Flyer of Tuskegee crusade for citizenship, 1957

Dawson and his wife, Cecile, were active participants in the Civil Rights Movement and lifetime members in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Cecile's date book records the "March on Montgomery" on March 25, 1965, an event in which they both may have participated. The Dawson collection also holds materials pertaining to the 1957 “Crusade for Citizenship” organized by the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA). Its intent was to fight a proposed bill that would remap Tuskegee such that its black neighborhoods would no longer fall within the city limits. After the bill was passed in July, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sent a message and a donation to the cause.