Scope and Content Note
The DuPree African American Pentecostal Collection spans the years 1861-2020, with the bulk of the material dating from 1980 to 2010. The collection reflects the collecting efforts of historian and librarian Sherry Sherrod DuPree, and her interests in preserving and documenting many aspects of African American religious and cultural history, especially regarding the history of the Pentecostal Church and the African American community in the American South and Florida specifically. The collection is organized into four series: African American Christian Organizations, African American History and Culture, DuPree Personal File, and Oversize.
The collection documents DuPree’s efforts to preserve and promote African American religious and cultural history chief among them, the practices of the African American Pentecostal Church and the activities of Pentecostal and Holiness congregations across the southern United States, as well as those of other African American Christian denominations. The collection comprises material DuPree actively solicited from church members and material she created or collected directly in the course of her own research and scholarship. The collection has a particular emphasis on the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and documents many COGIC congregations and nearly one hunderd years of COGIC conventions. In addition to aspects of African American religious history, the collection also broadly documents African American history in the Gainesville, Florida, area and wider Alachua County and Levy County vicinity and chronicles DuPree’s work to preserve the stories, memories, and experiences of otherwise hidden members of the African American community in which she lived. This includes DuPree’s successful efforts to establish Rosewood, Florida, as a Florida Heritage Landmark site in memory of the Rosewood massacre of 1923, her work to record the contributions of enslaved people and African American laborers on the Dudley Farm in Newberry, Florida, and to promote tourism of Black historic sites across Florida and the American South. The digital content in the collection is particularly robust and includes several oral history interviews with survivors of the Rosewood massacre, oral histories recorded as part of the University of Florida's Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, and many sermons, prayers, and gospel music pieces. Researchers should note that as DuPree’s areas of interest and activity were varied, so too is the collection’s content.
The collection’s series are listed and briefly described below. A fuller description of each series and a list of its contents can be accessed in the series descriptions within the container list.
The African American Christian Organizations series comprises religious ephemera, publications, and reference materials collected by DuPree for use in projects related to the history of African American Christian religious life.
The African American History and Culture series contains material largely related to DuPree’s activities and efforts to document and promote African American history in the Gainesville, Florida, area and southern United States.
The DuPree Personal File contains material related to DuPree’s family history and genealogy, her professional career as a librarian, and her many speaking engagements and lectures.
The remaining series contains Oversize material.