Des Moines. In those segregated communities is when Black Buxton community members witnessed the horrendous nature of racism and discrimination. The importance of remembering and acknowledging these lived experiences like Reuben Gaines’ in Buxton gets us one step closer to consider where we could be if we had the right vision of human relations.

Jun 15 2020

Esther Walls: The Role of a Black Leader

Posted on June 15, 2020June 11, 2020 by Anna Holland

This post by IWA Student Specialist, Erik Henderson, is the sixth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women’s Archives collections. The series ran weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020.

Esther Walls, librarian and leader, 1972

Has anyone told you, you were going to be great in your youth? Have you been pushed to excel beyond levels you could imagine? Has there been something you wanted to fight for that became a lifelong journey? In her oral history interview from October 1986, Esther J. Walls, former librarian, administrator and educator, illustrates a few of her life goals and approaches used in accomplishing them. While exploring Walls’s papers, one embarks on a journey with her to change the perception of Black and brown adults and youth, through literacy and programming. On the path to legacy, what distinguished Walls’s journey from others was her distinctive childhood in Mason City, Iowa, her ability to connect with young people of color in New York, and her overall international presence. In the midst of global protest about the murder of George Floyd, the role of a Black leader is critical for change. Looking at the life of Esther Walls, we can look at her actions, her persistence, and her willingness to not give up as key attributes for a Black leader during movements like this.

Walls with her sister Madelyn and mother Jewette, c. 1960s

The interview begins with Esther Walls introducing herself and answering the question how she got involved with the Black experience. Walls answers with examining her childhood. She says, “as a youngster in Mason City, Iowa, I do remember my mother and my sister and myself frequently going to the library and coming home with the equivalent of a shopping cart full of books.” Those growing up in communities that do not reflect them must obtain positive images, outside of family, through books, music, movies, etc. For Walls, she found an escape through reading literature by Black authors. “Living in Mason City, Iowa, where there weren’t very many Blacks, meant anything that we could read about the Black experience was something that was terribly important to us.” Her love for books began at a young age but her drive to excel scholastically took off in the seventh grade. Walls stated in the interview that she was determined to be valedictorian of her class, and she completed that mission.

Walls attended Mason City Junior College before transferring to the State University of Iowa (University of Iowa), where she received her B.A. in 1948. She was the first Black woman at the University to be elected to the Alpha of Iowa Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest and most prestigious undergraduate honors organization in the United States. However, Walls was most known for being one of five Black women to officially desegregate university dormitories.

The five women who integrated Currier Hall in 1946. From left: Leanne Howard, Esther Walls, Nancy Henry, Gwen Davis, guest Pat Smith, and Virginia Harper.

In 1946, during an era plagued by the Jim Crow laws, Esther Walls, Virginia Harper, Leanna Howard, Gwen Davis and Nancy Henry, all Black women, protested against the segregated housing at the University of Iowa. “It seemed to be something so normal that should’ve happened. I had a right to be in Currier Hall. Why not?” Walls shared. “I was the valedictorian of my high school class, and I was from the state of Iowa.” Ironically, Walls was excluded from and had to fight to live in a building that was named after a university librarian, yet, she became a librarian herself that did remarkable things for her community and people. None of the women allowed the values and “norms” of the time to deter her from achieving greatness.

After Walls and the other four women succeeded in desegrating housing at UI, years later another instance of discrimination arose. Martha Scales-Zachary and Betty Jean Furgerson, Black women living in Currier Hall, had to switch residences when students’ parents objected to desegregated living quarters. During that same school year, a policy was implemented where no out-of-state student could reside in Currier, only Iowa residents, which applied to Black women and not Black men. Sadly, there is not any information we could find regarding how Black men made an effort to get to live on campus but we will continue digging to uncover hidden stories.

After graduation, Esther Walls obtained employment at the Mason City Public Library then headed to attend Columbia University, receiving an M.S. in Library Science in 1951. Walls began working for the New York Public Library in 1950, carrying out various professional assignments: including serving as director of the North Manhattan Library Project and as head of the Countee Cullen Regional Library. Her reign at the Countee Cullen Library, “was the thing that really opened up all kinds of horizons for me and made me understand in depth, what the Black experience was all about,” she describes.

Esther Walls moderating a panel of black artists at the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library in 1963: (from left) Elton Fax, Roy DeCarava, and Ernie Crichlow

In a speech for the New York College Department of Library Education-Geneseo, about her work with youth, Walls explains how her focus on interactions with teens, and her open approach, made a lasting impact on them. Walls was persistent about leaving a positive influence on the patrons she served, and challenged the community as well. In her speech, “Experiences as a Young Adult Librarian,” Walls reflects on her earliest lessons learned as a librarian, one being: one has to be knowledgeable in all aspects of their job. She was not only knowledgeable of her library plus the Schomburg Collection that was connected but also of what her patrons valued, cared about, and needed to succeed and thrive in their neighborhoods. She was able to stimulate the Harlem community by bringing people such as Malcolm X in for weekly lectures, Langston Hughes to do poetry reading and Michael Olatunji to come and play his drums for teen programs. Within the interview she expresses her compassion for meeting these prominent figures in the restaurants of Harlem during the 1960’s:

“What intrigued me no end was meeting all these people that I, either meeting and getting to know some of these outstanding Blacks in the community at that time….So then for me it was an opportunity to meet all of these people, if not to get to know well, at least to be in the presence of all these people that we had read about in the newspapers and who were really making waves and making headlines, and I found that quite exciting.”

Walls believed that the best way to be connected to those she served, was to recommend books that they would enjoy. Accomplishing this task took getting to know her patrons, spending time asking them questions to fully understand their position in, and perspective on, the world. Additionally, this meant reading materials young adults gravitated towards. Walls attests that she “read as many books on dating, hotrods (cars) and space travel, as she could.” This is a speech that provides the audience with qualities and tools to be successful when working with young adults.

With few other Black people in Mason City, besides her skin color, Walls did not have anything that identified herself as part of the Black community. It was not until an interaction with a library patron at one of her first programs that said, “are you Esther Walls? We’re so glad and we’re so glad you’re Black.” Although, only mentioning it briefly, Walls’ discussion of her situation moved me. Myself, being a Black man from Chicago, a city with a large Black population, hearing that sentiment touched my heart. Black people living in small, rural parts of America, do not experience life the same way that as ones from the intercity and vice versa. However, a medium such as books connects those people from different backgrounds because, even though we are not walking down the same path, we are walking in the same shoes. Learning about Esther Walls’s legacy, opens up dialogues about the importance of having your own identity and community. Developing a sense of identity, whether through literature, art or cinema, no matter where you reside geographically is crucial for connecting with those that look like you.

The Esther J. Walls papers are one of the few collections that is fully digitized onto the Iowa Digital Library (IDL). You are able to explore everything that you could see in our reading room! A useful tool to have open when diving into Esther Walls’ material on IDL, is her finding aid, which you can also find online, on ArchiveSpace at the University of Iowa.

Citations

Esther J. Walls interview, October, 1986 https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/islandora/object/ui%3Aaawiowa_3991

Esther J. Walls papers, Iowa Women’s Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City. http://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/repositories/4/resources/2406

Franklin, V. P., & Savage, C. J. (2004). Maintaining a Home for Girls. In Cultural capital and black education African American communities and the funding of black schooling, 1865 to the present (p. 133). Greenwich, CT: IAP, Information Age publication

Jensen, C. (2015, October 19). Iowawomensarchives: EstherWalls-librarian and… Retrieved May 22, 2020, from https://womenoflibraryhistory.tumblr.com/post/131488735229/iowawomensarchives-estherwallslibrarian-and

Apr 07 2020

Kerber Travel Grant Application Deadline Extended

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Anna Holland

Due to the ongoing closure of library facilities around the country, the Iowa Women’s Archives has extended the application deadline for the Linda and Richard Kerber travel grant to June 1st, 2020. Because we are uncertain about when the Archives will be accessible, the time period in which recipients can use the funds has been extended to December 31, 2021.

The Linda and Richard Kerber Fund awards $1000 to a scholar each year to help them travel to Iowa City and use the Iowa Women’s Archives for their research. The Archives accepts applications from graduate students, academic and public historians, and independent researchers and writers who reside outside a 100-mile radius of Iowa City, Iowa, and whose research projects would be substantially enriched by the use of materials held by the Iowa Women’s Archives.

Applications should be submitted to lib-women@uiowa.edu with the subject heading Travel Grant Application. For more information about our travel grant and the application process please visit our website.

Mar 13 2020

The IWA Reading Room closed for COVID-19

Posted on March 13, 2020March 17, 2020 by Anna Holland

In response to COVID-19, the Iowa Women’s Archives’ reading room will closed for the time being.

We encourage faculty, students, and the public to contact us by e-mail at lib-women@uiowa.edu, although reference services will be limited.

For more information on the University of Iowa’s response to COVID-19, please visit: https://coronavirus.uiowa.edu/.

Feb 27 2020

Martha Nash: An Iowa Advocate for Black Voices

Posted on February 27, 2020February 25, 2020 by Anna Holland

This post by IWA Student Specialist, Erik Henderson, is the fourth installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women’s Archives collections. The series has run weekly during Black History Month, and will continue monthly for the remainder of 2020.

The Martha Ann Furgerson Nash papers are filled with information about her activism as part of the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), plus insight related to the legacy of Furgerson and her family. Furgerson was born September 26, 1925 in Sedalia, Missouri. She later attended school in Waterloo, Iowa, graduating from East High School in 1943. While earning a BA in history with honors from Talladega College in 1947, Furgerson found love and married Warren Nash. While raising all of their seven children, Nash focused on community engagement, on the local, national, and international level.

Map of the Black population in Waterloo, Iowa, where Nash was most active

For over a decade, beginning in 1962, Nash served as the director of the Black Hawk County Chapter of the NAACP. Throughout her time with the NAACP, Nash was a part of the Cities Task Force for Community Relations with the League of Iowa Municipalities, which emphasized housing, employment, education, and community relations with law enforcement as pressing issues for Iowa’s Black community. As director of the Black Hawk County Chapter of the NAACP, Nash had the opportunities to display her research and the work of the League of Iowa Municipalities. Within this collection there are a series of six editorials addressing issues of civil rights in metropolitan Black Hawk County on the KWWL television station. KWWL went on air in 1947 as Ralph J. McElroy, founder of KWWL, “realized that Waterloo needed more radio stations.” KWWL-TV aired in November of 1953.

The scripts for the KWWL editorial series, preserved in Martha Nash papers, aired between February 12-17, 1968. They addressed topics such as housing, education, employment and community relations which were areas of concern for the task force that Nash was a part of. After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the program returned for a final address and call to action on April 8, 1968.

The first report provided the audience with an overview of recurring issues that the Black community encountered. The second report pressured members of the Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Evansdale communities to lend formal support in dismantling discrimination against non-white people seeking to buy a home or rent, by writing their city council in favor of an open housing ordinance. The third report detailed a “crash, saturation program” on appropriate techniques for police communication with Black residents. Not to be one sided, the report pushed the Black community to invite police officers to as many functions as possible to alleviate tensions between the two groups. The remaining reports encouraged businesses and labor organizations to “adopt resolutions supporting the elimination of racial discrimination in employment” and highlighted the disadvantages of segregation in schools.

These issues raised by the NAACP and the League of Iowa Municipalities are still being fought over today. Nash envisioned, that, as she stated “if our determination lags, if we become petulant, if we delay in facing up to the tough decisions immediately ahead, we will pay a huge price in the future.” While young Black and Brown people across the world continue to be targets of racial injustices, mass incarceration and murder, we all need to act now before it is too late. In the wake of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, the final report stated:

“We ask that Americans everywhere dedicate themselves to this proposition and work together toward the fulfillment of the dream of Martin Luther King. If we can’t, the future of this noble experiment in government by the people looks bleak. If we can, America has a chance to really be the land of the free and home of the brave.”

Sentiments such as the one above spoke to the need for societal change. Nash challenged Black people to advocate for themselves, while challenging non-Black community members to join the movement. Martha Nash will forever be an example of an individual who was optimistic for the future.

Header for KWWL, the local television station that aired the editorials on Black issues.

Feb 21 2020

Virginia Harper and the Battle Against Highway 61

Posted on February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 by Anna Holland

This post by IWA Graduate Research Assistant Heather Cooper is the third installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women’s Archives collection. The series will continue weekly during Black History Month, and monthly for the remainder of 2020.

If you’re looking for a local history of civil rights activism, look no further than The Iowa Women’s Archives, where our stacks are filled with the papers and records of remarkable individuals and organizations devoted to the ongoing struggle for civil rights and social justice – the Virginia Harper papers are one such collection. Harper was born in Fort Madison, Iowa in 1929. She studied at the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa) and was one of five African American women to integrate the first residence hall on campus (Currier Hall) in 1946. Harper worked as an x-ray technician and medical assistant in her family’s Fort Madison clinic and was actively engaged in her community, serving on the state Board of Public Instruction, the Iowa Board of Parole, and as Secretary and then President of the Fort Madison branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Virginia Harper at a NAACP membership drive event, 1971

As NAACP Secretary, Virginia Harper took on local issues with national import. Beginning in 1967, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and Iowa State Highway Commission endorsed a plan to improve U.S. 61 in Fort Madison by re-routing the highway through the southwest corner of the city. These plans were meant to improve traffic conditions and ease of access to the city, but at the expense of the effected neighborhood, whose residents would be forced to relocate. The area in question represented what Virginia Harper called “the only truly multi-ethnic area in the city,” home to a significant number of African Americans, Mexican Americans, and low-income whites. Acting as Secretary of the Fort Madison branch of the NAACP, Harper filed a legal complaint against the project, alleging that it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because a disproportionate number of those who would be displaced were members of the minority population. This was the beginning of a struggle that went on for several years as Harper and others joined forces with leaders of the Mexican-American community to protest the plan, gather signatures for multiple petition campaigns, and correspond with various government agencies and national civil rights groups.

Letter from the Secretary of Transportation confirming that the re-routing plan did constitute discrimination

At the heart of Harper’s analysis was a critique of the racist and classist views which deemed this area of the city worth sacrificing. In a letter to the Department of Transportation on June 30, 1970, Harper outlined fourteen reasons why the relocation plan was objectionable. She wrote, “The corridor which has been chosen for the Highway relocation, follows the tradition of disrupting minority group neighborhoods. … Chosen because it is the ‘cheapest’ area of the town, it is this way because the citizens of this area have been systematically denied the privilege of living in other areas of the community.” In a letter to the editor of the Evening Democrat, Harper added, “This is not quite the time for sitting back and telling minority group members and lower income whites that they must sacrifice for the good of society. They’ve been sacrificing all their lives and are accustomed to being used.”

Part of a larger series on “Iowa Racial Issues,” the Highway 61 material in Virginia Harper’s papers provides insight into historic patterns and practices of redlining and defacto segregation in Iowa. Come to the archives to learn more about Harper and civil rights struggles in the state.

For more information on this topic, check out Kara Mollano’s article about Highway 61 in the Annals of Iowa: “Race, Roads, and Right-of-Way: A Campaign to Block Highway Construction in Fort Madison, 1967-1976.” The Annals of Iowa, Vol. 68, No. 3 (Summer 2009): 255-297.

Feb 14 2020

Iowa Women of the Great Migration: The Maid Narratives

Posted on February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 by Anna Holland

This post by IWA Assistant Curator Janet Weaver and Graduate Research Assistant Heather Cooper is the second installment in our series highlighting African American history in the Iowa Women’s Archives’ collections. The series will continue weekly during Black History month, and monthly throughout 2020.

The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South

The Iowa Women’s Archives is honored to be the repository for a collection of oral history interviews recorded with southern African American women who worked as maids for white families and later migrated to Waterloo, Iowa. These women were interviewed for the 2012 book, The Maid Narratives: Black Domestic Workers and White Families in the Jim Crow South, written by Katherine van Wormer, David W. Jackson III, and Charletta Sudduth. The Maid Narratives collection at IWA includes nineteen of the original audio interviews (now digitized) and abridged transcripts of several of the interviews included in the book. In the oral histories, women engage with topics such as education, family, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, sexual assault, and the civil rights movement.

Mamie Johnson was born outside Jackson, Mississippi in 1922 and spoke to David W. Jackson about growing up on a sharecropped farm and working for whites from a young age, just as her mother had. “I started working for white people when I was just big enough and old enough to do the dishes, and that was about seven or eight.” Speaking about the Tates, the first family she worked for, Johnson recalled having to learn and navigate the racial etiquette of the household.

You had to go to the back door. It was just a rule and you knowed it! And when the children got to be teenagers, it was Mister or Miss. When I’d be working in the house, they would show me what to say. They would tell me, ‘When you clean up Mr. David’s room, do this or fix his so-and-so, or don’t do so-and so.’ When they said, ‘Mister,’ that is for you to say it—‘Mister.’ And you know them little children and the teenagers—they loved it for you to say that! Yeah, they loved for you to say Mr. So-and-So. You know one thing, I was so glad when the time come around when black people would talk to white people to say what they thought. Now you talking about a shouting time, I felt just like shouting when black people stopped having to say Mr. So-and-So. And they would say it just for you to say it.

A keen observer of human behavior, Johnson also spoke about the terrible consequences of not understanding the social deference that was expected and demanded of African Americans in the South. She vividly remembered the details of Emmett Till’s murder and watching the trial unfold over three short weeks. “The boy just whistled at the woman, you know, didn’t know the danger he was in.” What she remembered most from the trial was the accused murderers “kissing their wives, hugging their wives, and rejoicing” when they were found not guilty. This stood in stark contrast to the image of Emmett Till, whose funeral service she also watched on TV. The interviews included in this collection are a testament to these women’s work, family ties, humor, and survival.

This March we will celebrate Women’s History Month by learning more about these remarkable women whose lives were shaped by domestic service in white households in the Jim Crow South. Recently described in a Time Magazine article as a “landmark collection of oral histories,” the interviews conducted by Charletta Sudduth and David Jackson III shine a light on the daily lives, struggles, and courage of the thousands of African American women who labored as domestic servants in the South but about whom relatively little is known.

Join us at the Iowa City Public Library on March 3 for a conversation with historians, social workers, and civil rights activists who are tied to this history:

Annie Pearl Stevenson is a civil rights activist and former domestic worker who was interviewed for The Maid Narratives.
Charletta Sudduth, Ed.D., is co-author of The Maid Narratives and Early Childhood Consultant with the Waterloo Community School District.
David Jackson III, Ph.D., is co-author of The Maid Narratives and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the African American Studies Program at the University of Iowa.
Katherine van Wormer is co-author of The Maid Narratives and Professor Emerita, Department of Social Work, University of Northern Iowa.
Catherine Stewart, Professor, Department of History, Cornell College, is currently an Obermann Fellow-In-Residence, and working on a book, “The New Maid: African American Women and Domestic Service During the New Deal.”

What: Iowa Women of the Great Migration: The Maid Narratives

When: Tuesday, March 3, 4:00pm to 5:30pm (Reception at 3:30pm)

Where: Iowa City Public Library, Meeting Room A

Co-sponsors – Iowa City Public Library, Obermann Center for Advanced Studies (University of Iowa)