History of Penn School / Penn Center of the Sea Islands: Related Collections

In addition to the Penn School Papers and the Penn Center Records collections, UNC Chapel Hill Library's Southern Historical Collection also preserves the papers of individuals who served as Penn trustees, scholars who helped document the history of Penn and St. Helena Island, and other Penn supporters. This list is not comprehensive, so researchers are encouraged to conduct searches in the library catalog or use our Google-based search of special collections finding aids.

Selected archival collections include:

Edith Dabbs Collection of Papers Relating to Saint Helena Island, S.C.
Edith Mitchell Dabbs, a white author, was born in 1906 in Dalzell, Sumter County, S.C. She married James McBride Dabbs in 1935, and, in 1937, settled at Rip Raps Plantation, the Dabbs family home just outside Sumter. She was active in documenting the history of Saint Helena Island, S.C., an interest stemming from her knowledge of Penn School, a school for African Americans that functioned on the Island between 1862 and 1948, with which both she and her husband were involved.

Howard Kester Papers
Howard Anderson Kester was a theologian, educator, and administrator active in Christian movements relating to race relations, pacifism, and economic reform in the South from the 1920s until his retirement in 1970. The collection contains correspondence of Howard Kester and his wife, Alice Harris Kester, together with writings, reports, leaflets, pamphlets, newsletters, organization reports, photographs, and other items. Much of the material relates to civil rights, desegregation, sharecroppers, and labor struggles; there is some material relating to lynching. Includes materials relating to Kester's work, beginning in the 1940s, with Penn School.

Terry Buffington Papers
Terry Buffington (1947- ) is a Black cultural anthropologist and social activist originally from West Point, Miss. She was an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s and in her research studied Black men who were high school students in West Point, Miss. in 1960, during the civil rights movement. She is the widow of former Penn Center executive director John Buffington. The collection contains documentation from John Buffington's tenure at Penn and other related materials.

William Clement Papers
William A. Clement was an executive of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and a business and civic leader in Durham, N.C. The collection contains personal and professional papers of Clement, including correspondence, clippings, speeches, reports, pictures, and other items documenting his family life, career, and business and civic activities, as well as his participation in church and fraternal organizations. Included are letters and other materials relating to Penn Community Services of St. Helena Island, S.C. (for which Clement served as treasurer of the board of trustees), including material about the effect of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s on Penn's leadership and direction.

James McBride Dabbs Papers
James McBride Dabbs (1896-1970) was a white professor of English at the University of South Carolina and Coker College, Presbyterian churchman, writer, civil rights leader, Penn School Community Services trustee, Southern Regional Council president, and farmer of Mayesville, S.C. He also worked with the South Carolina Council on Human Relations, the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, the Committee of Southern Churchmen, the Council on Church and Society, and the Delta Ministry. The collection consists of correspondence, writings, subject files, administrative records, and other materials that document Dabbs's professional involvements and interests, including his leadership roles in civil rights councils, religious organizations, and other groups. The collection includes documentation from Dabbs' involvement with Penn Center.

Guy and Candie Carawan Collection
Guy and Candie Carawan are civil rights activists, musicians, folklorists, and educators known for popularizing the protest song "We Shall Overcome" and for their work in documenting and disseminating music of social protest, particularly through their work with the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. The Carawan collection consists chiefly of audio recordings and corresponding field notes from their work in documenting the cultures of various groups of people in the South and elsewhere, beginning in the early 1960s. Included are historically significant speeches, sermons, and musical performances recorded during major civil rights demonstrations and conferences in Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta, and other southern cities and field recordings of worship meetings, songs, stories, and recollections from the Sea Islands of South Carolina.

Marion Wright Papers
Marion Allan Wright (1894-1983) of South Carolina was an attorney, author, member of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union, and civil rights supporter. Chiefly correspondence, financial and legal materials, speeches and writings, subject files, and other papers relating to the Southern Regional Council, 1951-1971; Penn Community Services, 1947-1965; and North Carolinians Against the Death Penalty, 1964-1971. The papers document Wright's association with these organizations and his interest in human rights, desegregation, the abolition of the death penalty, and civil liberties.

Guy Benton Johnson Papers
Guy Johnson (1901-1991) was a social science researcher and member of the University of North Carolina faculty. His collection includes correspondence, research project files, subject files, writings, speeches, pedagogical materials, organizational files, printed items, photographs of family and colleagues, and images and sound recordings related to his field research. The collection includes papers and audiovisual materials from Johnson's field work around Saint Helena Island, S.C., including sound recordings of music and folk tales on disc, tape, and wax cylinder.

Guion Griffis Johnson Papers
Guion Griffis Johnson of Chapel Hill, N.C., was a professor, author, scholar, journalist, women's advocate, and general civic leader based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Johnson's association with Penn School and the surrounding community began in 1928-2929 when Guion Johnson and her husband Guy Johnson (UNC professor of sociology) studied the history and culture of the Sea Islands. In 1964, Johnson was asked to join Penn's Program Review Committee as a non-trustee member. Included are minutes of the committee and the board of trustees meetings and supporting documents such as directors reports.

Staff of the Penn Center, 1965. Photographer not known. From the Penn Center of the Sea Islands Records, Collection Number 05539.