Afro-American Society/Black Students' Union Collection

This collection includes only documents that were recovered from the Black Students' Union space in The Octagon in the Spring of 2016. These documents range from the founding constitutions of both the Afro-American Society and the Black Students' Union to clippings and ephemera produced by allied student groups such as La Causa and the Asian Students Association.

Incoming and outgoing correspondence has been kept together and organized chronologically; newsletters and flyers for events are included, but these holdings are far from complete. The BSU Correspondence file for the 1980s includes details of the 1988 renovation of the Octagon.

Series 3 is a catch-all for material not produced by the Afro-American Society or the Black Students' Union, but directly related to the mission and activities of these groups. Because these materials were part of the group transferred from the Octagon, they will be retained with this collection rather than disbursed. Documents in this series include newsletters, flyers, and correspondence of other student groups as well as Amherst College programs such as Black Alumni Weekend and the Minority Mentoring Program.

The file "Rodney King Verdict Protest, May 1992" includes a list of student demands submitted to President Pouncey and the President's formal statement in response to the protests.

The two issues of "Black Woman's Newsletter" from 1991 appear to be the earliest Amherst College student publication specifically for women of color. These two issues are the only copies held by the Archives.

Series 4 includes all video and audio recordings transferred from the Octagon; it also includes a small group of unidentified photographs. The video reels were digitized in fall 2016 and are available for viewing in the Archives. As of Spring 2017, none of the audio recordings have been digitized.