Biography/History:

L. C. (Lula Clara) Warren was born on December 17, 1938, in Tribbett, Washington County, Mississippi, the eleventh of thirteen children born to Abraham Warren and Mary Davis on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta. At her birth, she was named Lula Mae Annie Bell Virginia Warren. This name was shortened to Lula Mae, and when she entered high school it was changed to Lula Clara. Her parents had little formal education but encouraged her to complete her formal training. L. C. was educated in plantation schools and in the public schools of neighboring communities. However, frequent movement from plantation to plantation caused her attendance to be interrupted, and she dropped out of high school at seventeen.

In 1956, L. C. Warren married Hildery Dorsey. They had six children: Cynthia Dorsey Smith, Norma Dorsey, Anita Dorsey Word, Michael Dorsey, Adrianne Dorsey, and Hildery Dorsey, Jr. The family settled into plantation life but had to leave when the owners turned to mechanized agriculture. They moved from the plantation into a three-room house in Shelby, Bolivar County, Mississippi. Hildery Dorsey, Sr., found work at a lumber company for $36.00 per week, while L. C. supplemented the meager income by daily work in the cotton fields.

As the Civil Rights Movement began to make its influence felt in Mississippi, Dorsey began to work in many different areas. She participated in voter registration and citizenship education in Bolivar County, Mississippi; became active in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; formed a food cooperative in Bolivar County; and continuously agitated, through boycotts and other methods, for change within the community. In 1965, Dorsey was hired to work in the Tuft-Delta Health Center, a program funded by the United States Office of Economic Opportunity, in Mound Bayou, Bolivar County, Mississippi.

Even though she was involved in many different activities, Dorsey found time to complete her education. She attended Mary Holmes College in West Point, Clay County, Mississippi, from 1969-1971. She completed a year of study at Worker College, Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1970. In 1973, she earned a master’s degree in social work at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dorsey went on to complete one year at the University of Mississippi Law School, and finally earned a doctorate in social work at Howard University, Washington, D.C., in 1988.

Dorsey was actively involved with problems of prisoners in Mississippi. In 1975, she became the administrative director of the Mississippi Prisoners’ Defense Committee and, from 1975-1983, the state director of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons, a nine-state organization that called for prison reform. During this same period, 1977-1983, she worked as the associate director of the Delta Ministry, a civil rights group sponsored by the National Council of Churches.

Dorsey has written many articles related to prison life for journals and newspapers. She has also authored two books, Freedom Came to Mississippi (1977), an autobiographical account of her work in the Civil Rights Movement, and Cold Steel (1983), a look at Parchman prison in Mississippi through essays and poetry.

Hildery and L. C. Dorsey were divorced in July 1975. She later married Richard Arnold Young in Shelby, Bolivar County, Mississippi, on February 4, 1996.

In recent years, L. C. Dorsey has held several academic and consulting positions. She was a member of President Clinton’s Health Professionals’ Commission on Health Care Reform from 1994-1996, served as an assistant professor of social work at Jackson State University, Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi in 1995, and is presently the assistant director for the Delta Research and Cultural Institute located at Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, Leflore County, Mississippi.

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of printed materials, correspondence, and an autographed program arranged in three series.

The printed material includes a copy of: “‘Unwomanly’ Behavior: The Politics of Incarcerating Women in America”; an article written for Grapevine, the newsletter of the Joint Strategy and Action Committee (1984); an article written for the Jackson Advocate (1979); and a poem written for her friend, Virgia Brocks-Shedd (1992).

The correspondence consists of a photocopy of one letter and a photocopy of three letters to the editor, probably from the Jackson Advocate, concerning a conflict between Dorsey and Ronald R. Welch of the Mississippi Prisoners’ Defense Committee.

There are two copies of a typewritten program for a Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Madison County, Mississippi, assembly on September 10, 1980, at which L. C. Dorsey was the principal speaker. Mrs. Dorsey autographed both copies. A copy of Dorsey’s speech is housed with other audio cassette tapes in the media center of L. Zenobia Coleman Library at Tougaloo College.

Series Identification:

1. Printed Materials. 1979-1992.

   Folder 1

2. Correspondence. 1979; n.d.

   Folder 2

3. Program. 1980.

   Folder 3