Coleção

Clyde McQueen Collection

• 1988-1993 (Produção)
• 1944-1999 (Produção)

7 boxes (5.5 linear feet)

This collection consists of the research collection McQueen built and used to write Black Churches in Texas. A Guide to Historic Congregations (Texas A&M University Press, 2000).

The contents consist mainly of "Texas County Historical Black Church" information sheets, each listed as an "inventory" in the finding guide, accompanied by related church history materials including church worship service programs, also called orders of worship; church homecoming and anniversary publications; handwritten and typed letters mostly regarding church history; newspaper clippings about historic congregations and members; notes about the history and location of churches and contact persons in congregations; business cards for contacts; published church histories; photocopies from published books about related counties, cities, and congregations; Texas county maps; color slides, photographic prints and negatives of church cornerstones, existing church buildings, Texas Historical Markers, and congregation members.

Also present are photocopies of newspaper clippings covering African American religious issues and manuscript drafts for McQueen's book, many of which are heavily annotated by McQueen.

The inventories and related church history materials were amassed by data collection teams organized by McQueen and also collected by McQueen himself. Norris Braly, a member of the Burleson County Historical Committee, documented the first church history in February 1988. McQueen documented the last congregation on August 24, 1997.

Most of the church worship service programs are laser printed. However, there are a few earlier documents that are photocopies of mimeographed sheets, and a few that were professionally printed. When the word "typed" is used to describe a church history, it means that the history was not professionally printed.

Variant congregation names exist within the documents (for example, Macedonia First Baptist Church and Macedonia Baptist Church). For the purpose of this finding guide, we have chosen to use the form of the congregation name given in Black Churches in Texas. Files exist within the collection for congregations that do not appear in Black Churches in Texas because exact organization dates could not be determined at the time of publication. Conversely, not every church listed in McQueen's book has a folder in the collection (for example Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of Sweeny in Brazoria County).

McQueen used different versions of the inventory form to document the churches. Though the information requested is the same, the format may differ. McQueen also copyrighted many of his slides, and so most of them bear handwritten copyright information.

The collection is organized into nine series.

The bulk of the papers are congregation research files found in the first five series which, for the most part, follow the arrangement established by McQueen in Black Churches in Texas; alphabetically by county, then by city, and then by congregation founding date (with two exceptions, one in Anderson County and one in Brazoria County). Files for congregations that were not included in his book (because exact founding dates could not be determined) are filed in with the appropriate county and city and are further organized by their unsupported founding date. If this date was not available, the files are placed at the end of the city where the congregations are located. Prior to the Harris County and Tarrant County sections, there are folders that contain miscellaneous background materials used by McQueen when compiling each of those sections. At the conclusion of both the Gulf Coast and the North Texas region, there are files containing miscellaneous slides for congregations that do not appear in the book, or elsewhere in McQueen's papers.

• Series 1, Central Texas Region, 1944-1997
• Series 2, East Texas Region, 1989-1998
• Series 3, Gulf Coast Region, 1984-1997
• Series 4, North Texas Region, 1963-1999
• Series 5, South Texas Region, 1984-1999
• Series 6, African American Religious Issues News Clippings (national), 1988-1999
  • Organized chronologically by publication date.
• Series 7, Manuscript Drafts for Black Churches in Texas, Undated
  • Maintains McQueen's original order and the drafts are generally in folders labeled to the corresponding section of his book but are fairly freely organized within each folder.
• Series 8, McQueen's Research Materials, Undated
• Series 9, County Maps. 1963-1981
  • Maps used by McQueen to locate congregations around the state. Filed alphabetically by county name.

These materials are stored offsite and require additional time for retrieval.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

• inglês

Donated by Clyde McQueen, March 2000.

• Conservação: The original newspaper clippings were photocopied by the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives staff and pasted to acid-free paper.

Finding aid created by Robin Hutchison. Updated by Jaime Janda, March 2022.

Collection processed by Robin Hutchison. Rehoused by Jaime Janda, March 2022.

• Texas & Borderlands

• Personal Papers