Dr. Richard Lamanna Papers

Summary Information

Repository:

Indiana University South Bend Archives
1700 Mishawaka Ave. P.O. Box 7111
South Bend, Indiana 46634
Telephone: (574)520-4392
Email:sshoger@iusb.edu
Creator: Civil Rights Heritage Center
Title: Dr. Richard Lamanna papers of the Civil Rights Heritage Center
Extent: One bankers box totaling 1.25 cubic feet.

Abstract:

Dr. Richard A. Lamanna earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina. His dissertation, The Negro Public School Teacher and School Desegregation: A Survey of Negro Teachers In North Carolina, is indicative of the work he continued throughout his career. After earning his PhD, Dr. Lamanna became a long time professor at the University of Notre Dame. Working within the Sociology Department, his emphasis was on minority and urban sociology. His publications include the 1969 work The Catholic Church and the Negro.

Much of his research and writing involved issues of desegregation in education. Dr. Lamanna saw that process of school desegregation evolve in South Bend, Indiana, beginning in the 1960s. That evolution was different than in the American South where there was an entrenched and occasionally violent opposition to school integration. In South Bend, the struggle was figuring out how a city with a strong manufacturing history (embodied in companies like Studebaker) would continue to provide jobs to graduating students as the processes of manufacturing and the labor required for it changed radically in the second half of the twentieth century. That change hugely affected the mass influx of new communities of color who came into to South Bend from the American South during the Great Migration. With fewer jobs available and a legacy of racial discrimination and segregation impacting employment and education, how would the city – and city schools in particular – adapt to and integrate previously marginalized peoples? Dr. Lamanna’s belief in social justice, rooted in his Catholic faith and his work at the University of Notre Dame, pushed his study and scholarship towards seeking solutions to those difficult new challenges.

Scope and Content Note:

Includes documents from or related to school integration and the African American experience in and around South Bend, Indiana, from the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Materials are organized in chronological order by date of creation, when known.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions:

This collection is open for research. Advance notice is required.

Usage Restrictions:

The donor(s) of this collection have transferred copyrights for their original materials to the Trustees of Indiana University.

The IU South Bend Archives respects the intellectual property rights of others and does not claim copyright for non-university records, materials in the public domain, or materials for which we do not hold a Deed of Gift. Responsibility for the determination of the copyright status of these materials rests with those persons wishing to reuse the materials. Researchers are responsible for securing permission from copyright owners and any other rights holders for any reuse of these materials that extends beyond fair use or other statutory limitations.

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Preferred Citation:

[Item], Dr. Richard Lamanna papers of the Civil Rights Heritage Center, Indiana University South Bend Archives.

Processing Information:

Processed by George Garner, Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center Tours and Collections Coordinator, beginning in June 2015. Updated to reflect new naming structure, December 2015. Added unique ID numbers, August 2016.