Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Philip Levy civil rights collection must be obtained from Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Preferred Citation

Philip Levy civil rights collection, C0121, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Collection donor unknown.

Processing Information

Processed by Special Collections Research Center staff. EAD markup completed by Eron Ackerman and Jordan Patty in August 2009. Box list created and EAD updated by Amanda Brent in 2017.

Biographical Information

Philip Levy was a government official in several capacities, serving on the legal staff of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and as counsel to Senator Robert F. Wagner. Levy practiced private law in Washington, D.C. during a career that spanned 1934-1970. He was directly involved with the development of national labor policy in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, and maintained a continued interest in labor policy throughout his long career.

Scope and Content

This collection contains meeting minutes and grant proposals from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as well as correspondence on civil rights and race relations between senators and NAACP members. Many of the materials deal with the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), issued by Franklin Roosevelt in 1941 as executive order 8802 partly in response to protests organized by A. Philip Randolph. The bill was blocked from federal legislation by the conservative coalition in Congress, but five states passed their own FEPC bills: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Washington. Several documents represented in this collection come from Connecticut.

The materials in this collection include a 1948 letter on civil rights from President   Harry Truman to the Congress; a 1949 statement of Irving M. Engel on behalf of the American Jewish Committee to the House Committee on Labor and the Education Subcommittee on Discrimination in Employment; correspondence of Senator William Benton to Philip Levy, Walter White, and an op-ed to the New York Times; a 70 page "Program for Progress in Race Relations" submitted in 1951 by William H. Hastie, Arthur B. Spingarn, and Walter White on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; pamphlets from 1949 criticizing the Fair Employment Practices Commission on the bases of reverse discrimination and biological inequality between and among races; statements of Senator Herbert H. Lehman regarding civil rights, including an address to a Dinner of the American Civil Liberties Union; 1951 meeting minutes of the NAACP; and letters from the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund to the Ford Foundation's Program Planning Division requesting support for research on unequal opportunities and world opinion on racial discrimination in the United States. The collection also includes various newsclippings and articles about race relations and civil rights during this time. Particular focus is paid to race relations in Washington, D.C.

Arrangement

Arranged by subject by Special Collections Research Center staff.

Related Material

Special Collections Research Center also holds the James H. Laue papers.

Index Terms

Persons:

• Benton, William, 1900-1973.
• Lehman, Herbert H.
• Levy, Philip.
• Weaver, Robert C.
• White, Walter.

Corporate Names:

• American Jewish Committee.
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
• United States. Committee on Fair Employment Practice.

Subjects:

• African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century.

Adjunct Descriptive Data