University of Central Florida Special Collections and University Archives. All rights reserved.
The materials were collected by James C. Clark in order to write a series of articles for the Orlando Sentinel. The collection was donated to the Special Collections by James C. Clark 2003.
The entire collection is open for research. Most records in the collection are public records. Researchers are responsible for obtaining permissions from organizations that are not government entities to publish from the collection.
Unpublished records are protected by copyright. Permission to publish quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.
Clark, James C.
Clark, James C.
Clark, James C.
Green, Ben.
The
The
James C. Clark Research Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida.
The James C. Clark Research Papers is a group of documents primarily focused on racism in the Central Florida, the death of Harry T. Moore, the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Orange Country, and the political career of Claude Denson Pepper. The majority of the materials are focused on the death and subsequent murder investigation of Harry T. Moore, a civil rights activist in the Central Florida area and a part of the NAACP. Moore is believed to have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan of Orange County in 1951. The other items in the collection relate to the political career of Claude Denson Pepper (1900-1989), a Florida legislator, U.S. Senator and Congressman.
The collection consists of photocopies and printouts of government documents from FBI files, state and county court records, and electronic databases. The majority of the collection consists of photocopies of FBI files from the 1940s through the late 1960s on Pepper. The files were collected by Dr. James C. Clark, an adjunct professor in the UCF History Department and journalist, who wrote a series of articles for the Orlando Sentinel between 1987 and 1995 and based them on the collected documents. Dating from approximately 1930 to 1990, the materials deal mainly with racism in Central Florida and the political career of Claude Denson Pepper.
Series I contains photocopied FBI reports, trial transcripts, inquests, and secondary source materials. This series is separated into three topics, the first two being the separate civil rights events that Mr. Clark was researching and the last being outside source materials such as theses and articles. The FBI reports comprise most of this series and are grouped in two ways: the first grouping is by individual FBI agent initials found in the upper left-hand corner of the FBI reports. These papers are arranged alphabetically by the first letter appearing in the agent's initials. These reports are not whole reports but are collected as per the individual agent working the case at the time. The second grouping is by whole transcripts of interviews conducted by multiple agents Other items include the transcripts to the Walter Lee Irvin Trial, a black man who was accused of raping a white woman, and the Samuel Shepard Inquest. The Shepard Inquest is testimony transcripts that questioned Irvin as to what happened when a sheriff shot both him and Samuel Shepard, killing Shepard, as they were being transferred between facilities .
Series II contains FBI files and secondary sources for the Florida politician Claude Denson Pepper. During Pepper's political career that ran from 1936 until his death in 1989, he was accused on numerous occasions as being a Communist. These FBI files focus on both the Communist allegations as well as the many threats he received while in government office. These files are also arranged as per the order Mr. Clark received them from the FBI as they were released to the public. The secondary source material is mainly comprised of theses and news articles written after Pepper's death.