This collection contains the personal and literary papers in Etheridge Knight’s possession at the time his death in 1991. Some items date as far back as 1965, but most fall into the period from 1982 to 1991. A collection of Knight’s earlier literary and personal papers is housed at the Ward M. Canaday Center at the University of Toledo.

The bulk of this collection is correspondence, which has been subdivided into two categories: personal and professional. The personal correspondence only contains a small quantity of letters written by Etheridge Knight. The remainder of the personal correspondence is comprised of letters received by Knight, organized alphabetically by the name of the author. Mixed in with the personal correspondence are poems and other manuscripts either sent to Knight or given to him during his numerous Free People’s Poetry Workshops. Professional correspondence is organized into files related to the type of publication or vocation.

Most of Knight’s published work was written prior to 1982, and the vast majority of his manuscripts are collected at the Canaday Center. This collection does, however, include some poem manuscripts and drafts of short stories, essays, and a book review— most of which remain unfinished. Some of the titled poems are slightly revised photocopies of previously published poems, some are most likely handwritten copies of previously published poems, while others are various drafts of published and unpublished poems. There are also poetic fragments, most unpublished.

Box 19 contains incarceration-related materials, which include informational documents from various organizations, news clippings pertaining to prison life and penal reform, and letters from committees and organizations with which Knight was involved.

The collection includes a large amount of promotional material (posters and news releases) concerning Knight’s poetry readings and other literary events, as well as feature newspaper articles on Knight from across the country.

There is also a section of photographs of Knight, his family, and his friends. The photographs are largely undated. Photocopies of Knight’s complete military records are also included in the collection (submitted by the archivist, June 1997), however most of the original records were damaged in a 1973 fire at the U.S. Army Department of Records in St. Louis, making the photocopies virtually Illegible. Where required under the law, certain materials are restricted from access and use.

Additions to the collection are located in boxes 26-27, and consist of a small quantity of correspondence to and about Knight and the Etheridge Knight Collection, writings about Knight, publicity materials, and files on events such as the Etheridge Knight Festival of the Arts and the Honoring Etheridge Knight program at Butler University's Irwin Library.