Thomas M. Drake, Member of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission, Papers
Collection
Collection Number: A&M 2237
This collection contains the papers of Dr. Thomas Mitchell Drake, collected and created while he was a member of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission between 1967 and 1971. Subjects of interest include legislation affecting human rights in West Virginia, equal employment opportunities, and complaints of racial discrimination throughout West Virginia. This collection also includes a galley proof of Drake’s co-authored book, Human Relations: A Reader for West Virginians.
Materials include bulletins, correspondence, newspaper clippings, reports, meeting minutes and agendas, and discrimination complaint dockets.
The collection is divided into two series:
Series 1. General
Series 2. Discrimination Complaints
No special access restriction applies.
Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.
Dr. Thomas Mitchell Drake was born April 23, 1931, in Salisbury, North Carolina to Margaret Isabel Camp Drake Crutchfield and Nathan Maxwell Drake. He graduated from Greenville High School in Greenville, South Carolina, before attending Furman University, from which he graduated with a B.A. in 1955.
He then attended Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he received his M.A. in political science in 1958 and his Ph.D. in 1959. He also taught at Duke University during this time. He was an assistant professor of political science at Furman University from 1959 to 1962, when he moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, to work as an assistant professor of political science at West Virginia University.
He participated in a sub-committee of the State Salary Study Commission in West Virginia in 1964, reporting on the state’s employment system and recommending legislation regarding state personnel functions. He served as the first chairman of the Bipartisan Committee for Constitutional Revisions, a group formed in Morgantown in 1966 for the purpose of securing passage of five West Virginia constitutional amendments, including the Governor’s Succession Amendment, the Constitutional Improvement Amendment, the Judicial Circuit Amendment, the Legislative Amendment, and the Better Schools Amendment.
In 1967, Drake was appointed as a member of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission by Governor Hulett C. Smith. He would serve on this commission until 1971.
He co-authored the book Human Relations: A Reader for West Virginians with Dr. David G. Temple in 1969.
He was later a liaison with the College of the Virgin Islands, now called the University of the Virgin Islands, and retired from the West Virginia State Supreme Court Law Library. He died September 28, 2005 in Savannah, Georgia.
1.58 Linear Feet (3 document cases, 5 in. each; 1 document case, 2.5 in; 1 flat storage box, 1.5 in. )
English
This collection contains the papers of Dr. Thomas Mitchell Drake, collected and created while he was a member of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission between 1967 and 1971. Subjects of interest include legislation affecting human rights in West Virginia, equal employment opportunities, and complaints of racial discrimination throughout West Virginia.
West Virginia and Regional History Center / West Virginia University / 1549 University Avenue / P.O. Box 6069 / Morgantown, WV 26506-6069 / Phone: 304-293-3536 / URL: West Virginia & Regional History Center
Gift of Thomas M. Drake, 1973 April 02
Part of the West Virginia and Regional History Center Repository