Willis D. Weatherford of Black Mountain, N.C., was president of the Blue Ridge Assembly, Black Mountain, N.C., 1906-1944; president of the Y.M.C.A. Graduate School, Nashville, Tenn., 1919-1946; trustee of Berea College, Berea, Ky., 1916-ca. 1962; faculty member of Fisk University, 1936-1946; director of the Southern Appalachian Studies Project, 1956-1968; and lifelong student of race relations in the South. The collection includes correspondence, financial records, printed material, reports, writings, speeches, photographs, and other material relating to the professional and personal life of Willis D. Weatherford. Many items are records, 1917-1944, of the YMCA Graduate School and of the Blue Ridge Assembly. Other papers document Weatherford's involvement, 1911-1943, in the YMCA at the regional and national level; his tenure, 1936-1946, as a professor at Fisk University; his involvement in the Commission for Interracial Cooperation and other interracial organizations, 1923-1969; his position on the board of trustees and as assistant to the president of Berea College, Berea, Ky., 1924-1969; his role as initiator and director of the Southern Appalachian Studies Project, 1956-1968; his membership on the North Carolina Governor's Coordinating Council on Aging; and his service on the board of directors of the American Cast Iron Pipe Company of Birmingham, Ala., which supported the Blue Ridge Assembly. Individuals important in the collection include Thomas Elsa Jones, president of Fisk University; William J. Hutchins and his son Francis S. Hutchins, both presidents of Berea College; playwright Paul Green; Tennessee congressman John Sparkman; writer and Weatherford biographer Wilma Dykeman; individuals involved with the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, including director Will W. Alexander, secretary James D. Burton, women's work director Jessie Daniel Ames, educational director Robert B. Eleazor, Arthur F. Raper, and Howard W. Odum; Roy Rowe; North Carolina Governor Dan K. Moore; and Fletcher Sims Brockman of the YMCA.
