In 1986, Phyllis Bischof, UC Berkeley’s librarian for the African American and African collections, asked Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker to consider donating her papers to The Bancroft Library. This letter speaks to the work librarians and community archivists do to collect the papers of African American women writers. It also mentions activist, writer, and educator Daphne Muse, the inaugural elder-in-residence at UC Berkeley’s Black Studies Collaboratory. According to its website, the Collaboratory “aims to bring together artists, activists, locals, and scholars to amplify the interdisciplinary, political, and world-building work of Black Studies.” (Walker’s papers are at Emory University.)
Alice Walker
15 Galilee Lane
San Francisco, CA 94115
Dear Alice:
Recently Belvie called me with a question regarding the organization of your manuscripts, and I had the temerity to ask her a question concerning them. Years ago, when you were reading at Daphne Muse’s home, I asked you whether you might be willing to consider placing your manuscripts in our Bancroft Library. At that time you replied that you wished to place your papers in the South. Since that time, however, you have become increasingly a California woman. Therefore I should like to reiterate Berkeley’s continuing interest in becoming the repository of your manuscripts.
Barbara Christian’s teaching draws, and will continue to draw scholars of Afro-American women writers to the Berkeley campus, as does the exciting ferment generated by the presence of the many first-rank writers who have chosen to make the Bay Area their home. We here in the Library are committed to building strong collections representative of these Bay Area Afro-American writers. Among these writers you have created a singularly devoted following, and your work will long be cherished and well studied. So we hope you will keep in mind that the Berkeley campus would be honored to establish an Alice Walker Collection housed in The Bancroft Library. We certainly believe that Bancroft could do as well for you as any library in the country.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Phyllis Bischof
Librarian for the Afro-American and African Collections
PB/md
bcc: B. Christian
Letter, Phyllis Bischof to Alice Walker, 1986, Carton 3:32, Barbara Christian papers, BANC MSS 2003/199 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
