Circuit Riders, Inc. records

The Circuit Riders records were compiled by Myers G. Lowman, executive secretary, and consists of some correspondence of Lowman, research files, pamphlets and tapes.

The research files comprise the bulk of the collection. They consist of a variety of material, such as membership lists, literature, speeches, clippings, and press releases. Both conservative and radical persons and organizations are represented, but the emphasis is on organizations involved in suspected communist or subversive activities. Dates of suspicious interactions were recorded, dated, and compiled. Some of the organizations indexed include the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Civil Service, DuBois Clubs, the Episcopal Church, Students for a Democratic Society, and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

The pamphlets were collected from anti-communist and pro-communist organizations including radical and international publishers. A detailed listing of author, title, and publication date appears in the inventory.

The reel-to-reel tape recordings contain lectures, sermons, speeches, rally rhetoric, radio programs, and interviews by sympathizers as well as opposition groups. All appear to be "field" recordings made at the time of the event. They provide a historical record that is not matched by a formal, printed version. Peace marches such as the one that took place in Selma, record participation.

The photographs include one box containing about 100 snapshots of SDS student activism, late 1950s-1960s; and one box containing a number of 8x10 prints of the 1957 March of Washington, about 45 prints of a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ohio, and about 45 prints of the March on Selma, probably 1965.

The bulk of the correspondence, financial materials, and other organizational files dating from 1921 can be found at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford, California.