This series contains a variety of material by and about Vivion Lenon Brewer that documents her life, especially her participation in the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools and other organized volunteer efforts to promote racial integration in Little Rock, AR. It includes the following subseries: Desk diaries from 1959 and 1960; correspondence, newspaper clippings, and photographs that document her receipt of an honorary degree from Smith College in 1961; and Writings about VLB including articles, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and notes by VLB and others that provide basic information about her life and achievements. This series also contains information about Brewer's Family, including correspondence, newspaper clippings, notes and testimony documenting the Arkansas Veterans Administration's harassment of Joseph Brewer between 1958-61; and letters of support and rebuke that Brewer and her husband received from members of her extended family. The bulk of this series consists of Brewer's 1973 typescript of her Memoir: The Embattled Ladies of Little Rock [See also published book on shelf], which documents both the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools and her other contributions to the fight against segregation. Photographs contains images dating from 1959-63 of Brewer alone, with her husband, and with Lew Irwin of ABC-TV news; Brewer's home; and Brewer with her fellow Women's Emergency Committee organizers Adolphine Terry, Pat House, Velma Powell, and Jo Jackson.

This series is arranged in three subseries: General, Fan mail, and Individual. General correspondence is arranged chronologically and consists of incoming and outgoing correspondence between Vivion Brewer and various people, some private individuals and others representing organizations. Some of this correspondence includes hate mail from segregationists. Fan mail dates from 1958-60 and includes letters to Brewer from individuals who lauded her work for integration. Individual correspondence is arranged alphabetically and consists of letters to Vivion Brewer from prominent individuals including Arkansas Senator J.W. Fulbright, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Senator and former presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson.

This series, the largest in the collection, documents Brewer's personal and volunteer activities from 1957-69. It is arranged alphabetically by the name of the event or organization. Except for the American Association of University Women and the League of Women Voters all of the events and organizations represented in this series relate to Brewer's Civil Rights work. There is a large amount of material from the Women's Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools and from other organizations that Brewer helped to organize, such as Project Happy Time and Project Worthwhile. There is a smaller amount of material from groups such as the Arkansas Committee for Public Schools, the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, and the Louisiana Save Our Schools movement. Types of material include organizing statements, correspondence, memoranda, newspaper clippings, publicity, reports, agendas, minutes, speeches, and photographs.

This series is arranged alphabetically by subject and includes topics in which Brewer had a particular interest including Arkansas elections, school integration, Little Rock's history and demographics, and segregationism. Though the series contains a few newspaper clippings and magazine articles from the late 1940s and the early 1970s, the vast majority of the material dates from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The series contains numerous types of material including advertisements, articles, campaign buttons and literature, leaflets, maps, newspaper clippings, polls, posters, reports, typescripts, and miscellaneous printed material.