Items and Collections

Creator
AFL-CIO. Civil Rights Department

Date of Original
1949/1989

Subject
AFL-CIO. Civil Rights Department
Kehrer, E. T., 1921-1996
Labor unions
Labor leaders
Labor union members
AFL-CIO
Discrimination in employment
Affirmative action programs
African American labor union members
Civil rights
Elections
Manpower policy
Labor movement
Apprenticeship programs
Construction industry

Location
United States, 39.76, -98.5
United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
United States, Georgia, Fulton County, 33.79025, -84.46702

Medium
files (document groupings)
1/4" magnetic audio (reel)
audiocassettes

Type
Text

Description
The AFL-CIO established the Southeast Division of its Civil Rights Department in 1965, part of an enhanced focus on civil rights issues prompted by the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Led by longtime labor organizer E.T. “Al” Kehrer, the Southeast Division worked to promote minority membership in unions, education and training programs aimed at minority groups, anti-discrimination work within unions, and voter registration. It collaborated closely with many other labor and civil rights organizations, such as the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the National Urban League.
Between 1973 and 1989, the Southeast Division made seven donations of materials to the GSU Southern Labor Archives. These include correspondence, print materials and publications by the AFL-CIO and other organizations, administrative records, photographs, and audio recordings, as well as the personal papers of E.T. Kehrer.  Copyright to the items in this collection is held by various entities. Rights information, if known, is specified in the item’s description.
The Southeast Division Civil Rights Department records have been digitized through the project Advancing Workers’ Rights in the American South, which is supported by a Hidden Collections grant awarded to GSU and the University of Maryland from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The University of Maryland digitized the Civil Rights Department records from the National AFL-CIO office; they can be accessed here.  The papers have been united and will be available to be viewed together within the Civil Rights Digital Library in October 2023.  This grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation.

Metadata URL
https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/digital/collection/AFLCIO

Language
eng
pol
heb

Original Collection
Southern Labor Archives, https://archivesspace.library.gsu.edu/repositories/2/resources/583

Contributing Institution
Georgia State University. Special Collections

Rights