The papers date from 1947 to 2018 and are arranged alphabetically by topic. The papers contain awards, speeches, small amounts of correspondence and law office documents, and a scrapbook prepared to celebrate Mrs. Freeman’s 80th birthday.

Freeman’s appointments were national and local. She served on the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District Board beginning in 1994. There are three certificates of appointment to national positions: Civil Rights Commission in 1964 (President Johnson), Inspector General of Community Services Administration in 1979 (President Carter), and Commission on Presidential Scholars in 2015 (President Obama). Other documents relating to Freeman’s appointments include a newsclipping, pamphlet transcriptions of hearings for her national nominations in 1964 and 1979, and a commendation from the St. Louis Housing Authority (B1/f.1).

Numerous awards were presented to Mrs. Freeman during her lifetime, from a 10 year service award from the St. Louis Housing Authority in 1966 to an honorary doctor of law from the University of Missouri in 2016. She received accolades from the State of Missouri and from the City of St. Louis, having “Frankie Muse Freeman Day” declared in 1996 to celebrate her 80th birthday (B1/f.11), in 2003, and in 2011 (B1/f.2). Governor Mel Carnahan added her to the Academy of Missouri Squires in 2009.

The biographical file (B1/f.4) includes Freeman’s law school diploma, her voter registration card, two newsclippings, Delta Sigma Theta business cards, a biographical sketch, and resolutions expressing condolences upon Mrs. Freeman’s death by the Missouri Bar and the Missouri Senate. The funeral program is a printed booklet with many photographs, a brief biography, and a timeline of her career.

There are few letters in the collection. Notable correspondence includes a 22 October 1964 letter (TLS) from President Lyndon B. Johnson thanking Freeman for her work for the Democratic party and a 28 August 2014 letter (TLS) from President Obama marking the 50th anniversary of her appointment to the Civil Rights Commission. There is an invitation to President Nixon’s inaugural ball on 20 January 1969. A copy of a 17 November 1969 memo written by Freeman to Arthur Klein, a teamster who was involved with the union’s housing projects, regarding improvements to low rent housing. Another significant letter is the 2 September 1985 missive that Freeman wrote to Betty Pilsbury, national president of the Girl Scouts, reporting her recent travels to China, Virginia, El Paso, and Georgia.

There is little in the collection documenting Freeman’s legal career. There are three certificates declaring that Frankie Muse Freeman was qualified to appear before the Supreme Court of the U.S.A., the Supreme Court of Missouri, and the Eastern District Court of Missouri. From 1955 to 1956, Freeman was the assistant attorney general of Missouri. There are a small number of court documents (photocopies) relating to Freeman’s well known civil rights cases: Brewton v. Board of Education and Davis v. St. Louis Housing Authority. There are two account books for Freeman’s law practice. The first book dates from circa 1950 to 1952 (B1/f.7). The second book includes not only accounts from 2005 to 2009, but also a page dedicated to housekeeper expenses in 2006, and to accounts relating to her autobiography from 2010 to 2016 (B1/f.8).

On the occasion of Freeman’s 80th birthday, her daughter requested that friends and family send special greetings for a commemorative scrapbook (B1f.11-B2/f.3). A large binder held cards and well wishes divided into categories: Government, Family, Church, Delta (Sigma Theta), and Organizations & Businesses. For preservation, items were removed from the binder and placed into acid-free folders in the same order in which they appeared in the binder.

There are six folders of speeches delivered by Freeman from 1967 to 1983. While serving on the Commission on Civil Rights, Freeman spoke to a House subcommittee on education and labor (1970) and to both House and Senate appropriations committees regarding funding for the Commission in 1972 (B2/f.4). Who Will Listen is a 265 page compilation of Frankie Freeman’s addresses and speeches delivered from 1967 to 1975 by Dovey J. Roundtree and Prof. Barbara Lee Smith of Washington D.C. (B2/f.7-9). There are also two folders of speeches arranged chronologically that are not included in the compilation.

Please also see the Missouri Historical Society Library for Mrs. Freeman’s personal copy of the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1 March 1968) and the Frankie Muse Freeman Photograph Collection in the Photo & Prints Department.

Mrs. Freeman donated a much larger collection of her papers to Howard University, also the Frankie Muse Freeman Papers. She also donated printed works, awards, posters, and photographs to Harris-Stowe State University where the circulating Frankie Freeman Civil Rights Collection is part of its library's Social Justice and Policy Collection.