At a prayerful and music-filled ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday afternoon, American Baptist College dedicated its new special collections room at the Susie McClure Library.
“We are very, very proud to open the archives,” ABC president Forrest Harris told the Banner.
The dedication came as the school continues to celebrate its 100th anniversary year, and the ceremony marked the official opening of the room to anyone interested in the school’s history and its significant place in U.S. history. John Lewis and C.T. Vivian studied here, and many of its students participated in Nashville’s anti-segregation sit-ins and other Civil Rights actions.
“Researchers and scholars will come to this place … and uncover the ways in which history needs to be told,” Harris said.
“The library is the heartbeat of the campus,” Dr. Febbie Dickerson, vice president of academic and student affairs, told the audience, which included former Deputy Mayor Brenda Haywood, Civil Rights activist Gloria McKissack and Tennessee State University professor and historian Dr. Learotha Williams, Jr. “Today we are here to dedicate a space that will play a significant role in telling our story.”
Dr. Angel Pridgen, director of library services, thanked Dickerson for “taking a chance” in hiring her to take over the library, as well as a number of colleagues in attendance.
“I want to acknowledge the librarians that came before me,” Pridgen said, drawing special attention to Dr. Janet Walsh, now at TSU, who was one of her predecessors. “I’m loving the work that she has done before me and seeing the evidence of the work.”
Also honored at the ceremony was the late Rev. Dr. Julius R. Scruggs, who, as an ABC student, nearly lost an eye during Nashville’s 1960s sit-ins, which he participated in alongside Diane Nash and others. Scruggs was a lifelong friend of the school and member of its board for 40 years, as well as a former president of the National Baptist Convention. He passed away earlier this year. Many of his papers and personal effects are included in the new collection, and his family was on hand to pay tribute.
Surrounded by family, Scruggs’ wife, Josephine, cut the yellow ribbon in front of a door leading to the special collections room.
“To honor Dr. Scruggs, and make his living legacy available to our students means everything to me,” ABC Chief of Staff Phyllis Hildreth told the Banner after the ceremony. “As the daughter of HBCU graduates, as one who’s been honored to teach and work in this particular HBCU, it means everything to know that we can continue to preserve our intellectual legacy and power with the strengthening of our archives.”
A work in progress
The Susie McClure Library, named for the late friend of the school who passed away in 2023 at age 107, is still in the process of processing its extensive archives. Beginning this week, the HBCU Digital Library Trust visits the ABC campus, bringing with it a group of archivists to help further catalog the school’s collection.
When Dr. Angel Pridgen first arrived at ABC to take the job of director of library services she was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material collected over 100 years.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before,’ ” she told the Banner last month as she was readying the special collections room for its public debut. The library had just undergone a renovation and there were boxes everywhere.
“So we just went through the boxes, putting black and white pictures with one another … organizing, advocating and for housing materials and just so we had these big, clean, neat piles,” she said. “And then we went and we got an inventory sheet.”
Going through these boxes, making these neat piles, digitizing and creating metadata for all these pieces of historical ephemera — it’s a daunting task. There are hundreds of dissertations dating back decades. There are speeches from the National Baptist Convention. Piles of photographs, correspondence and pamphlets dating back to the 19th century. But the work comes with many rewards.
One day, looking through a yearbook from the 1990s, Pridgen found a black-and-white photo of Coretta Scott King. She hadn’t known that King had ever been on campus, but this piece of proof was important, especially since so many with direct memories of those times have passed away or retired from the school. Through other photographs, Pridgen also discovered that James B. Cayce, a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, had taught at the school.
There are also many items pertaining to John Lewis, who was very active on campus, and a class president, before becoming an icon of the Civil Rights movement. In one letter, sent after he was arrested in Alabama, Lewis apologized for having to miss commencement. “I hope the graduation exercise was good,” the letter reads in part. “Please remember the 44 of us who are in jail in your prayers.”
“I just thought that was amazing that we do have that,” Pridgen said. (This is one item that isn’t on view in the special collections room; it’s kept in a vault.)
Since taking over the library and embarking on the special collections project — some of which is available online in a digital repository — Pridgen has worked with the Smithsonian, including on training community members in archiving, as well as the National Archives. When the HBCU Trust arrives on campus, they will join a growing list of contributors to the school’s efforts, including students from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Middle Tennessee State University.
Community members have also pitched in.
“Some of our volunteers, they were able to identify the people in the photos,” Pridgen said. “They were like, ‘That’s my relative. That’s my grandfather, my great grandfather,’ and tell us their story.“ North Nashville, she said, is “so interconnected.” And she sees the community as key to the project, which she hopes will take no more than two years to complete.
“It’s not just African American Baptist history, it’s everybody’s history,” she said. “And I think that’s so important to make it discoverable and accessible.”
