Lynn Goldsmith Papers: The Diary and Papers of a Young Civil Rights Worker
Martin Luther King Jr, SCOPE training in Atlanta, Georgia, 1965
Introduction
Brandeis University’s Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department houses the diary, photographs, correspondence and papers of Lynn Goldsmith (married name Lynn Goldberg), a Brandeis University alumna, in our University Alumni Collection. Lynn Goldsmith assisted with voter registration in South Carolina in 1965 as a volunteer with the Civil Rights movement. She donated the materials that document her experience to Brandeis University in 2011.
Lynn Goldsmith, 1965
Lynn Goldsmith was a freshman at Brandeis University when she volunteered for a summer voter registration project called the Summer Community Organization and Political Education Project (SCOPE), organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC was founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bayard Rustin and was at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. The SCLC, in coordination with universities, designed the SCOPE Project to increase voter registration and provide political education. The SCOPE Project recruited college students nationwide to work with African Americans in the South. Over 600 students from more than 100 universities in the U.S. eventually volunteered for the SCOPE Project.
Registering to vote
While participating in the SCOPE Project, Lynn Goldsmith kept a diary meticulously documenting her experiences in the Civil Rights movement. The diary is a unique resource documenting the experiences and thoughts of a young Civil Rights worker. It captures the bravery, sincerity and idealism of the young volunteers, as well as their everyday experiences and concerns. The photographs and other materials that accompany the diary all work to create a cohesive story about this exciting and turbulent period in America’s history.
More Information
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This online exhibit displays a small subset of materials available in the full collection. The complete finding aid is available online.
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For access to the collection, please contact the Archives and Special Collections Department.
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Requests to reproduce or publish material from the collection should be directed to the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.
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Please contact the Archives and Special Collections Department with questions.
Acknowledgments
The Archives and Special Collections Department is very grateful to Lynn Goldsmith Goldberg for documenting her experiences and donating her valuable materials so that future students and scholars can study this important topic.
The diary in the collection was transcribed by Drew Flanagan.
The online exhibit was created by Gurudarshan Khalsa in 2011.