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M. Lee Montgomery papers
Notifications
Held at: African American Museum in Philadelphia [Contact Us]701 Arch St., Philadelphia, PA, 19106
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
M. Lee Montgomery was a community activist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was born in Pensacola, Florida in 1919, but spent most of his life in the vicinity of Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, where he passed away in 2003.
Montgomery served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and achieved the rank of Captain in the Army Reserves. He earned a master's degree in social work before securing positions at Temple University as Assistant Vice President, Office of Urban Affairs, and Deputy Director of the Multi-Purpose Training Center. He was active in planning the first Black Power conference (held in Newark, New Jersey in 1967). He and his brother, Dr. William Montgomery, presented the first black conference on higher education in Pennsylvania in 1972.
Montgomery was a charter member of the Resident Advisory Board (RAB), a nonprofit organization composed of members from Resident Organizations that operate in public and assisted housing throughout Philadelphia. Created in 1969 and incorporated in 1971, RAB works to improve the living conditions of public and assisted housing residents in Philadelphia through the coordination of resident and resident organizations.
Later, Montgomery was employed by New York City's Community Empowerment Program, Heritage News, the Delaware Valley's The Black Suburban Journal, and MATAH Network.
Bibliography:
"M. Lee Montgomery." Obituary. Philadelphia Inquirer, April 5, 2003. Accessed December 20, 2013. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/philly/obituary.aspx?n=m-lee-montgomery&pid=914955
This collection consists of reports, flyers, and publications about various issues and events pertaining to civil rights, African American education, and urban housing accumulated by M. Lee Montgomery. Of special interest are minutes, notes, and other materials relating to the Resident Housing Authority Board of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, of which he was a charter member.
Accession AAMP.G91.008.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2012-2014 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact African American Museum in Philadelphia directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
- African American children--Education
- African Americans--Education (Higher)
- Housing authorities
- Public housing
- Urban development
Place
- Publisher
- African American Museum in Philadelphia
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Sarah Leu through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact African American Museum in Philadelphia for information about accessing this collection.