[AFRICAN-AMERICANA] [ELKS] Three souvenir booklets for annual conventions of the New England States and Eastern Canada Association regional branch of the IBPOEW

[various]: IBPOEW, 1967. Staplebound. Near fine. Quarto. 24pp.; 26pp. [18]pp., illustrated. All volumes near fine, with mild flattened creases, else clean and sharp. Three souvenir booklets, for the 48th, 52nd, and 53rd annual conventions of the New England States and Eastern Canada Association of Elk Lodges--both the fraternal organization and its female auxiliary. These conventions were held in Providence, Hartford, and again in Providence, respectively. The booklets are filled with portrait illustrations of various bigwigs in the IBOPEW (both national and regional figures), as well as programming information, and a number of local advertisements geared toward convention-goers. The IBPOEW is the largest extant fraternal organization founded by African-Americans. Founded in 1897, it still maintains a membership of around half a million members. According to historian Venus Green, the Improved Elks labor activism was distinguished from other black fraternal organizations by their "cross-class alliances, male/female solidarity, racial unity, a willingness to join coalitions across ideologies and to engage in multiple forms of struggle, especially militant mass mobilization." (Venus Green, "Not your average fraternal organization: the IBPOEW and labor activism, 1935-1950", Labor History, Volume 53, 2012 - Issue 4, pp.471-494, Taylor and Francis Online; accessed 17 May 2017). These booklets paint a picture of an organization in flux in the immediate wake of the Civil Rights Movement, after which other fraternal organizations had opened their doors to African-Americans, and much of the structures of segregation were being dismantled. Naturally ephemeral, we found no separate holdings of any convention booklets for this chapter in OCLC, nor in commerce as of this listing.