The NAACP in Los Angeles

[African Americana]: [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]: Getoff, Sheila June:

[Collection of Notes and Documents Retained by Sheila June Getoff, Documenting the Activities of the San Fernando Valley Branch of the NAACP].

Pacoima, CA: [mainly 1969-1970]. Assortment of manuscript notes, typescripts, mimeographs, flyers, and ephemera, totaling approximately [80]pp. Overall minor wear, with some chipping to the largest flyer. Overall very good. Item #13006

An informative file of notes and documents relating the activities of the San Fernando Branch of the NAACP, which covered the area immediately north of Los Angeles. The material was retained by, and in some cases authored by, Sheila June Getoff (born 1922) who served as the branch's recording secretary. The documents include manuscript notes of minutes of branch meetings (totaling about twenty-five manuscript pages and almost certainly in Getoff's hand); a fact sheet for a proposed After Hours Adolescent Free Clinic; meeting sign-in sheets and board member lists; membership memoranda; and a completed membership mailer. According to the notes, one meeting on May 20 featured "an intense, heated and somewhat controversial discussion of...the recent police activity in the Park and the general consensus that there was a political motive in bringing such a large number of police."

Other interesting documents and general activist papers include "Guidelines for a Youth Talk-In Center (Rap Session and Socializing);" a petition to drop charges against protestors at Valley State College in 1969; a flyer for "Resistance Inside and Outside of Prison" with the Boston Draft Resistance Group in Pacoima in February 1969; a flyer for the Coalition Against Repression headed "Repression Won't Work if We Won't Let It;" a later grape boycott flier calling for a boycott of Safeway; and three socialist newspapers. One newsletter-style publication includes an essay titled, "The Negro After Watts," which would have special resonance to members of the NAACP around Los Angeles. NAACP activities in the western part of the United States are especially scarce, and the present archive offers a great opportunity for researching the group's activities at the end of the 1960s.

Price: $1,750