Campaign to free Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram collection, 1954 February-May.

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Campaign to free Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram collection, 1954 February-May.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/680498852

The collection includes three publications related to the campaign to free Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram, an African American sharecropper and widowed mother of twelve in southwest Georgia, along with two of her sons, Wallace and Sammie Lee Ingram, who were serving life sentences for the 1947 death of their white sharecropper neighbor, John Ethron Stratford. The handling of the case aroused concern about racial injustice in the southern judicial system which led to the formation of a national campaign for clemency. Through the efforts of the African American community, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the communist-influenced Civil Rights Congress (CRC), the Ingrams' original death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1948 and eventual release in 1959. The three items in the collection were published in 1954, when publicity for the case was largely coordinated by the Women's Committee for Equal Justice, an off-shoot of the CRC headed by the civil rights activist, Mary Church Terrell. Although not explicitly dated, two items were clearly issued in early May: A broadside from the Women's Committee for Equal Justice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a four page newsletter from the New York headquarters of the Women's Committee for Equal Justice designed to raise support for the May 9th and 10th "Mother's Day crusade for the freedom of Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram and her sons." The earliest item is a four page newsletter published in February 1954 by the Pennsylvania Civil Rights Congress, LET FREEDOM RING, volume 1, number 3. The cover page includes an article titled "Goal for '54: Free Mrs. Ingram" that recounts earlier efforts in the fight to free Mrs. Ingram and her sons and announces future campaign activities including plans to demand support from the Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, and the Secretary of the United Nations.

3 items (0.1 lin. ft.)

Duke University Libraries, Duke University Library; Perkins Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7969975

Duke University Libraries, Duke University Library; Perkins Library

Related Entities

There are 7 Entities related to this resource.

Ingram, Wallace

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6737q7h (person)

Women's Committee for Equal Justice.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vq8142 (corporateBody)

Terrell, Mary Church, 1863-1954

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6222w4f (person)

Mary Church Terrell was born Sept. 23, 1863 in Memphis, TN. Her parents, Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers, were freed slaves. She majored in Classics at Oberlin College, the first college in the United States to accept African American and female students; she was one of the first African American women to attend the institution. Terrell graduated in 1884 with Anna Julia Cooper and Ida Gibbs Hunt. She earned her master's degree in Education from Oberlin in 1888. She began teaching at Wilberfo...

Ingram, Rosa Lee

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sf3vrs (person)

Civil Rights Congress (U.S.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tb5h2q (corporateBody)

National organization established in 1946 to, among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against ... labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities." The organization folded in 1955 under pressure from the United States Attorney-General and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused the organization of being subversive. From the description of Civil Rights Congress records, 1946-1955. (Unknown). Wor...

Ingram, Sammie Lee

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pv7jrs (person)