This collection contains the papers of Herman Bruce Hawkins, a graduate of Virginia Tech (BS, electrical engineering, 1910), president of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, and 1961 recipient of the university's Distinguished Alumni Citation. The collection includes correspondence and printed materials.

Much of the collection focuses on Charles Taylor Adams (more widely known as Taylor Adams), a classmate of Hawkins. The collection includes two files of correspondence exchanged between Hawkins and Adams, largely concerning the topics of communism, civil rights, and nuclear disarmament. Adams, an avowed communist, rails against the ills of western society, especially those of the southern United States, and extolls the virtues of communism in Russia and China, foreseeing a utopian ideal in the distant future. Adams frequently advocates civil rights for African Americans and, in doing so, encloses a number of printed materials from the NAACP and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) concerning Freedom Riders; Robert F. Williams; events in Monroe, North Carolina; and (briefly) desegregation of schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Elsewhere, Adams writes of nuclear disarmament, enclosing printed materials to support his views. Hawkins, meanwhile, defends capitalism and the existing social structure, concluding that a utopian society would be "frightfully dull... a world of ants." Also within these folders are a few letters exchanged between Hawkins and Virginius Dabney (editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch), with whom Hawkins was surreptitiously sharing some of Adams' correspondence.

In addition to the correspondence file is a subject file on Adams, mostly relating to his attempt to remotely organize a protest march at Virginia Tech in response to a 1969 campus appearance by U. S. Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland. Included are copies of advertisements placed by Adams in The Virginia Tech school newspaper, letters to the editor from Adams and others, and correspondence (regarding Adams) exchanged between Hawkins and others, including Virginia Tech President T. Marshall Hahn.

The collection also contains a folder of material relating to Hawkins as recipient of the Virginia Tech Distinguished Alumni Citation. Included are correspondence, memoranda, biographical material, and printed materials.