Social and Political Activities

Documents in this series record Allen’s support of integration, voting rights, unions, and pacifism. Early in her career she led an integrated team of students to survey conditions in Arkansas as guests of the Southern Farmers Tenant Union. The students were able to document a paucity of health care and decent housing, the context of racial prejudice, and the resilience and solidarity of the union members. When President Francis Hutchins refused Berea’s campus as a training base for college students who intended to do voter registration in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, Julia Allen sent a copy of the Courier Journal’s report of his decision to a long list of Berea alumni, with a request that they write to President Hutchins in protest.