Loren Miller papers

General Note

This collection consists of the personal and professional papers of journalist, civil rights activist, attorney and judge Loren Miller (1903-1967). The collection focuses on events taking place in Los Angeles and all of California; New York City and Harlem; Chicago and Detroit, chiefly between the 1930s and 1960s. The collection contains 10,454 semi-cataloged items and is housed in 72 boxes and 3 oversize folders. The collection contains the following types of material: correspondence, telegrams, postcards, manuscripts, speeches, newspaper and magazine clippings, publications including full magazines, research notes, briefs and other legal documents, brochures, meeting minutes, reports and photographs.

The following people and organizations are participants in the collection: Sadie Tanner Alexander, American Bar Association, American Federation of Labor, Charlotta Bass, Fletcher Bowron, Tom Bradley, Edmund "Pat" Brown, California Eagle, California Municipal Court (LA County), California Supreme Court, Civil Rights Congress, Nathaniel Colley, Congress of Industrial Organizations, Congress of Racial Equality, Benjamin Davis, Lester Granger, Augustus F. Hawkins, Langston Hughes, Japanese American Citizens' League, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, League of Struggle for Negro Rights, Los Angeles Bar Association, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Urban League, Thurgood Marshall, Meschrabpom Film Company, Henry Lee Moon, Stanley Mosk, NAACP and its Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Bar Association, National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, National Conference of Christians and Jews, National Lawyers Guild, National Urban League, Joel E. Spingarn and the following federal entities: United States Commission on Civil Rights, Fair Employment Practices Committee, Federal Housing Administration, Housing and Home Finance Agency, National Housing Agency, and the Supreme Court as well as Robert C. Weaver, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Franklin Williams and Whitney Young.

Subjects in the collection include: Africa, African Americans and other minorities in the United States; African American newspapers; civil rights and civil rights workers; communists and communism both in America and Russia; crime and race; discrimination in many areas including criminal justice administration, employment, housing, law enforcement and public accommodations; gangs; hate crimes; hate speech; inner cities; miscengenation; police brutality and misconduct; poverty; abuse of prisoners; race riots including Chicago, Detroit, Zoot Suit and Watts; racial profiling; slavery and reconstruction and African Americans in American history; real covenants; the Scottsboro case; social work; urban renewal; the United States Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution; James Baldwin; Sammy Davis; Frederick Douglass; Lena Horne, Martin Luther King, Jr.; Jackie Robinson; Thomas J. Mooney; Malcolm X; and African American authors Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, George Schuyler and Jean Toomer.

Correspondence

The correspondence series, which contains 4,607 items, is mainly made up of correspondence written by and to Loren Miller, both business and personal. It includes letters, telegrams, cards, and postcards (most of the letters by Loren are typed copies that he retained in his office). The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title and then chronologically. Most of the correspondence is business in nature and the folders will also contain manuscripts and documents that accompanied the original correspondence. There is one full box of letters and telegrams to Loren congratulating him on his judicial appointment in 1964, including letters by Johnnie Cochran and Judge Joseph Wapner, and two full boxes of sympathy letters, telegrams and cards to Juanita Miller after Loren's death in 1967 including one by Frank Mankiewicz (press assistant to Robert F. Kennedy).

Personal Papers

The personal papers series, which contains 562 items, is made up of material related to Loren Miller's personal life and the Miller, Ellsworth and Gee families. It contains photographs, correspondence, documents, family trees, financial papers, and certificates. The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title and then chronologically. The photographs include family photographs and pictures of Loren Miller as a child. Some of the photographs are of Loren Miller's funeral and contain pictures of Tom Bradley and Evelle J. Younger at the funeral. Other people in the photographs are: Lena Horne, Lorne Green and DeFrantz Williams. There are also three full boxes of material related to Loren Miller, Jr. including notes from his law classes at Loyola Law School and several papers by students in a law class he taught.

Professional Papers

The professional papers series, which contains 4,213 items, is made up of material related to Loren Miller's professional life including legal work (discrimination cases), civil rights work and his own writing. The series is arranged alphabetically by folder title and then chronologically. It contains correspondence, manuscripts, legal documents, briefs, notes, articles, essays, drafts of manuscripts, brochures, meeting minutes, reports, photographs, over 200 speeches, 100 of which are by Loren, and material for Loren's book The Petitioners as well as drafts of and his research and notes for the book. The series also includes material related to Loren's work with the various organizations with which he was affiliated (NAACP, ACLU, Urban League, etc.). There are five full boxes of folders labeled "NAACP" and one box of folders labeled "Urban League." The series also contains some items written by and related to Juanita Miller and her social work in Los Angeles as well as material related to the California Eagle.

Publications, Magazines and Newspaper Clippings

The publications, magazines and newspaper clippings series, which contains 1,049 items, is made up of material received or collected by Loren Miller during his lifetime. It contains various publications by organizations (NAACP, etc.), magazines and magazine clippings, journals, programs, printed material, books, newspapers and newspaper clippings. The following publications are included: California Eagle, Chicago Defender, The Crisis, The Daily Worker, Ebony, Jet, Labor Defender, Life, Los Angeles Sentinel, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Negro Digest, New Masses, The New Republic, New York Amsterdam News and the Pittsburgh Courier. There are several items from after Loren Miller's death including obituaries for him and the announcement of the acquisition of the Langston Hughes Papers by the Huntington Library in 2002.

Oversize

The oversize series contains 23 items. It is made up of oversize items including certificates of merit, resolutions honoring Loren Miller and his work, magazines, newspaper clippings, diplomas, panorama photographs, etc.

Mold

The mold series contains the material that had mold on it when the Huntington Library received the collection. The folders have dummy folders in the collection where they would have been located if not for the mold. The items with mold and mold damage have been digitized and are available on theHuntington Digital Library.