The Duke Vigil was a silent demonstration at Duke University, April 5-11, 1968, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The collection features announcements, flyers, publications, handouts, correspondence, reports, ephemera, press releases, clippings, a diary, sound recordings and WDBS broadcasts, and photographs. Individuals prominent within the collection include John Blackburn, Kenneth Clark, John Strange, David Henderson, Duke President Douglas Knight, Samuel DuBois Cook, and Wright Tisdale. Major subjects include student demonstrations, race relations, Duke University employee wages and labor union, and the anniversary and reunion of the Vigil in 1988. Materials range in date from 1968 to 1988. English.

The collection features a variety of materials documenting the Vigil at Duke University from April 5-11, 1968. These materials originate from numerous sources and were compiled by University Archives staff for teaching and research. The first series, Subject files, contains primary documents, including announcements, flyers, publications, handouts, correspondence, reports, and ephemera; media coverage including press releases and clippings; personal papers and a diary about the Vigil from John Blackburn, Kenneth Clark, John Strange, and David Henderson; and analyses and materials relating to the anniversary and reunion of the Vigil in 1988.

The Sound recordings series features five audiotapes made by a Duke student during the Vigil. Additional sound recordings can be found in the Related collections series. These collections include the WDBS broadcast recordings and the University Archives Photograph Collection, and they provide further audio and visual documentation of the Vigil. The WDBS records feature eleven audiotapes of radio broadcasts on events during the Vigil. The Photograph Collection includes over twenty black and white photographs of the Vigil, one color photograph, and numerous negatives, contact prints, and slides.

Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook (1928-2017) was a political scientist who became Duke University's first African American professor in 1966. He also served as president of Dillard University from 1975 to 1997. The Samuel DuBois Cook Papers contains Cook's speech files, drafts and copies of Cook's writings, and other assorted papers including correspondence and subject folders for his research and writings on Benjamin Elijah Mays. Acquired as part of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture.

The Samuel DuBois Cook Papers contains Cook's speech files, drafts and copies of Cook's writings, and other assorted papers including correspondence and subject folders for his research and writings on Benjamin Elijah Mays. The correspondence is scattered but dates as early as 1949 and includes some exchanges between Cook and Duke University contacts and administration, written during his tenure as professor in the political science department. Later correspondence discusses Dillard University administration, as well as other personal and professional exchanges. Cook's research on Benjamin E. Mays includes files from his editing of the volume "Benjamin E. Mays: His Life, Contribution, and Legacy," published in 2009, as well as other drafts and files collected by Cook about Mays' writings and philosophy. Cook's other writings include drafts compiled for his Ford Foundation appointment researching desegregation and racism in the 1970s; writings and essays about Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King Jr., and historically black colleges; and his reflections on black power and the strategies of the civil rights movement. The bulk of the collection consists of Cook's speeches, filed into Dillard University and Professional Speeches subseries and arranged alphabetically by topic or title of the speech. Many of these are administrative, including many introductions of various Dillard speakers or other remarks delivered by Cook as Dillard University president.