Archives

Available Magazines and Newspapers

Magazines: American Visions; Black Enterprises; Ebony; Emerge; Essence; Jet; National Black Review; The Progressive Woman.

Newspapers: Black Issues in Higher Education; The Nation; New York Amsterdam News; New York Review of Books.

Critical Issues Lecture Series Video Collection

Archives:

The Stanley Lawson Collection

The Stanley Lawson Collection of Denver Post Clippings on African-American Life, History, and Music, 1986-2001

Collection Description

This ensemble comprises clippings from the Denver Post as culled by Stanley Lawson a resident of Aurora, Colorado. Collectively, the clippings illustrate coverage in the Denver Post of stories relating to African-American peoples in the United States. Lawson identified two categories by which he organized his collecting. The first of these areas encompass all aspects of African-American life and history with the exception of participation in jazz music, which Lawson designated as a specific category in itself. In its processed state, the collection retains Lawson’s original organization.

Provenance

Lawson sent his clippings to University of Connecticut history professor Ugo Nwokeji in early 2002 for donation to the Institute for African-American Studies. Thereafter, the articles were photocopied to archival standards and organized chronologically by category, and the originals discarded. The collection is available to researchers through the Institute of African-American Studies.

Series Description

Series I, "African-American Issues: Clippings from The Denver Post, 1987-2001," constitutes the bulk of the collection and spans a vast spectrum of African-American life and history. The clippings-from the late twentieth century-examine incidents in the history of slavery as well as acts of violence and discrimination against blacks in the post-1865 era. However, primary focus is on the accomplishments and triumphs of African-Americans in work, community, and sports (especially baseball) since the mid-nineteenth century. The clippings demonstrate an occasional emphasis on blacks in the Mid-West due largely to the regional appeal of the Post.

Series II, "Jazz Music: Clippings from The Denver Post, 1986-2001 ," represents the Post’s coverage of jazz music and its history. Lawson’s compilation here chronicles the history of black jazz primarily through biographical information on leading musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk, often in the form of obituaries. Together, these clippings offer a comprehensive view of the history of jazz music since 1930. The series also includes several accounts of white jazz figures, whom Lawson deemed worthy of inclusion.

Note on Scope and Content

The collection reflects the careful reading and dedication of one African-American to preserving for posterity stories relevant to his heritage—and thereby the nation’s as well. Beyond this fact, Stanley Lawson’s clippings forge an important tool in understanding how a major newspaper presented African-Americans and their history in the late twentieth century. In this manner, the collection affords researchers an opportunity to study the controversial issue of how the media portrays matters of race through the lens of one specific newspaper, the Denver Post.