Florence Borders papers

Materials in this collection consist primarily of correspondence (mostly still in their original envelopes), collected serials, collected essays, miscellaneous ephemera, various archival finding aids, archival publications and conference programs, among other various formats.

Items relate to the B-Sharp Music Club, Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Peter Claver, various social aid and pleasure clubs, Southern University-New Orleans, and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish. Other materials include publications – poetry and historical studies – submitted for publication in the Chicory Review and publication and prepublication material from Broadside Press, including book covers and promotional material. Also included is New Orleans political ephemera.

One notable resource is the result of an archival survey conducted by Borders while working at SUNO. This repository survey relates to African American women in Louisiana, and these items consist of correspondence and a written survey, which indicates archival formats on various African American women from Louisiana. Respondents include repositories throughout the United States, including the Louisiana State University Special Collections, the Detroit Public Library, and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

Notable correspondents include Samella Lewis, Clifton H. Johnson, Rosemary Johnson, Christopher West, and Joseph Logsdon.

Items of interest include an oral history interview transcript with Jessie Covington Dent; a paper by Florence Borders entitled “Lifestyles of the Less Than Rich and Famous: New Orleans Free Women of Color in the American Period”; A grant application for SUNO to the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities: “Blacks in New Orleans: Colonials and Citizens in Slavery and Freedom” which includes letters of support from John Blassingame, among others; and a program for the 1986 meeting of the Chicago alumni group for Grambling State University, called the Black and Gold Alumni Association – Windy City Chapter. Also included are two printing blocks, presumably of New Orleans churches.