The Bishops files series contains records from the offices of Bishops Emrich, McGehee, and Crowley, with a small amount from Bishop Wood in the McGehee file. As noted above, the Bentley Historical Library has separate collections of the papers of Bishops McCoskry, Harris, Williams, Page, and Emrich.
The accession of H. Coleman McGehee/R. Stewart Wood papers deals almost exclusively with the tenure of Bishop H. Coleman McGehee (Bishop of Michigan, 1973-1990). Bishop McGehee was born in Richmond, Virginia, on July 7, 1923. He received a B.S. in Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1947, a J.D. from the University of Richmond in 1949. He later attended the Virginia Theological Seminary, receiving his Masters of Divinity in 1957 and a Doctor of Divinity in 1973. In 1971, McGehee became Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Michigan and, two years later, the VIII Bishop of Michigan, a position he held until his retirement in 1990. As Bishop, McGehee was very active both in the Church and in political and social activism. He supported the peace movement, participating in protests against the Cold War and U.S. intervention in Central America, among others. He also spoke widely on human rights issues.
The papers in this accession extend from the mid-1960s through 1992; the bulk of them, however, are from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. This accession illustrates McGehee's political and church activities. Included are copies of both his radio editorials on behalf of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights and op-ed pieces written for the Detroit News, along with correspondence with a number of political and social organizations. His church activities are less thoroughly documented. Important here are the papers related to the Venture in Mission fundraising effort and the House of Bishops annual meetings. This accession includes a small amount of material from the period after McGehee's tenure when R. Stewart Wood was bishop.