Welcome to the archives blog!

The Zale Library staff at Paul Quinn College welcomes you to the blog for the Adams Archives of Paul Quinn College. We want to use this forum to publicize what we have in the archives, and to promote awareness of the rich history of Paul Quinn College and the 10th District of the A.M.E. Church. From time to time we will solicit help in finding materials such as missing yearbooks, or in identifying unknown persons in photographs. We hope this will also be a way for alumni to reconnect and to celebrate their good times at Paul Quinn!

Waco Messenger in PQC Archives

African American newspapers have always made a distinctive contribution to free speech in our country, offering expanded coverage and alternative viewpoints beyond those of the mainstream media. The Paul Quinn College Archives has forty-nine volumes of the estimated sixty-year run of one such paper, the Waco Messenger, which was published c. 1932-1992. Our collection covers the years 1933-1986 with only a few significant gaps (1936, 1956-1958, and 1979). The only other known collection of this newspaper is at the Center for American History at the University of Texas-Austin, which has only the years 1940-1946. The close association of this newspaper to Paul Quinn College is evident; for many years the Messenger actually published lists of faculty in the fall and of graduating seniors in the spring. If anyone has copies of this newspaper that could help fill in the gaps listed above, let us know!

Looking for Yearbooks...

One of the prized possessions in our archives is a Paul Quinn annual from 1927. There's an especially striking photo of then-Dean Isaac M. Burgan (featured in the previous post) as an older man--it's amazing to think of all he saw in his long life and in his association with Paul Quinn College.

The annuals are a priceless link to the heritage of the College, showing us the faces of days gone by, scenes from day-to-day life, and snapshots of memorable moments. If you have a yearbook you would like to donate to the archives, or if you would loan us a yearbook to have digitally copied, please let us know by commenting below!

Here are the ones we have:

1927 1966 1968 1969 1970

1971 1972 1975 1978 1980

1983 1984 1985 2003 2004

We know that for some of the missing years, no yearbook was published; even this information could be helpful. If you were involved in producing yearbooks in years past, we'd love to hear from you!

Paul Quinn When... Isaac M. Burgan led through trying times

"On the twenty-seventh of September, 1883, he and one other teacher arrived in Waco. They were met at the depot by three of the leading trustees, who directed them to a boarding house and arranged an hour for council. At the appointed time the trustees, laboring under very great discouragements, stated that they thought it best not to open school that year, and had concluded to wait till it could be opened under more favorable circumstances. After hearing their statement of facts, etc., Burgan said, "Closing the school for one year means death for ten, and it should be announced ready for work in the face of adverse circumstance..."

- read the whole story at William J. Simmons, Men of mark: eminent, progressive and rising, pub. 1887, pp. 1092-1094. (This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.)