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- Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.
Find resources about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, many of them arranged thematically.
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Key Primary Source Databases
- African American Communities (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new windowFocusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina, this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
- Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new windowDigitized primary source material concerning the African American civil rights struggle in two modules: Federal Government Records and Organizational Records and Personal Papers. Topics include African Americans in the military, Black workers in the era of the Great Migration, civil rights under different presidential administrations, FBI files on various African American individuals and organizations, the Tuskegee Airmen records, Mary McLeod Bethune papers, Claude A. Barnett papers, records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and more.
- NAACP Papers (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new windowCovers 1909-1972. Digitized primary source material from the NAACP. Content is organized into six modules documenting the NAACP's work on behalf of civil rights, including the fight for voting rights and campaigns against segregated education, discrimination and segregation in public places, residential discrimination, discrimination in the workplace and the armed forces, and the campaign against lynching, among others. Also included are the NAACP’s national organizational records and Legal Department files. Use Advanced Search for keyword searching or use the timeline to find records of significant events.
- HeritageQuest Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowProvides a collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture. Includes full-text documents from more than 25,000 works of local and family histories, as well as the full-text documents and indexes from the U.S. Federal Census, 1790-1940, among other resources. Includes the 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedules, useful in identifying slaveholding families and plantations, and U.S., Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1871 which provides identifying information about former slaves and their dependents who registered with this bank.
- Hein Online: Civil Rights and Social Justice This link opens in a new windowContaining publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, legislative histories on landmark legislation, briefs from relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases, and more, this database covers civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans.
- Hein Online: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new windowIncludes all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, as well as materials on free African-Americans in the colonies and the U.S. before 1870. Search the entire database or browse by slavery statutes (state and federal), judicial cases, scholarly articles, e-books, bibliography, and external links.
- Black Studies (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new windowThis collection contains documentaries, interviews and archival video footage covering the black experience. Subjects include history, politics, art, culture, family structure, gender relationships and economic issues. Also included: SNCC Legacy Video Collection, over fifty hours of formal addresses, panel discussions, and programs commemorating the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
#BlackLivesMatter
- #BlackLivesMatter: Critical Perspectives (Documenting a 2016 UTSA course offering)A digital archive of course content by spring 2016 seminar students at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The course was designed to critically examine the sociocultural and historical contexts of the #BlackLivesMatter and #CharlestonSyllabus movements. Includes background information on the movement, the course syllabus, learning modules, student projects, and more.
Selected Books
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- The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change by Aldon D. MorrisCall Number: E185.61 .M845 1984
- Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches by Joshua GottheimerCall Number: E184 .A1 R53 2003Brings together the most influential and important civil rights speeches from the entire range of American history-from the colonial period to the present.
- Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture, 1940 to the present by David R. GoldfieldCall Number: E185.61 .G584 1990
- Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation by C. Peter Ripley, et al.Call Number: E 449 .W84 1993
- Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America since 1941 by Steven F. LawsonCall Number: E185.61 .L38 2015
- Civil Rights Rhetoric and the American Presidency by James Arnt Aune; Enrique D. RigsbyCall Number: E176.1 .C57 2005The authors of this book examine the ways in which American presidents and their administrations have defined the meaning of civil rights from Rutherford B. Hayes to William Jefferson Clinton.
- Southern Black Women in the Modern Civil Rights Movement by Bruce A. Glasrud (Editor)Call Number: E185.92 .S682 2013
Key Web Resources
- Civil Rights Act of 1964-National ArchivesAn overview of the history behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its major features. Includes a link to a digital version of the actual document.
- Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and AbolitionTranscriptions of documents pertaining to slavery in the U.S. from the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition.
- How Race is Lived in America-New York TimesA year long (2000) examination of race relations in everyday encounters by New York Times reporters,
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture"Users worldwide can find, in this virtual Schomburg Center, exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora."
The Schomburg Center on Microfilm
- A Selection of Titles from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black CultureCall Number: Call number: E185 .S38More than 500 reels of microfilm of sources for African American history and biography. (Most of the microfilm content is NOT available on the Schomburg website.) Includes African American periodicals, early works on slavery, selected works by Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and other abolitionist authors, and a collection of papers pertaining to Harriet Tubman, among others.
Consult the Index/Guide for Series 1 & 2 for a description of the contents of the reels.
Indexes: E185 .S38 Index
Guide: E185 .S38 ser.2 Guide