Collections : [Indiana University South Bend Archives and Special Collections]

David James was involved in the activist and music scenes in and around South Bend, Indiana, for most of the forty years that he lived in the community. A constant champion of civil rights, labor rights, and unions; a constant advocate for peace and protestor against war, David James spent much of his life actively fighting for the issues he believes in while performing and promoting the folk music he loved.

This collection contains documents related to South Bend, Indiana attorney David W. Albert's involvement as the legal representative for Brookins, et al. in the lawsuit of Brookins v. South Bend Community School Corporation (SBCSC) starting in 1980. The Brookins party alleged that the SBCSC and its representatives had engaged in various acts of discrimination with the intent and effect of segregating students and faculty on the basis of race in the South Bend, Indiana public school system. After the SBCSC decided on a desegregation plan, the Brookins party argued in court that the proposed plan would involve closing schools in the system that were racially integrated or could be easily integrated, therefore working against the goal of desegregation. The collection includes legal documents from the proceedings of the case itself; research files utilized by Albert to gather and present statistics and data about racial distribution within the South Bend community and schools in the SBCSC; and research into legal precedent established by prior cases related to school desegregation. The collection also includes minutes from SBCSC Board of Trustees meetings from 1977-1987 and documents related to the SBCSC Community Advisory Committee that was formed to provide community input on the formation of the desegregation plan, including Albert's participation in the Facilities Subcommittee in the early 1980s.

This collection contains newspapers created by and related to the students of Indiana University South Bend, spanning a date range from 1950 to the present. Noteworthy titles in the collection include The Preface (1969-present), the university's preeminent and longest-running student newspaper, and IU Center News (1950-1962), the university's first student-run publication. The collection includes several other shorter-lived IU South Bend student publications, as well as other area newspapers that have been collected because of IU South Bend student, faculty, and/or alumni involvement.

The Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center LGBTQ Collection contains materials relating to the experience of people in and around South Bend, Indiana, who describe their sexual and/or gender identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer, as well as people who consider themselves allies to the LGBTQ community. South Bend and neighboring cities in north central Indiana and south central Michigan, like so many cities in the United States during the second half of the 20th century and first quarter of the 21st, has experienced a radical transformation in attitudes towards the LGBTQ community. For much of the 20th century, South Bend's LGBTQ community was closed and closeted. With a stronger Catholic and Christian culture than other cities (as evidenced in places like the predominately Catholic University of Notre Dame as well as significant Polish and Eastern European immigration), South Bend had been described as a less welcoming place than larger cities with higher percentages of "out" LGBTQ people and stronger gay cultures, such as San Francisco or New York City. Without the promise of acceptance by their families or protections against discrimination in their workplaces, people often did not identify as LGBTQ publicly. Many felt they could publicly identify only within the few gay-friendly public spaces, such as the Sea Horse Bar and Cabaret. Like much of the United States, South Bend underwent significant changes in the first quarter of the 21st century through the efforts of countless "out" individuals and straight allies. By 2012, those efforts helped make South Bend one of the few cities in Indiana to add LGBT protections to its human rights ordinance. In 2015, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg publicly came out as well, becoming the highest ranking government official in Indiana to do so. The IU South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center LGBTQ collection — the first of its kind in the city — helps all people understand and reflect upon the major advancements in LGBTQ acceptance over the last fifty years, and how this one Midwest city moved from a place where many people felt they needed to hide their identities into a more welcoming and more open community.

The Helen Pope papers document the life of South Bend, Indiana resident and community activist Helen Pope (1916-2004). Helen Pope was a lifelong civil rights advocate and health care professional in the South Bend area. She was an active volunteer in many community organizations, earning several awards and distinctions for her service, including being inducted into the South Bend Hall of Fame in 1992. The collection documents her professional and service activities, as well as her personal life with her husband of over sixty years, James S. Pope.