Southern Labor Archives opens AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education, Area 3, records
The AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE), Area 3, comprised Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia. COPE’s main purpose was to solicit and encourage voting and voter registration, especially among women, minority, senior citizen, and youth voters.
Through correspondence, field reports, news clippings, surveys, reports, memoranda, political fund-raising materials, convention materials, photographs, voting data, and partisan political materials, one better understands Area 3’s activities: outreach to constituents in the COPE organization, administration of the the Women’s Activities Department (WAD), and participation in events concerning Solidarity Day, elections at all government levels, civil rights, youth voter organizations such as Frontlash, and retired union employees.
The Southern Labor Archives is home to many collections of AFL-CIO records, including those created by its city- and state-affiliated labor councils, Civil-Rights Department, Southeastern region offices, Human Resources Development Institute, Building and Construction Trades Department, and Committee on Political Education. With these collections, researchers have a better understanding of the larger issues and goals of the labor movement in the Southeast from the mid-1950s through the late 1980s.
The Southern Labor Archives is part of Georgia State University Library’s Special Collections and Archives Department. If you have questions about this, or any other, AFL-CIO collection, please contact us at 404.413.2880 or at archives@gsu.edu.