Lessons of the Sixties: A history of local Washington, DC activism for peace and justice from 1960-1975: Personal papers
Scope and Contents
This collection contains paper records donated by participants in the Lessons of the Sixties oral history project. These paper records including newspaper articles, correspondence, newsletters, pamphlets, images, and buttons. These documents cover many topics including school reform, reprodutive rights, labor issues, anti-vietnam war and government worker rights. Each series is the donation of a separate interviewee. The donors provided keywords for specific folders that have been included as notes for those specific folders. These records cover 1937-2016 with the bulk of the records covering 1967-1981.
Dates
- 1937-2016
- Majority of material found within 1967-1981
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Materials in this collection may be governed by copyright. For activities that the researcher determines fall under fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. Researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights, determining if the intended re-use falls under fair use, and obtaining approval from the copyright holder if the intended use does not fall under fair use. Please contact Special Collections if the copyright status of the materials you wish to reuse is unclear. Staff will provide additional information.
Historical
Lessons of the Sixties is an organization dedicated to documenting the efforts and lessons learned by local DC Metropolitan Area activists, students, organizers and those who dreamed of building a better world through new ideas, political advocacy, local organization building, and other means in the years 1960-1975. The organization's goal is to make materials easily available for future activists, historians, students, writers, and media producers. Members have given presentations on their findings in order to facilitate direct dialogue between generations of social justice activists. One of the most significant contributions are the oral histories it conducted between 2010-2019 with local activists. Lessons of the 60s has the objective of focusing on key local and national movements and events of this period in which D.C-area-based residents were involved. These topics include, but are not limited to, 1963 March on Washington, anti-Vietnam War organizing, Black power movement, civil rights movement, DC statehood movement, early battles against gentrification, fair housing, international solidarity, May Day 1971, peace movement, Stop the North Central Freeway/3 Sisters Bridge, student activism for peace and civil rights, and the Women’s movement.
Since 2010 the Institute for Policy Studies has served as the organizational home for the Lessons of the 60s providing office space and infrastructural support
Extent
8 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Lessons of the Sixties is an organization dedicated to documenting the efforts and lessons learned by local DC Metropolitan Area activists, students, organizers and those who dreamed of building a better world through new ideas, political advocacy, local organization building, and other means in the years 1960-1975. Since 2010, the Institute for Policy Studies has served as the organizational home for the Lessons of the 60s providing office space and infrastructural support. Since 2010 the project volunteers have interviewed more than 80 local activists, students, organizers and those who dreamed of building a better world through new ideas, political advocacy, local organization building, and various other means in the Washington, D.C. area in the years 1960-1975. At times during the interviews the interviewees would use personal records as examples or memory prompts. Those records were also donated to GW Special Collections and comprise a more encompassing collection of records of this time period in Washington D.C.'s history.
Lessons of the Sixties is an organization dedicated to documenting the efforts and lessons learned by local DC Metropolitan Area activists, students, organizers and those who dreamed of building a better world through new ideas, political advocacy, local organization building, and other means in the years 1960-1975. This collection contains paper records donated by participants in the Lessons of the Sixties oral history project. These paper records including newspaper articles, correspondence, newsletters, pamphlets, images, and buttons. These documents cover many topics including school reform, reprodutive rights, labor issues, anti-vietnam war and government worker rights. These records cover 1937-2016 with the bulk of the records covering 1967-1981.
Arrangement
Organized into 14 series: Dale Brown papers, Irene Elkin papers, Jan Fenty buttons, Madeleine Golde papers, John Hanrahan papers, Norman Oslik papers, Natasha Reatig papers, Irv Riskin papers, Fred Solowey papers, Roberta Spalter-Roth papers, Marcia Sprinkle-Kopit papers, Alice Wolfson papers, Malcolm Davis papers and Larry Aaronson draft of memoir.
Physical Location
Materials are stored off-site, and will require additional retrieval time. Please contact the Special Collections Research Center for more information.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Lessons of the Sixties, 2019 November 21 (2019.101)
All these paper records were given to the donor by participants of the oral history project and become the property of the donor to deposit at GW.
Existence and Location of Copies
This donation came with pdf copies of the Advocate. The digital copies are not online due to copyright and accessibility issues. If you would like to use a digital copy please contact Special Collections.
Processing Information
The donor provided keywords for many of the folders. These were added to general notes for those folders. For series 12 the keywords were for all the folders in one paragraph. Thus, for that series the general note with the keywords is at the series level.
- Labor Unions -- Washington Metropolitan Area -- History -- 20th Century Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Protest movements Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Statehood (American politics) -- Washington (D.C.) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements -- United States Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Women's rights Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Guide to the Lessons of the Sixties: A history of local Washington, DC activism for peace and justice from 1960-1975:Personal papers, 1937-2016, bulk 1967-1981
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University Repository
