Collection ID: 1978.137
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Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Wallace, Richetta G. Randolph
Abstract:
The collection consists of the personal and business papers of Richetta Randolph Wallace (1884-circa 1971), an African-American woman having a longstanding engagement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem (New York City), African-American literary and arts culture, and matters of race relations, racial justice and civil rights. Documents include correspondence, pamphlets and other published print matter, event programs and other ephemera, photographs, receipts, manuscripts, and newspaper clippings. Commonly known by her maiden name, Randolph was office manager for the NAACP until the mid-1940s and personal secretary to Mary White Ovington and James Weldon Johnson. The collection includes correspondence with Ovington and Johnson as well as other NAACP principals. including Walter White, William Pickens, and others. The collection includes a full typescript draft of Johnson's Black Manhattan, with notes, and a galley proof (1930) of the book. Much of the collection consists of print matter, which centers on matters of race in the United States, including discrimination, lynching, justice (or injustice), and civil rights. Other print matter includes programs, sermons, church newsletters, and other materials, principally concerning Mt. Olivet Baptist Church. Correspondence documents Randolph's activities on behalf of Mt. Olivet over the years. There are a small number of photographs in the collection, including those of Randolph, of Johnson and his wife in Great Barrington (1929), of Ovington, and stock images of NAACP principals, among others.
Extent:
3.0 Linear feet and in five manuscript boxes and one flat box.
Language:
and Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

Identification of item, date (if known); Richetta Randolph Wallace papers, 1978.137, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.

Background

Scope and Content:

The collection consists of the personal and business papers of Richetta Randolph Wallace, an African-American woman having a longstanding engagement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, African-American literary and arts culture, and matters of race relations, racial justice and civil rights. Documents include correspondence, pamphlets and other published print matter, event programs and other ephemera, photographs, receipts, manuscripts, and newspaper clippings.

Principal correspondents in the collection are James Weldon Johnson and Mary White Ovington. Other correspondents include Arthur Spingarn, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, William Pickens, and Oswald Garrison Villard of the NAACP, A. Phillip Randolph, and authors Charles Flint Kellogg and Robert L. Zangrando. The bulk of this correspondence concerns Randolph's activities and perspectives as office manager and personal secretary. Her correspondence with Johnson dates from the mid-1920s and the bulk of her other NAACP-related correspondence dates from the 1930s-1940s. Other correspondence documents Randolph's activities on behalf of Mt. Olivet over the years. There is a small amount of personal correspondence, including what are likely suicide notes from Wallace's husband, Frank.

The collection includes a full typescript draft of Johnson's Black Manhattan, with notes, and a galley proof (1930) of the book. Much of the collection consists of print matter, which centers on matters of race in the United States, including discrimination, lynching, justice (or injustice), and civil rights. Other print matter includes programs, sermons, church newsletters, and other materials, principally concerning Mt. Olivet Baptist Church. Most of these materials are identified at the item level in the container list in this guide. There are a small number of photographs in the collection, including those of Randolph, of Johnson and his wife in Great Barrington (1929), of Ovington, and stock images of NAACP principals. There is an oversize group photograph from the NAACP convention in Kansas City (1923).

Biographical / Historical:

Richetta G. Randolph (1884-circa 1971) was born May 12, 1884, in Chesterfield County, Virginia, but attended schools in Plainview, New Jersey. While in her early twenties, she launched a career in office administration after attending Gaffey's Business School in New York City. Her family origins and early life remain obscure, for although correspondence between her and A. Phillip Randolph (1889-1979) presume a relationship as siblings, their biographies differ as to place of origin and early education. In 1914, she married Frank E. Wallace. Mr. Wallace appears in some personal notes and ephemera in the collection, notably in a set of what are likely suicide notes, written in 1921. Richetta did not remarry, and her use of a last name subsequent to 1921 varies between Randolph and Wallace. Because her use of Randolph seems more frequent, that is the name used in this finding aid. In 1933, Randolph moved to 251 Decatur Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, where she lived up to the 1970s.

In 1905, Randolph became private secretary to reformer and social worker Mary White Ovington (1865-1951). Seven years later, Randolph was hired as the first member of the administrative staff for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She later became the NAACP's office manager and was private secretary to NAACP officers James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and Walter White (1893-1955). She also served as Clerk of the Conference for NAACP annual conferences. In 1945, Randolph became the Clerk of the Board and Confidential Secretary to the Executive Secretary. She held the latter position for one year until her full retirement from the NAACP in 1946, at which time she continued to work for her church, the historically black Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem. She became the Secretary to Dr. O. Clay Maxwell of Mt. Olivet, a position she held for over a decade. Her involvement with Mt. Olivet was multifaceted, for in addition to her secretarial duties, at different points in her life she served on the Board of Trustees, helped to raise funds, represented the church at out-of-town meetings, and wrote a play depicting its history.

Randolph kept a scrapbook with material from her anniversary celebration (in 1943) commemorating 30 years of service to the NAACP. On this occasion, people who had worked with her or met her at the NAACP sent her cards and monetary gifts. She was knowledgeable of and had close relationships with several members of the NAACP leadership. Chief among them was Mary White Ovington with whom a strong relationship grew after years of working with her independently and then through the NAACP; this relationship continued to Ovington's death in 1951.

Acquisition information:
The collection was donated to the Long Island Historical Society (now Brooklyn Historical Society) in 1975 by the estate of Richetta G. Randolph Wallace, through the courtesy of Dorothy Vaughan and Ruth Jowers.
Processing information:

The material was in no particular order when received by the Long Island Historical Society (now Brooklyn Historical Society) in 1975. An initial inventory and boxing of the collection was done in 1977 by Barbara Germack. That inventory was refined by Judith Box in 1986. In September-October 1997, the collection was rearranged and described by Tanya Elder, Project Assistant Archivist. As part of that processing, photographs were separated from the collection. In May 2006, Judith A. Burgess conducted a thorough survey of the collection, which resulted in expanded description and finding aid, with additional preservation work for fragile documents. In October 2011, Project Archivist Larry Weimer modified the finding aid to accommodate requirements for input to a collection management system, Archivists' Toolkit. During this processing, the previously separated photographs were returned to the collection.

Arrangement:

The collection is organized in the following three series:

1. NAACP

2. Personal Papers

3. James Weldon Johnson Papers

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

Open to researchers without restriction.

TERMS OF ACCESS:

Much of the collection is subject to copyright restrictions.

PREFERRED CITATION:

Identification of item, date (if known); Richetta Randolph Wallace papers, 1978.137, Box and Folder number; Brooklyn Historical Society.

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
128 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States
CONTACT:
718-222-4111
library@brooklynhistory.org