WSU’s first African-American Heritage House was created in 1975, in the old Regional School Laboratory located adjacent to Cleveland Hall. In 1996 the center was renamed as the Talmadge Anderson Heritage House and moved into Cleveland Hall, and the old facility demolished. In 2007-2008 the university renovated three historic houses in the College Hill neighborhood, each for a different community of color: African/African Americans (Talmadge Anderson Heritage House (935 B St.)), Chicano/Latinos (Casa Latina (955 B St.)), and Native Americans (Native American Cultural House (975 B St.)). One for Asian/Pacific Islanders (Asian Pacific American Cultural House (905 C St.)) followed not too much later.
The Elson Floyd Cultural Center, opened in 2017, was planned to take the place of these four Heritage Houses, but no space was allocated for them in the final plans. The four houses were sold circa 2020-2021, and their collections and holdings were repurposed or discarded.
WSU’s first official recognition of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. came in 1986, when a week of events was held culminating in James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equali ty, speaking to about 600 people in the CUB. From then, a committee formed of representatives of several campus groups, including Affirmative Action / Equity and Diversity and the Cultural Houses has been responsible for organizing events honoring King’s legacy. In 2002 it was titled the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Celebration, and that seems to be the “official” title, though it will be abbreviated at places in this guide.
The collection contains material which had been held in storage in the Talmadge Anderson Heritage House, related to Washington State University’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. events, held each year in January. Holdings vary from year to year, but can including programming materials, including speeches, posters, and event schedules; planning committee minutes, correspondence, and financial records. The 2009 and 2010 folders also contain CDs of photographs and videos. At the back of the collection is a folder with a list of 1992-2005 Distinguished Service Award winners.
The folders are arranged chronologically by date, with each folder dated by a given celebration’s year. As the celebrations occur annually in January, these folders usually also contain materials dating to the previous year. Several oversized posters are stored in an oversized folder.
The CDs of photographs and videos have been copied to MASC’s digital archival storage.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Washington State University Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Celebration Records, 1995-2020 (Archives 407)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
After the WSU Heritage Houses were closed, the belongings of each house were collected by WSU for disposal. University Archivist Mark O’English went through each on Jan. 17th, 2023, and the materials here were among those selected for preservation. They were initially retained as UA2023-01. A few folders of MLK materials held in unprocessed WSU Equity and Diversity materials (UA2012-07 and UA2007-08) were removed from that set and incorporated into this collection during the 2023 processing. In July 2025, Karen Weathermon, director of First-Year Programs in the Division of Academic Engagement and Student Achievement, donate some 2014-2020 materials which were incorporated into this collection.
University Archivist Mark O’English processed this collection in January of 2023.
Among other materials salvaged from the Talmadge Anderson Heritage House were
transcripts for materials held in the Black Oral History Interviews, 1972-1974
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.