NCC Physical Collections Papers of Individuals and Organizations Harris Family Papers

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Harris Family Papers

Title: Harris Family Papers

Inclusive Dates: 1907-2012

Relationship of donor

or materials to the

DCL/NCR

Processor: Kristen Merryman

Description:

Subject Headings: Hayes, Roland, 1887--1977--Correspondence.

Obituaries—North Carolina—Durham County.

Hillside High School.

Whitted Junior High School.

African American jazz musicians.

Abstract:

The Harris Family Papers are a collection of materials gathered together primarily

by Mayme Harris Perry documenting her family. The main Harris family members

included in the collection are Mayme Harris Perry, her younger brother Johnny

Harris, her younger sister Eleta Jean Harris Murray (and Jean's children, Pat,

David, and Eleta "Cookie" Murray), and Mayme's parents Charles Harris and

Georgia Eleta Atwater Harris. It includes correspondence, photographs,

newspaper clippings, publications, musical compositions, funeral programs, and

scrapbooks collected or created over the years by members of the family. The

materials document the life of a middle class African- American family in Durham

Scope and Content:

in the 20th century and their connections to other family members and

professional colleagues in places including Georgia, Chicago, Boston, and Los

Angeles. Charles Harris was the piano player for Roland Hayes (a lyric tenor and

composer and the first African-American male concert artist to receive wide

correspondence and set of photographs is part of the collection and includes

several presidents such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald

Reagan, as well as people such as Bob Woodward and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Her mother, Eleta Atwater Harris worked at the North Carolina Mutual Insurance

Company for many years and materials from her time there are also included.

The collection also includes many materials relating to the family of Mayme's

maternal grandparents, John Henry and Mamie Harper Atwater, who settled in

Durham at the turn of the 20th century and were instrumental in establishing St.

Matthew's C.M.E. Church (a predecessor of Russell Memorial C.M.E. Church) as

well as Mayme's paternal grandparents, the Harrises, who lived in Augusta,

Elizabeth Johnson Harris. His parents were both very musically inclined and

Charles played piano from an early age. He graduated from Paine College in

Augusta, Georgia, in 1904 and studied at the New England Conservatory of

Music in Boston, where he met Roland Hayes, a well-known tenor. Harris toured

internationally with Hayes from 1911-1916, serving as his piano accompanist,

including a performance before England's Queen Victoria. Following his touring

career, Harris taught music at many colleges throughout the South. His longest

tenure was at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. After his retirement in

1951, he taught music part time at North Carolina Central University. In 1922, he

married Georgia Eleta Atwater Harris in Durham. They had three children,

returned to Durham and worked for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance

Company for 37 years. She died in 1965.

Charles and Georgia Harris's daughter, Mayme Harris Perry, was born in Durham,

North Carolina, in 1924. The family lived at 612 Carr Street at the time, which was

directly across from the American Tobacco factory. Mayme graduated from

Hillside High School in 1941 and attended Bennett College in Greensboro. She

moved back to Durham and taught English and history at Whitted Junior High

School and Hillside High School. Her marriage to Robert Perry in 1952 was short

lived. She was active in the Durham community, particularly with Russell

Memorial C.M.E. Church, of which her grandparents were founding members.

of many well-known people including President Bill Clinton. Johnny died in 2000.

Jean Harris married Milo Murray in 1952 in Durham and they moved to Chicago,

IL, shortly after. Jean taught music in the Chicago public schools for many years

and passed away in 1995. The Murrays had three children, Eleta "Cookie,"

Patricia "Pat," and David, who passed away in 1982. Pat Murray moved to

Durham from Chicago in 2001 to care for her aunt, Mayme Harris Perry. Pat

publishes the Durham SkyWriter and is a freelance DJ. Cookie, a stage actress,

has a daughter Jihan and continues to live in Chicago.

Condition Notes:

Organization of

Container List

Family Papers

Charles Harris

Box 1 Birthdays --100th--articles and proclamations, 1985

Birthdays--100th--cards, 1985

Birthdays--100th--letters from politicians, 1985

Birthdays--cards and letters, 1980-1987

Certificates, 1924-1985

Correspondence--personal, 1942-1975

Correspondence--personal--Elizabeth J. Harris, 1942-1946

Musical compositions, undated

Newspaper articles, 1932-1987

Roland Hayes--correspondence, 1919, 1970-1974

Roland Hayes--memorials, 1977

Box 2 Roland Hayes--performances, 1916-1974

Roland Hayes--"Reminiscences of My Days with Roland Hayes", 1944

"The Public Career of Charles Jacob Harris" by Deborah Morton, 1974

World War II ration books and savings bonds, 1941-1945

Writings--miscellaneous, 1960-1972, undated

Writings--"The Confessions of a Ham-Singer", undated

Album--compiled by Emma Harris, sister of Charles Harris. Includes pictures of

the Harris family in New York, Georgia, and North Carolina, circa 1920-1980

Album--compiled by Emma Harris, sister of Charles Harris. Includes pictures of

the Harris family in New York, Georgia, and North Carolina, as well as

photographs of the family traveling around the United States, 1929-1983

Box 11 Photographs

Atwater and Harris extended family photographs, 1896-1947

Harris family group photographs, 1925-1996

Georgia Eleta Atwater Harris, 1906-1965

Box 12 Photographs

Box 14 Photographs

Eleta "Cookie" Murray, Jihan Murray-Smith, Pat Murray, 1984-2010

Miscellaneous Harris family friends and relatives, 1910-1997, undated

Eleanor Roosevelt in Durham, 1945

Education conference in Washington, D.C., includes photographs of Edward

Kennedy, 1977

Oversized Folder

100th birthday greeting for Charles Harris from mayor of Los Angeles, Tom

Bradley, 1985

Aerial photograph of American Tobacco factory (Now American Tobacco

Perry, 2007

Hillside Chronicle , 1941

Hillside graduation class of 1945 in Durham Sun, 1945

Hillside High School diploma, Jean Eleta Harris, 1945

Hillside High School diploma, John Harris, 1945

Hillside Park High School diploma, Mayme Harris, 1941

Johnny Harris scrapbook page, 1967

Thank you to Johnny Harris for participation in New Orleans World's Fair, 1984