wfn.org | [UCC NEWS] Advance prep is best hope for Amistad documents at Tulane

[guessb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
United Church News
The Rev. J. Bennett Guess
216/736-2177, newsroom@ucc.org

ADVANCE PREP IS BEST HOPE FOR HISTORIC AMISTAD DOCUMENTS HOUSED AT TULANE

Diligent preparation in advance of Hurricane Katrina is the best hope for
saving important historical documents housed at the Amistad Research Center
at Tulane University in New Orleans.

According to Brenda Square, the Center's director of archives and library,
historic artworks were put into storage days before Hurricane Katrina's
arrival. Important, vital records and collection also were relocated to a
second floor at Tulane's Tilton Hall.

"The off-site storage is up high," Square reported to UCC archivist
Bridgette Kelly, who works in Cleveland.

The Amistad Research Center is the official repository for the archives and
institutional records of the UCC-related American Missionary Association,
the first abolitionist missionary society in the United States. Once
located at UCC-related Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., ARC moved its
operations in 1970 to UCC-related Dillard University in New Orleans. In
1987, it relocated to a more-spacious facility at Tulane.

Kelly said Square and her staff heeded calls for evacuation, so the only
information now known about the Amistad Center's building will come from
reports on Tulane University's emergency information website.

Square and her family rode out the storm at a friend's house in Baton
Rouge, but she is now staying in Dallas.

"She is still unable to reach any of her staff by phone, and has not heard
any updates on Tulane or the ARC," Kelly said. "I am acting as a point
person for her ? attempting to contact some of the staff, keeping track of
Tulane's updates, and keeping Brenda informed as much as I can."

Ironically, Kelly had visited Square in New Orleans only two weeks ago
during the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, and met
Square for a tour of the Amistad facility.

"She happened to give me her cell phone number in case I needed to contact
her while I was down there," Kelly said, indicating that's how she managed
to reach her on Sept. 1. "Proof that God does work in mysterious ways."
The American Missionary Association was created by New England
Congregationalists in response to the Amistad Event of 1839, when black and
white abolitionists came to the defense of illegally captured and traded
Africans. Under the banner of the Amistad Defense Committee, abolitionists
and attorneys ? with help from former President John Quincy Adams ? took
the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the Africans were
free. The Amistad case is regarded as the Supreme Court's first civil
rights decision.

The Amistad Committee evolved into a multiracial movement known as the
American Missionary Association, which went on to found hundreds of
abolitionist and anti-caste churches and schools among African Americans,
Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites, Asian Americans and
Mexican Americans.

Distinguished AMA-related colleges and universities that emerged from those
efforts include: Atlanta, Berea, Dillard, Fisk, Hampton, Houston-Tillotson,
LeMoyne-Owen, Piedmont, Talladega and Tougaloo.

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