September 2, 2005

Diligent preparation in advance of Hurricane Katrina is the best hope for saving important historical documents housed at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans.

According to Brenda Square, the Center's director of archives and library, historic artworks were put into storage days before Hurricane Katrina's arrival. Important, vital records and collection also were relocated to a second floor at Tulane's Tilton Hall.

"The off-site storage is up high," Square reported to UCC archivist Bridgette Kelly, who works in Cleveland.

The Amistad Research Center is the official repository for the archives and institutional records of the UCC-related American Missionary Association, the first abolitionist missionary society in the United States. Once located at UCC-related Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., ARC moved its operations in 1970 to UCC-related Dillard University in New Orleans. In 1987, it relocated to a more-spacious facility at Tulane.

Kelly said Square and her staff heeded calls for evacuation, so the only information now known about the Amistad Center's building will come from reports on Tulane University's emergency information website.

Square and her family rode out the storm at a friend's house in Baton Rouge, but she is now staying in Dallas.

"She is still unable to reach any of her staff by phone, and has not heard any updates on Tulane or the ARC," Kelly said. "I am acting as a point person for her ? attempting to contact some of the staff, keeping track of Tulane's updates, and keeping Brenda informed as much as I can."

Ironically, Kelly had visited Square in New Orleans only two weeks ago during the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, and met Square for a tour of the Amistad facility.

"She happened to give me her cell phone number in case I needed to contact her while I was down there," Kelly said, indicating that's how she managed to reach her on Sept. 1. "Proof that God does work in mysterious ways."

The American Missionary Association was created by New England Congregationalists in response to the Amistad Event of 1839, when black and white abolitionists came to the defense of illegally captured and traded Africans. Under the banner of the Amistad Defense Committee, abolitionists and attorneys ? with help from former President John Quincy Adams ? took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the Africans were free. The Amistad case is regarded as the Supreme Court's first civil rights decision.

The Amistad Committee evolved into a multiracial movement known as the American Missionary Association, which went on to found hundreds of abolitionist and anti-caste churches and schools among African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian whites, Asian Americans and Mexican Americans.

Distinguished AMA-related colleges and universities that emerged from those efforts include: Atlanta, Berea, Dillard, Fisk, Hampton, Houston-Tillotson, LeMoyne-Owen, Piedmont, Talladega and Tougaloo.

UCC News Service