Reverend Dr. James Hudson, Sr. Collection

1.5 Linear Feet

Dr. James L. Hudson was born in 1904 in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the institution in 1926. After graduating, he was ordained as a minister and then enrolled in Colgate-Rochester School of religion, where he camed a divinity degree in 1931. Afterwards, he worked as a chaplain at Leland College in Louisiana until 1946. Later he was carned a doctoral degree from Boston College. Following this, he accepted a position as a chaplain and professor at Florida A&M University (FAMU). At FAMU he created the institution's Department of Religion and Philosophy and served as its first departmental chairperson. In Tallahassee, Hudson was a close friend with another Morchouse graduate, Rev Charles K. Steele, pastor of the city's Bethel Baptist Church. The two religious leaders worked on numerous civil rights campaigns including the 1956 Tallahassee Bus Boycott.
Hudson was also president of the Tallahassee Ministerial Alliance, a co-founder and active member of the Inter-Civic Council. Even after retiring from FAMU in 1973, Rev. Hudson remained active in civil rights and social justice initiatives. He died in 1980.

The printed records in this collection are unique and valuable. They arrived at the center partially cataloged and accompanied by a 16-page document that listed much of the material.
Unfortunately, this original cataloging arrangement utilized a color-coding system where the majority of the records were tagged with round, multi-colored sticky dots and notes. In that the glue and adhesive from the sticky dots and notes damaged and harmed the records (caused different types of paper to fuse together, covered information and text, and caused fragile paper like onion-skin and aged news articles to tear and crumble) this collection was cataloged immediately.Unfortunately, the staff was unable to retuin the color-coded arrungement system. After the sticky dots and notes were removed, the items in the collection were sorted by material type.
Then, the materials were orgunized by subject matter and dates. Next, the records were placed in alphabetical order and transferred into acid-free file folders and storage boxes. A finding aid was created by typing a file folder level content listing of the boxes. Correlating box labels were typed and affixed to the exterior of boxes. The boxes were stored in the archival storage area.

All Rights Reserved.

• English