We are pleased to announce that Richter has just finished digitizing the entire collection of the University of Miami’s commencement programs from 1927 to 2016. Please go to the link below for the landing page of the digital collection.
The Office of the Commencement and the Richter Library believe that this new digitization holds a long-lasting appeal to the alumni of the University as well as their friends and families all across the country.
We also would like to thank the colleagues at the University Communications and Alumni Association who donated their personal copies of several programs, which we did not have in our collection.
See the faces of the first graduates [source: University of Miami Historical Photograph Collection]
The collection, donated in 75 large moving boxes in 2013, is now neatly organized by approximately 4.000 topics and housed in acid free archival folders and boxes. Richter provides optimal environment for storage of our archival collections in the library and at the offsite storage facility.
The University Archives is pleased to announce the addition of a new essential historical resource to our collections, the UM University Communications Collection.
The collection contains historical images, videos, publications, and news clippings of the University from the 1980s to the 2000s, which have never been available at the Archives before. We believe it is going to be one of the most frequently researched materials by the University community to research for their anniversaries and other celebrations.
We appreciate very much the University Communications colleagues who trusted us to transfer such important materials to be archived. They came in 75 large moving boxes in 2013, and the Archives staff and student assistants worked throughout 2016 to sort everything in the boxes, compiled a massive 266-page-long inventory list, and stored them in 135 archival boxes.
Please go to the link below to see the collection record. Also, please click the link provided at “Container List (PDF)” to download the inventory list. Please contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.
Tom Wolf’s latest book is autographed for the Otto G. Richter Library.
The Otto G. Richter Library received two copies of Tom Wolfe’s latest book “The Kingdom of Speech.” One of the copies is autographed by the acclaimed author for the Library.
The autographed copy of Tom Wolfe’s latest book “The Kingdom of Speech”
The gift was obtained by Kenneth Treister, who is an award-winning international architect best known for the Holocaust Memorial he designed in Miami Beach, and brought to us by Dr. Haim Shaked, who is the Director of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies and a Professor of International Studies at the University of Miami.
Mr. Treister is also a renowned author and lecturer. He did research in the Cuban Heritage Collection to write his 2009 book “Havana Forever.” He sent us a message with the gift saying “the Richter Library is a wonderful institution which helped me with my book Havana Forever several years ago.”
“Havana Forever” was written by Kenneth Treister, Felipe J. Préstamo (University of Miami), and Raul B. Garcia (Broward College) and published in 2009
Another recently received gift is an autographed copy of a political thriller “By Silent Majority” from the author Robert Buschel, who majored in psycology and graduated from the University of Miami in 1991. He went on to receive his law degree from the Nova Southeastern University.
Robert Buschel’s novel “By Silent Majority”The author’s autograph and message to the Otto G. Richter Library
The Sun-Sentinel wrote a story on August 30, 2016, reporting that “well-known lawyer Robert Buschel has played a role in some of South Florida’s most notorious real-life legal cases but his first work of fiction is a political thriller with plenty of Broward references and timely link to presidential campaigns and scandals.”
The Miami News reported on June 19, 1961 that fist integrated session went all serene at the University.
We are extremely excited to discover this never-been-reported information in The Miami News article published on June 19, 1961, because it is about the first Black student enrolled at the University of Miami in the summer of the first integrated session.
The student’s name was Melvin Ladson, who graduated George Washington Carver High School and was a brilliant student with an IQ of 144. He began college work at 15, got his master’s degree at 21, and he was already working as a speech therapist in Atlanta when he enrolled at the U at 24. Please click the above image to read the whole story.
The article also reported that there were approximately 40 Black students enrolled for the first year of the integration. This is also a new discovery for us because we used to think there were 19 students enrolled. Why isn’t there an exact figure? It is interesting to know that enrollment records did not reflect the race of the students.
FYI, it is a well-known historical fact that Mr. Benny O’Berry was the first African American student to graduate with a degree. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in the School of Education and received his diploma in 1962 at the age of 46.
Even when I was a newly hired University Archivist in fall 2007, I knew the name Ray Bellamy, his face, and his historical importance for the University as the first black athlete (1967) and the first black president of the student government (1971) from Dr. Charlton Tebeau’s 1976 publication The University of Miami: A Golden Anniversary History, 1926-1976.
So, the staff of the University Archives were thrilled to meet the legendary alumnus during his recent visit to Miami in the last week of September. He first visited the current UM Libraries exhibition Miami Celebrates: The Orange Bowl Festival, 1930s-1990s, then came up to the 8th floor to review our materials on him as well as our historical collections of black students and faculty.
The Herald Tribune, February 1, 2002.
He talked to us about his experience when at the University in the midst of the racial integration struggle in Miami.
You can find out a lot about Mr. Bellamy’s accomplishments on the Internet and YouTube as well as in numerous articles and publications of the University. I would like to show you a compelling documentary I found on YouTube titled Changing the Game: a Deep South Conflict, a Compromise of Attitudes, which was created by David and Matt Mariutto (see below). I think this is not only a great piece on Mr. Bellamy but also a powerful teaching material on diversity.
Mr. Bellamy was brought to us by Ms. Denise Mincey-Mills, who is one of the co-chairs of the Alumni Association’s program “First Black Graduates Project,” which celebrates the first black graduates of the University of Miami in the 1960s and the 1970s. Please go to the link below for further information about the program, which takes place on February 24 and 25, 2017.
Ms. Mincey-Mills (pictured on the right) is a driving force behind the the First Black Graduates Project. She visited us first in January 2015 to research Ibis yearbooks from the 1960s to identify black students. (Photo by Cory Czajkowski, Special Collections)
Included in the program is a visit to the Otto G. Richter Library to view an exhibition “U Trailblazers – Black Students and Faculty Who Broke Color Barrier in the 1960s and the 1970s” (*tentative title) curated by the University Archives for the Black History Month as well as a reception offered by Richter and a lecture by UM’s history professor Dr. Donald Spivey.
University of Miami Archives -- Let's Archive It 