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Larry Scott Butler Papers

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Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. 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

Call Number:
RG5.315
Repository:
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Extent:
.75 linear ft. (2 boxes and 1 oversized folder)
Language:
English
Preferred Citation:
[Indicate the cited item or series here], Larry Scott Butler Papers, RG5/315, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
Date:
1965-2015 (inclusive)
Creator:
Butler, Larry Scott, b. 1943 and Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Abstract:
Larry Scott Butler is a Quaker activist who was involved in civil rights work in Alabama in 1965 and was a leader in the gay rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The collection contains correspondence, photographs, and the diary he kept while participating in the SCOPE project, Barbour County, Alabama, which was sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The collection includes minutes and remarks on the early history of the Committee on Homosexuality of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and biographical material.

Larry Scott Butler was born in 1943 in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, a conservative Christian community. As a teenager, he served as an itinerant preacher in local Methodist chapels. While a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he became interested in Quakerism and joined Warrington Monthly Meeting in 1965. During his senior year, he worked as a preacher in Adams County migrant camps, developing a Pentecostal style of preaching. After graduating from College in 1965, he volunteered for the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was sent to work in Barbour County, Alabama. In 1966, he settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he became a leading force in the gay rights movement while doing social work. In the 1970s he taught at Friends Select School and became active in Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, serving on Yearly Meeting committees on gay and lesbian concerns. In 1980 he moved to Florida and worked with developmentally disabled adults until his retirement in 20016. He was a founder and active member of Fort Myers Friends Meeting.

Larry Scott Butler is a Quaker activist who was involved in civil rights work in Alabama in 1965 and was a leader in the gay rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The collection contains correspondence, photographs, and the diary he kept while participating in the SCOPE project, Barbour County, Alabama, which was sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The collection includes minutes and remarks on the early history of the Committee on Homosexuality of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and biographical material.

Arranged by topic and chronologically

Gift of Larry Scott Butler, 2018. Fort Myers Monthly Meeting arranged the deposit.

"Sing for Freedom," Smithsonian/Folkways Records, 1990 Eros; an anthology of male friendship. Edited by Alistair Sutherland and Patrick Anderson offered to McCabe Library as a duplicate in their collection.

People
Organization
Subject

Publisher
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Finding Aid Author
Susanna K. Morikawa
Finding Aid Date
August 2018
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce items in this collection beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/.

Collection Inventory

Diary, 1965.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Civil rights work, Barbour County, Alabama

Diary photocopy, 1965.
Box 1
A Short History of the Freedom Movement in Barbour County, Alabama, by Larry Butler, 1965-12-10.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Mimeographed typed manuscript. Also a photocopy.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference correspondence, 1965.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes a concerned letter from his father to Hosea Williams, Southern Christian Leadership, Director, Voter Registration Political Education, SCOPE project, and correspondence from Hosea L. Williams.

Letters from residents of Eufaula, Alabama, 1966.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Letters from people he met in Alabama, received upon returning to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Letters from Butler to his parents, 1965-1967.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Letters describe his decision to stay in Alabama after the summer project, his arrest. Upon returning to Philadelphia, his plan to apply for a job with the ASFC.

Clippings, 1966.
Report from University of Wisconsin on SCOPE survey, 1984.
Larry Butler compiled material on SCOPE project , 2013.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Material he contributed to the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website

Obsequies Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968-04-09.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Memorial service in Atlanta, Georgia. Note from Butler that he attended but not within the Church

Black Panther Convention memorabilia , 1970.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Admittance receipt for plenary session, clippings concerning Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia

Black Panther convention memorabilia (oversized), 1970.
Othertype oversize
Scope and Contents

The Black Panther: Black Community News Service vol. 5, no. 10: September 5, 1970; Plain Dealer: Philadelphia Only vol. 1, no. 22: September 3, 1970 (special issue focused on the convention); "Workshop on Internationalism Proposals"

Minutes, Committee on Homosexuality , 1972-1985.
Box 2
Scope and Contents

Butler was one of the founders and first clerk of the Committee on Homosexuality of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

Cover letter to Fort Myers Friends Meeting describing the Committee on Homosexuality's early history, 2014.
Box 2
Scope and Contents

Written by Butler to provide context to the minutes

So-called Hicksite Separation, student paper by Larry Butler , undated.
Box 2
Scope and Contents

Typed manuscript.

Fifteen Props and Beanite Revelation, paper by Geoffrey Kaiser , 1991.
Box 2
Scope and Contents

Annotated photocopy of a draft manuscript on history of the Society of Friends

Biographical, 1994-2015.
Box 2
Scope and Contents

Includes an article on Larry Butler in Dickinson College Alumni Magazine, Spring 2011, and biography based on an interview with Butler for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Religious Archives.

Print, Suggest