Miller (Mike) Papers, circa 1958-2012

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Summary

Title:
Mike Miller papers
Dates:
circa 1958-2012
Creators:
Miller, Mike, 1937-
Abstract:
The Mike Miller papers document Miller's six decades as a community organizer, comprising institutional records, writings, and extensive subject files of the donor's research into the history and practice of organizing. Topics are wide-ranging and include the civil rights movements of the 1960s; the anti-urban renewal struggles of the 1960s and 1970s; labor and left-wing movements from the 1970s to the present; the religious left; and community organizing as a grassroots model for civic engagement. The collection includes correspondence, research and position papers, outreach and training materials, drafts of Miller's work, public documents, and books.
Extent:
167.5 Linear Feet (134 cartons)
Language:
Materials primarily in English, with a limited amount in Spanish and Portuguese.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item, date]; Mike Miller papers (MS 4139) [box number, folder number]; California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.

Background

Scope and content:

The Mike Miller papers document Miller's six decades as a community organizer, comprising institutional records, writings, and extensive subject files of the donor's research into the history and practice of organizing. Topics are wide-ranging and include the civil rights movements of the 1960s; the anti-urban renewal struggles of the 1960s and '70s; labor and left-wing movements from the 1970s to the present; the religious left; and community organizing as a grassroots model for civic engagement. The collection includes correspondence, research and position papers, outreach and training materials, drafts of Miller's work, public documents, and books.

The content of Miller's papers reflects his early involvement with the student civil rights organizations SLATE and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); his work as the principal organizer for the Mission Coalition Organization (MCO), a grassroots coalition of approximately twenty-five community organizations that resisted top-down urban renewal efforts in San Francisco's predominantly Latino Mission District in the late '60s and early '70s; and his decades-long community organizing work as director of the San Francisco nonprofit ORGANIZE! Training Center (OTC), which he founded in 1972. The collection spans the years circa 1958 to 2012.

Biographical / historical:

Mike Miller was born in 1937 and first became involved in activism as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in political science and sociology and acted as a founding member of the leftist student government faction SLATE.

After 1962, Miller worked full-time for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, registering voters in Mississippi, among other accomplishments. In 1966, he accepted a job working for Saul Alinsky at the Industrial Areas Foundation, and in 1972 he returned to the Bay Area to begin the neighborhood organization and training work that has constituted the bulk of his career. With the Mission Coalition Organization (MCO), he worked to avert so-called urban renewal efforts, which in practice tended to break down neighborhoods that had historically been home to marginalized people. At the same time, the MCO participated in a Lyndon Johnson program called Model Cities, which was intended to fund and strengthen local, grassroots political power. As founder of the ORGANIZE! Training Center, Miller also began to train residents and union members in the organization techniques he had learned both from experience and from his work with Alinsky, going on to a sixty-year organizing career.

Acquisition information:
Purchased from Mike Miller, 2011. Transferred to Stanford University Libraries in 2025.
Processing information:

Materials were left in their original folders when those folders were in good condition; folders that had deteriorated were replaced. Most folders were left undated, and their dates in the finding aid represent the broad circa dates of the entire collection; in a few cases, folders whose original date ranges were on their original labels have been assigned these narrower dates.

A few subseries, all in the Organizational records series, were processed at a higher level due to their likely interest to researchers: Mission Coalition Organization, La Guardia Tenants' Association and other housing organizations, All Peoples' Coalition, and San Francisco Organizing Project. These subseries have been precisely dated and refoldered in legal-sized folders.

Arrangement:

The collection is divided into five series, roughly following Mike Miller's original filing scheme: 1) Organizational records; 2) Subject files; 3) Manuscripts and personal papers; 4) Audiovisual materials; and 5) Publications and ephemera.

The Organizational records series is broken down into a number of subseries containing materials from various organizations with which Miller has worked. The Subject files series is likewise separated into many subseries, most of them reflecting Miller's own arrangement and labeling of his voluminous subject files. The Manuscripts series is broken down into four subseries, comprising Mike Miller's college papers, his manuscripts and articles, the materials he used as a university instructor, and his correspondence. Materials in the Audiovisual materials and Publications and ephemera series are unarranged.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Isaac R. Fellman, Lynda Letona, and Marie Silva
Sponsor:
Funding for processing this collection was provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) RH100299-18.
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-02-12 14:58:37 -0800 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research. Please note that materials must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Audiovisual materials are not available in original format, and must be reformatted to a digital use copy.

Terms of access:

Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by Mike Miller were transferred to the California Historical Society (CHS) in 2011 by donor, and trasferred to Stanford University Libaries in 2025. Reproduction or publication of materials in this collection beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of Stanford University Libraries. Contact chscollection@stanford.edu.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item, date]; Mike Miller papers (MS 4139) [box number, folder number]; California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.

Location of this collection:
Department of Special Collections, Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6004, US
Contact:
(650) 725-1022
chscollection@stanford.edu
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