Jessie Daniel Ames was a civil rightsworker of Atlanta, Ga., Georgetown, Tex., and Tryon, N.C. Beginning in 1922, Amesserved separate roles as secretary and vice-president of the Texas Committee onInterracial Cooperation. By 1929, she had moved to Atlanta, where she was directorof Women's Work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. During this time,Ames established the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching,which functioned as a volunteer component within the Commission. The collection includes correspondence, speeches,reports, clippings, autobiographies, school materials, photographs, and other papersrelating to the public service and private life of Jessie Daniel Ames.Organizational papers document Ames's work as officer of the Texas InterracialCommission and the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in Atlanta and as founderof the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. Subjectsinclude education, lynching, domestic servants, conferences, public opinion, andother dimensions of race relations. Correspondents include Howard Odum, Guy B.Johnson, Will W. Alexander, and George Washington Carver. Included is a 1930 colorposter from the Soviet Union that uses lynching to denounce both Christianity andthe United States. Family papers document Ames's efforts as a single parent to raiseand educate three children. Letters show that Frederick (1907-1959) became apediatrician with a private practice in Houston, Tex., and served as a Navyphysician during World War II; Mary became a pediatrician in Harrisburg, Pa., and aprofessor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and Lulu, crippled bypolio as a child, became a successful editor.
