Mitchell-Jackson Family papers

The Mitchell-Jackson Family Papers cover three generations of African American activists, community leaders, and politicians mainly from the Baltimore, Maryland, area. The collection includes a variety of sources including biographical data, correspondence, photographs, newspaper clippings, and flyers and programs for lectures and gallery openings. Much of the biographical data is in the form of pamphlets from memorial services or obituaries.

The papers directly related to family members begin, from a chronological perspective, with publications and biographical data about Dr. Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson and her husband, Keiffer Albert Jackson. Following her death in 1975, Dr. Jackson's house became the only standing museum in Baltimore dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement. Biographical data on family members is also present in the form of tributes and obituaries from local newspapers or pamphlets about a family member's work, such as Virginia Jackson Kiah's gallery openings in Savannah, Georgia.

There are also a number of personal interviews and articles written about the members of the family while they were still alive. Perhaps the most notable of said items is the oral interview conducted with Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. for the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the transcript from which is in the collection. Additionally there are a number of feature articles highlighting the work of Parren Mitchell, particularly his work with the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Many of the images of family members in the collection are within printed sources, such as handouts from memorial services. However, there are a few family photographs, particularly of Juanita and Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., within the collection. Materials on Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. also includes correspondence between Mitchell and Don Ellinger, Regional Director of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC), which was based in New Orleans. Their correspondence pertains mostly to fair employment practices, policies, and complaints in Louisiana and Texas.

Within this collection are two folders of newspaper clippings pertaining to the 1919 race riot in Elaine, Arkansas. The clippings were individually cut out and subsequently pasted on the back of letters and announcements on NAACP stationary pertaining to the topics of lynchings, race riots, and mob violence. Additionally, this collection contains correspondence between Will Maslow, Director of Field Operations for the FEPC, and Carlos E. Castaneda, also of the FEPC. Their letters concern fair employment practices and complaints in the mining and oil industries in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as information on Latino populations in those states and California.