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Women of Color Resource Center records

 Collection
Identifier: SSC-MS-00718

Scope and Contents

The records include publications, pamphlets and catalogs of the WCRC; programming materials, conference reports, background research files, and audiovisual material.

Major topics include issues around race, gender, poverty and social justice activism in the U.S; advocacy for women and families of color; global women's issues and advocacy for women's rights, reproductive health and economic development, especially printed materials and video footage of the UN conference on Women in Beijing, 1995.

The latest series in this collection, from 1980-2009, contains files, newsletters, and Board Meeting Minutes and financials of the Women of Color Resource Center. A/V and digital materials includes floppy disks containing Women of Color Resource Center audiocassettes, and CDs of photos and back-up files.

Dates of Materials

  • Creation: 1984 - 2011

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for use without restriction beyond the standard terms and conditions of Smith College Special Collections.

Conditions Governing Use

Materials in this collection may be governed by copyright. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. Researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.

Biographical / Historical

Founded in Oakland, California in 1990 by several of those who had been active in the Alliance Against Women's Oppression (disbanded in 1989), the WCRC seeks to educate and empower women and girls of color, helping them to become effective leaders while at the same time advocating for public policies that help, rather than hurt, women of color. In particular, the WCRC seeks to bring the concerns of women of color to the forefront of all social justice and women's rights movements.

Innovative programing has been key to sustaining their mission and making the WCRC appealing to women of color across generational lines and despite racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual orientation differences. For example, beginning in 2005, the "Runway Peace Project" (RPP) sought to raise awareness of the impact of militarism on American popular culture. A multi-media toolkit, aimed at school and community groups, the RPP includes a documentary, "Fashion Resistance to Militarism," a step-by-step CD guide on how to organize your own RPP fashion show, and fact sheets on gender and militarism. Yet another popular, and successful, project is TEMPO (Technological Empowerment and Media Project of Oakland) which provides training for low-income women of color in radio production, producing radio documentaries on the issues that directly have an impact on their lives and thus literally giving women of color a voice.

Since its participation in the Beijing 1995 conference, the WCRC has also sought to build transnational relationships with sister organizations around the world.

Extent

8.667 linear feet (8 containers)

25.51 Gigabytes (18 MPEG-4 movies (.mp4 files))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Women of color grassroots network; Welfare rights, reproductive rights, and women's health advocacy organization in Oakland, California. Records include publications, pamphlets and catalogs of the WCRC; programming materials, conference reports, background research files, and audiovisual material.

Arrangement

This collection has been added to over time in multiple "accessions." An accession is a group of materials received from the same source at approximately the same time.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

As a preservation measure, researchers must use digital copies of audiovisual materials in this collection. Please consult with Special Collections staff to request the creation of and access to digital copies.

This collection contains materials received from the donor in digital form that are not currently available online. Please consult with Special Collections staff or email specialcollections@smith.edu to request access to this digital content.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The records were donated to the Smith College Special Collections by Miriam Louie beginning in 2013. The accession 2019-S-0024 was a gift of Linda Burnham on behalf of the Women of Color Resource Center. Digitized recordings of Sister of Fire awards celebrations were donated in 2022.

Existence and Location of Copies

Selected audiovisual recordings have been digitized for research use. Playlist available online: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/audiovisuals.html

Related Materials

Associated material is located in the records of the Alliance Against Women's Oppression; the Third World Women's Alliance; and the Miriam Ching Yoon Louie Papers.

Processing Information

Accessioned by Kathleen Banks Nutter, April 2014 and Elisabeth Champion, July 2019.

Digital files from accession 2022-S-0013 that were received from the donor via Google Drive were copied to networked storage, uploaded to Panopto for access, and linked to from the finding aid in June 2022.

Processing Information

Between September 2022 and February 2023, Smith College Special Collections renumbered many boxes to eliminate duplicate numbers within collections in order to improve researcher experience. The following changes were made in this collection: Accession 2019-S-0024, Boxes 1-3 renumbered as Boxes 6-8

Related Names

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Finding Aid to the Women of Color Resource Center records
Status
Minimum Finding Aid (Completed)
Author
Madison White
Date
2014
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English

Revision Statements

  • 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
  • 2017-07-26T17:48:22-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
  • 2021-07-23: Added description for 2013 accession and updated collection level description
  • 2022-06-13: Added Accession 2022-S-0013, including links to digital files received via Google Drive

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository

https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/sophia-smith-collection-womens-history
Contact:
Neilson Library
7 Neilson Drive
Northampton MA 01063

  • Smith College Special Collections
  • Neilson Library, 7 Neilson Drive
  • Northampton, Massachusetts, 01063
  • specialcollections@smith.edu
  • 413-585-2970

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Creative Commons License
Text and metadata are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.