Interesting Documents (19 October 2007)

Mr. Barkley has been preserving the important documents housed in the MMI Archives. Many of these items have been kept in non-acid-free boxes and folders that have encouraged their deterioration. Mr. Barkley's goal is to document these items and place them in storage that will not contribute to decomposition.

Click on the thumbnails to be taken to larger images. Feel free to download the files.

Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama spoke to a crowd of some 3,000 people (a third of them white) at the Perry County Fairgrounds in Marion, Alabama, on Saturday, October 26, 1913. Prior to his speech, Washington was introduced by COL Hopson O. Murfee, President of Marion Military Institute, who mentioned that his father, COL James T. Murfee, founder and first president of MMI, was instrumental in bringing Booker T. Washington to Alabama and Tuskegee Institute. Washington confirmed Murfee’s statement in his opening remarks.



The Booker T. Washington Monument at Tuskegee University.



Press release describing a dinner hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Hopson O. Murfee for the First Lady, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eleanor) , in their country home near Prattville, Alabama, on Thursday, September 14, 1939. The dinner coincided with Eleanor Roosevelt’s visit to Montgomery.



An Act to incorporate Marion Military Institute in Marion, Perry County, Alabama, approved February 20, 1889.



Photostat of a letter written by Robert E. Lee, President of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, to COL John W. Lapsley of Selma, Alabama, dated June 5, 1866. The letter concerns the poor performance of COL Lapsley’s son, John, at Washington College (he later transferred to the College of William and Mary in Virginia).