Howard Anderson Kester was a theologian,educator, and administrator active in Christian movements relating to racerelations, pacifism, and economic reform in the South from the 1920s until hisretirement in 1970. The collection contains correspondence of Howard Kesterand his wife, Alice Harris Kester, together with writings, reports, leaflets,pamphlets, newsletters, organization reports, photographs, and other items. Much ofthe material relates to civil rights, desegregation, sharecroppers, and laborstruggles; there is some material relating to lynching. Included are materials aboutKester's association, beginning in the 1930s, with such organizations as the YMCA,the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice, theFellowship of Southern Churchmen, the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, the SocialistParty, the NAACP, the Delta Cooperative Farm, and others active in the movement forsocial change. Also included are materials relating to Kester's work, beginning inthe 1940s, with such institutions as the Penn School, the John C. Campbell FolkSchool, Eureka College, Christmount Christian Assembly, and Montreat-AndersonCollege. There is also material relating to Kester's later work as an educationalinnovator and about Kester himself and his development as a Christian radical,social reformer, administrator, and teacher. Among the correspondents are WilliamRuthrauff Amberson, Olive Campbell, Thomas B. Cowan, Elizabeth Gilman, Frank PorterGraham, Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Leland Mitchell, Nelle Morton,Reinhold Niebuhr, Howard Washington Odum, Arthur Franklin Raper, Clarence Senior,Celestine Smith, Norman Thomas, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins.
