Known for his civil rights activism, Spencer's community involvement included service with the Chatham Council Boy Scouts of America, where he started a Sea Scouting program and the first Negro Scout Troop in the county; the Savannah Rotary Club; the Mayor's Commission that established Armstrong Junior College in 1935; the bi-racial Chatham Council on Human Relations, 1961-1968; the Georgia Council on Human Relations, 1960-1974; the Georgia State Board of Public Welfare, 1935-1945; the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon, Georgia; Greenbriar Children's Center, becoming the board's first white board member in 1945; the West Board Street YMCA; the NAACP, 1945-1973; and the local American Red Cross chapter. He served on the Chatham County Board of Education for eighteen years and in 1955, after his retirement, he was named Honorary School Board President and a Black elementary school was named in his honor.

Spencer married Lillian Windau, his second wife, in New York in 1938. He had twin sons, Frank Wilson and Hugo Johnson, and three daughters, Margaret, Adelaide, and Jeanne, from an earlier marriage. During the latter part of their life the Spencers maintained residences in Savannah and at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Spencer died on July 26, 1979.

Lillian Windau Spencer was born on September 14, 1901 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She had a degree in social work and moved to Savannah in the early 1930s. She actively supported her husband's career and was a driving force behind his community service. Through her philanthropy and community involvement she continued to support their common causes after his death. She moved back to Wisconsin in 1987 to be cared for by her niece, Patricia Windau. She died on October 14, 1996 in Whitewater, Wisconsin.

The second record group is a small collection of the papers of Spencer's wife, Lillian W. Spencer. They include one file on her activity with the League of Women Voters. Her other remaining papers deal largely with her support of her husband's causes and correspondence dealing with her efforts to honor him after his death. Because she worked collaboratively with her husband, some of her correspondence related to their work with organizations can be found in his subject files. Both record groups also contain correspondence with various members of Hubert Humphrey's family.

Original order and file names have been maintained for the collection with the exception of the biographical information about Frank W. Spencer. Found in an unmarked folder, it did not appear to be a part of Spencer's original subject files but did appear to have been collected and filed separately by him and his wife, Lillian. It has been arranged in a second series within record group 1. The collection was donated to AASU in 1998 by Spencer's niece, Patricia Windau. Dr. Robert Strozier, AASU alumni, professor of English Emeritus and close personal friend of the Spencers, encouraged the donation. Strozier delivered the eulogy at Frank W. Spencer's funeral in 1979, the text of which can be found in Box #78. He also delivered the eulogy at Lillian Spencer's funeral in 1996.

(Call number F292.S3 S386 1962)

Subject Headings:

Series 1: Subject Files

Series 2: Biographical

Chatham Council on Human Relations, 1963

Crusade for Justice, 1963

Human Relations, 1954-57

Human Relations, 1958-64

Human Relations, 1965-66

Interracial, 1944-47

Interracial, 1948-49

Interracial, 1950

Interracial, 1951, (includes Lillian W. Spencer correspondence)

Interracial Data, 1945-68

Jones, Charles M., Rev., Race Relations or Human Relations, Which Do We Want? 1963

NAACP, 1945-1950

NAACP, 1951-1958

NAACP, 1959-1973

Pike, Rt. Rev. James A., Bishop, 1962

Port and trade

Segregation data, 1954-1962

School Board

School integration

Smith, Lillian, 1941-49

Smith, Lillian, 1950-59

Smith, Lillian, 1960-65

Smith, Lillian, 1966-69

Smith, Lillian, 1970-79

Spencer, Frank W. Scholarship

State Board of Public Welfare, 1935-40

State Board of Public Welfare, 1941-45

Waring, J. Waties, 1950-52

Waterfront, The, 1966

White Problem, The, 1963

Six file folders are arranged alphabetically by topic; material within the folders is arranged in reverse chronological order. Folder titles have been maintained. The bulk of Lillian Spencer’s correspondence deals with her efforts to honor her husband after his death. Two handwritten and signed letters by Hubert H. Humphrey Sr. can be found among her correspondence in Folder # 82. Because much of her volunteerism was done in collaboration with her husband, some of her correspondence can be found in Series 1 of the Frank W. Spencer Papers. A survey of housing conditions among the fourteen Negro schools in Chatham County, conducted by Lillian Spencer in 1940 for the Chatham County School Board, is found in folder # 83. The text of a speech she gave in 1972 at the retirement of Ayler Mae Lovett, the principal of the Frank W. Spencer School, is in folder #86.