University of Florida Homepage

David Chalmers Library

UF History Emeritus Professor David Chalmers, a noted historian of the Ku Klux Klan and Southern History, recently gave to SPOHP a remarkable collection of primary source documents and books from his personal library, including original editions of Stetson Kennedy, Thomas Dixon, and Albion Tourgee. The Primary Source Collection follows the ebb and flow of hate groups in the South from the 1920s zenith of the Ku Klux Klan to the World Church of the Creator of the 2000s in a collection of newspapers, magazines, and other documents.

The Chalmers Primary Source Collection and Library are great starting points for students of the civil rights movement, contextualizing the true danger and intrigue of effecting change in the Lower South. They are open to students, researchers, and the general public.

Primary Source Collection

The primary source archive features extensive press coverage on the civil rights movement from Southern newspapers in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and includes hate propaganda from the Kourier and other white supremacist publications. Chalmers’s notes focus specifically on the careers of right-wing leaders like David Duke, Hugo Black, and Robert Shelton, while documenting efforts to block justice in the murders and lynchings of civil rights workers.

Highlights include stories from:

  • Statewide Press:
  • The Gainesville Sun
  • The St. Petersburg Times
  • The Miami Herald
  • Florida Alligator
  • Clarion-Ledger

Regional Press:

  • Chattanooga News-Free Press
  • Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  • Fort Worth Standard Telegram
  • Meridian Star
  • The Charleston Gazette (WV)

National Press:

  • The New York Times
  • Washington Post
  • Harper’s Magazine
  • Time Magazine
  • Life Magazine
  • Penthouse

Activist Press:

  • The Crisis
  • Klanwatch
  • Intelligence Report
  • Anti Defamation League
  • IFCO News
  • The Communist Workers Party
  • SPLC Report
Image of David Chalmers Library Listing
David Chalmers Library Listing (PDF)
 

Book Library

The David Chalmers Library collection is located in the SPOHP office in Pugh Hall, and is open to students, researchers, and the general public. For a full description of the library books, view the David Chalmers Library listing (PDF).

The library is archived into collections on:

  • the Ku Klux Klan
  • the House Committee on Un-American Activities
  • the Civil Rights Movement
  • Southern history
  • Social movements, economics, and terrorism

Notable books include “Southern Exposure” and “The Klan Unmasked,” by Stetson Kennedy, a fearless reporter who went undercover to expose Ku Klux Klan activities in the 1940s. Also look for books by Thomas Dixon Jr., who wrote “The Clansmen: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan” in 1905, which later inspired the 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation.

For additional information, contact SPOHP, call the offices at (352) 392-7168, and connect with us online today.