The Dr. Charles L. Glenn papers are now fully processed and ready for research at the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.
These papers are from Glenn’s career as Director of Urban Education and Equity under the Massachusetts Department of Education, spanning from 1963 to 2000 and centering on the desegregation process of Massachusetts public schools. As director, Glenn (who served as a minister in Roxbury during the 1960s) was charged with developing the procedures for racial integration and administering these and other equal opportunity plans in the state.
The collection provides a fascinating look into the administrative side of school desegregation. Reports, newsletters, periodicals, correspondence, notes, and memoranda document the long and sometimes difficult process of achieving equitable access to education.
These papers also show a broad history of desegregation, with some of the earliest documents including materials from the “Freedom Stayout Day” boycott. In June 1964, Glenn and other community leaders hosted public school students at alternate locations dubbed “Freedom Schools,” that were held in churches, community centers, and other locations across the city during the Freedom School Stayouts. They reflect on the meanings of equality, racial injustice, and the goal of desegregation with their peers, exercising their civil right to protest.
Later collection materials highlight the legal and administrative work undertaken to achieve educational equity. A bird’s-eye view of the decades-long integration process can be discovered in files on individual school districts, correspondence between departments, notes and statistical data, and reports generated by various offices and involved parties.
This collection is of great use to those researching school desegregation history, the administrative background of school integration, bilingual education programs, magnet school programs, and the application of these processes in Boston and Massachusetts specifically.
The finding aid provides more contextual information on Glenn and the collection, including series arrangement and container inventories. Email archives@northeastern.edu with any questions or to schedule a visit.
Aleks Renerts (he/him) has dual master’s degrees in history and library and information science, with a concentration in archives management, from Simmons University. He received his BA in history from McGill University.