UofM Libraries Preserves Church Family Papers
Secures grants, enables research

The preservation grant recently received by the University Libraries Special Collections Department is part of an ongoing effort by the department to ensure its collections continue to be usable by researchers in the university community and beyond. It is the second grant Special Collections has been awarded that is dedicated to preserving the Church family papers. The 63 cubic feet collection documents one of the most influential Black families in Memphis during the twentieth century. Robert Reed Church, Sr., a freed slave, was a prominent businessman who accumulated extensive property downtown, that included today's Church Park on Beale, after the 1878 yellow fever epidemic and became one of the wealthiest men in Memphis. His children were part of the Black elite in Memphis and nationally. Robert, Jr., was one of the most prominent Black leaders in the country in the 1920s and 1930s. His relationships with Washington D.C. politicians, including three presidents, greatly benefitted his home city. He was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Memphis. Robert Jr.'s daughter, Sara Roberta Church, continued the family involvement in the Republican Party and served for many years in the federal government, working in areas of education and welfare which focused on minorities. She donated her family's collection to the University in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Church collection is unusual in telling the story of a prominent southern Black family so extensively. Its rarity has led to a great deal of use by researchers over the past 30 years in books, articles, podcasts, blogs, and documentaries. The latest was by PBS last year in a documentary that featured suffragist Mary Church Terrell, the daughter of Robert, Sr. All of that use has taken its toll on the collection which contains letters, deeds, photographs, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia that have become increasingly fragile and sometimes even sustained damage. Each individual piece must be put in special plastic sleeves to ensure the materials are available to future generations. There is no substitute for scholars being able to work with original primary documents.

Special Collections focuses on materials that tell the story of Memphis, its culture and people, and that is why the Church collection is such a jewel. The Black experience in this city is under-documented and Special Collections is honored to hold the Church family collection. The department has over 600 collections on a range of subjects in its facility on the 4th floor of the McWherter Library. The collections have been used by undergraduate and graduate students and faculty from History, English, Journalism, Communication and Film, and Urban Studies, among others. They are a university resource but the collections are the unique holdings of the University Libraries that are sought out by users in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia.