The Foy and Emma Lee McCarty Family Collection is a significant archive of Black political and material culture assembled by a working-class Detroit family deeply attuned to the historical moment in which they lived. Foy and Emma Lee McCarty emigrated to Detroit from Lynch, Kentucky, in the 1930s as part of the Great Migration, joining countless Black Southerners seeking opportunity, safety, and self-determination in the industrial North.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the McCarty’s carefully collected print materials and ephemera that documented pivotal moments in American history and Black life. Their archive reflects an acute awareness of the importance of preservation—capturing the everyday ways Black communities witnessed, processed, and remembered national and global events. Collection highlights include historic issues of Jet and Life magazines covering the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the iconic Esquire magazine featuring Muhammad Ali on its cover.
Together, these materials offer an intimate record of how Black Americans encountered history through mass media, political imagery, and cultural representation. The collection stands as a testament to the role of ordinary citizens as historians and archivists of their own lives.
The Foy and Emma Lee McCarty Family Collection is held by the Black Artists Archive and is especially meaningful as Foy and Emma Lee McCarty are the maternal grandparents of BAA’s founder, Dr. Kelli Morgan. Their archive underscores the vital role of family-held collections in preserving Black historical memory and political consciousness across generations.
