Frank McCallister papers, 1923-1971

Old Resource ID was FMcCallister

Frank McCallister (1908-1970) was an organizer and leader in labor education. He was director of the Labor Education Division of Roosevelt University in Chicago from 1949 until his death in 1970. Prior to this appointment, he served as executive director of the Southern Workers Defense League between1935-1942. There, McCallister worked on the campaign to defend Odell Waller, a black sharecropper accused of murdering his employer. This case challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia poll tax, which in practice, ensured that only wealthy, white people sat on juries in Virginia.

McCallister was also a labor member of the National War Labor Board, Atlanta Region (1943-1946) and director of the Georgia Workers Education Service (1946-1949). McCallister was an active member of national and community organizations and served in leadership capacities in such organizations as the Uptown Hull House Association, Chicago SANE, the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, and the Illinois Committee for Freedom of Residence.

The collection contains correspondence, minutes, reports, newsletters, programs, calendars, speeches, financial records, clippings, photographs, and published material. The materials pertain to the Southern Workers Defense League, labor education, sharecropping, the American Socialist Party, the Viet Nam war, and the anti-ABM (anti-ballistic missile) campaign.

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Frank McCallister papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Names
  • McCallister, Frank, 1908-1970 -- Archives
  • Socialist Party (U.S.).
  • Southern Workers Defense League.
• Subject
  • Antinuclear movement -- United States.
  • Chicago African American History.
  • Labor unions and education -- United States.
  • Sharecropping -- United States.
  • Vietnam War, 1961-1975.