Lavonia Allison, longtime leader of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, is donating papers and memorabilia to the N.C. State Archives at a Tuesday ceremony at N.C. Central University.
Her donation includes Durham Committee records from the group's founding in 1935 up to the present; some records of the N.C. Black Leadership Caucus; and political fliers, buttons and signs from various Democratic Party campaigns, among them Jesse Jackson presidential runs of 1984 and 1988.
Lisbeth Evans, state secretary of cultural resources, said in a prepared statement that Allison's gift "marks an important way to strengthen the resources available for African-American history."
State archivists will copy the collection electronically and on microfilm, and make the material available to researchers.
