Emergency Land Fund records

The Emergency Land Fund was created in 1972 to reverse the trend of descreasing black ownership of lands in the rural South. The records of the fund include correspondence (carbons and photostatics copies primarily), mostly outgoing but some incoming. Other record types include agenda, studies and reports, memoranda, financial records, and news clippings. Topics contained in the records include the effect of the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway on black ownership of farms in Alabama and information about the National Association of Landowners, which has many branches in the South. Groups represented in the records are Agricultural Teams, Inc, Farmers Home Administration, Ford Administration, Southern Agricultural Corporation, Southern Regional Council, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Names in the collection include Benjamin Hooks, Maynard Jackson, and Congressman Louis Stokes of Ohio. Major correspondents are Robert S. Browne and Joseph F. Brooks. Browne was the first president of the fund and later chairman of the board.