The civil rights movement was also a struggle for economic justice, one that until now has not had its own history. Sharing the Prize demonstrates the significant material gains black southerners made―in improved job opportunities, quality of education, and health care―from the 1960s to the 1970s and beyond. Because black advances did not come at the expense of southern whites, Gavin Wright argues, the civil rights struggle was that rarest of social revolutions: one that benefits both sides.
Visiting Martin Luther King, Jr. at the peak of the civil rights movement, the journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. "Just for self-defense, " King assured him. One of King's advisors remembered the reverend's home as "an arsenal." Like King, many nonviolent activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection-yet this crucial dimension of the civil rights struggle has been long ignored. In This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed, civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb, Jr. reveals how nonviolent activists and their allies kept the civil rights movement alive by bearing-and, when necessary, using-firearms. Whether patrolling their neighborhoods, garrisoning their homes, or firing back at attackers, these men and women were crucial to the movement's success, as were the weapons they carried. Drawing on his firsthand experiences in the Southern Freedom Movement and interviews with fellow participants, Cobb offers a controversial examination of the vital role guns have played in securing American liberties.
The civil rights movement that looms over the 1950s and 1960s was the tip of an iceberg, the legal and political remnant of a broad, raucous, deeply American movement for social justice that flourished from the 1920s through the 1940s. This rich history of that early movement introduces us to a contentious mix of home-grown radicals, labor activists, newspaper editors, black workers, and intellectuals who employed every strategy imaginable to take Dixie down. In a dramatic narrative Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore deftly shows how the movement unfolded against national and global developments, gaining focus and finally arriving at a narrow but effective legal strategy for securing desegregation and political rights.
This book tells the remarkable story of Robert F. Williams--one of the most influential black activists of the generation that toppled Jim Crow and forever altered the arc of American history. In the late 1950s, as president of the Monroe, North Carolina, branch of the NAACP, Williams and his followers used machine guns, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails to confront Klan terrorists. Advocating "armed self-reliance" by blacks, Williams challenged not only white supremacists but also Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights establishment. Forced to flee during the 1960s to Cuba--where he broadcast "Radio Free Dixie," a program of black politics and music that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles and New York City--and then China, Williams remained a controversial figure for the rest of his life.
In this deeply researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries. Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, the book paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the twentieth century.
This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South with new material that situates the book in the context of subsequent movement literature.
"You must be from the North," was a common, derogatory reaction to the activities of white women throughout the South, well-meaning wives and mothers who joined together to improve schools or local sanitation but found their efforts decried as more troublesome civil rights agitation. You Must Be from the North: Southern White Women in the Memphis Civil Rights Movement focuses on a generation of white women in Memphis, Tennessee, born between the two World Wars and typically omitted from the history of the civil rights movement. The women for the most part did not jeopardize their lives by participating alongside black activists in sit-ins and freedom rides. Instead, they began their journey into civil rights activism as a result of their commitment to traditional female roles through such organizations as the Junior League. What originated as a way to do charitable work, however, evolved into more substantive political action. While involvement with groups devoted to feeding school-children and expanding Bible study sessions seemed benign, these white women's growing awareness of racial disparities in Memphis and elsewhere caused them to question the South's hierarchies in ways many of their peers did not. Ultimately, they found themselves challenging segregation more directly, found themselves ostracized as a result, and discovered they were often distrusted by a justifiably suspicious black community. Their newly discovered commitment to civil rights contributed to the success of the city's sanitation workers' strike of 1968. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death during the strike resonated so deeply that for many of these women it became a defining moment. In the long term, these women proved to be a persistent and progressive influence upon the attitudes of the white population of Memphis, and particularly on the city's elite.
One of the longstanding debates within the history of the Civil Rights Movement is whether to associate its origins with the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott or earlier, particularly with more radical protests in the early 20th century, and whether to claim it ended in the mid or late 1960s (with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 or Dr. King's assassination in 1968). The sources linked to on this page focus on the classic period of the 1950s and 1960s, but they also include information about earlier and later work.
See Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past" vs Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua and Clarence Long, "The 'Long Movement' as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black Freedom Studies.
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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.
Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century consists of four modules: two modules of Federal Government Records, and two modules of Organizational Records and Personal Papers, offering documentation and a variety of perspectives on the 20th-century fight for freedom.
Major collections include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
These collections contain documentation from the founding of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the last decade of the 19th century to the riots that followed the verdict in the Rodney King police brutality case in the last decade of the 20th century. In the intervening 100 years, researchers will encounter documentation on subjects like the Great Migration, the East St. Louis Riot of 1917, the activities of members of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs during the New Deal, the March on Washington Movement during World War II, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, the protests in Selma, Alabama, that inspired the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and the National Black Political Convention in 1972.
Primary source documents related to the Black Liberation Army (BLA), an underground, black nationalist-Marxist organization that operated from 1970 to 1981.
The BLA arose in reaction to the political, social, and economic oppression of African American people. Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the organization’s program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of Black people in the United States."
Primary source documents related to voting rights activist and civil rights leader, Fannie Lou Hamer.
Fannie Lou Hamer was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The collection includes correspondence, financial records, programs, photographs, newspaper articles, invitations, and other printed items. The papers are arranged in the following series: Personal, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Freedom Farms Corporation, Delta Ministry, Mississippians United to Elect Negro Candidates, Delta Opportunities Corporation, and Collected Materials.
Contains reproductions of hundreds of FBI files documenting the federal scrutiny, harassment, and prosecution to which Black Americans of all political persuasions were subjected.
Many of the documents originated with Black "confidential special informants" enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate a variety of organizations. In addition to infiltration, the FBI contributed to the infringement of First Amendment freedoms by making its agents a constant visible presence at radical rallies and meetings. This archive is based on original microfilm.
Contents: COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist "Hate" Groups -- FBI file on A. Philip Randolph -- FBI File on Adam Clayton Powell -- FBI file on the Atlanta child murders (ATKID) -- FBI file on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina -- FBI file on the Committee for Public Justice -- FBI file on Elijah Muhammed -- FBI file on the Highlander Folk School -- FBI file on the Ku Klux Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo -- FBI file on Malcolm X -- FBI file : MIBURN (Mississippi Burning) -- FBI file on the Moorish Science Temple of America -- FBI File on the Murder of Lemuel Penn -- FBI file on Muslim Mosque, Inc. -- FBI file on the NAACP -- FBI file on the National Negro Congress -- FBI file on the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) -- FBI file on Paul Robeson -- FBI file on the Reverend Jesse Jackson -- FBI file on Roy Wilkins -- FBI file on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- FBI file on Thurgood Marshall -- FBI file on W. E. B. Du Bois -- FBI investigation file on Communist infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- FBI surveillance file: Malcolm X -- FBI investigation file on Marcus Garvey. (OCLC)
African American oral history video collection.
Includes interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present. Rather than focus on one particular part of a person’s life or a single subject, such as a career or participation in the civil rights movement, the interviews are life oral histories covering the person’s entire span of memories as well as his or her own family’s oral history.
FBI surveillance files: African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party.
Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issue of Pan-Africanism, and the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles. (OCLC)
A variety of materials comprise this collection, including:
FBI surveillance and informant reports and correspondence from a variety of offices including, NYC, Baltimore, New Haven, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Newark, Kansas City, and Cleveland; Intercepted correspondence; Ephemera from NGO support groups; Justice Department memoranda, correspondence, and analyses; Newsclippings and articles; Copies of handbills, pamphlets, and newsletters; Witness statements; Extremist Intelligence Section reports; Domestic Intelligence Division reports and memoranda; Transcriptions of wiretaps, typewriter tapes, and coded messages; Speech excerpts; Transcripts of conversations.
Date range of documents: 1970-1985
Digital access to the NAACP archive. Includes internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. The NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond.
Includes access to the following modules:
NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences, Major Speeches, and National Staff Files
NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth Department Files
NAACP Papers: Special Subjects
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Education, Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Legal Department Files
NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns--Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation and Discrimination
Collection consists of materials from the years 1913 through 1998 that document African American author and activist Amiri Baraka. Includes poetry, organizational records, print publications, articles, plays, speeches, personal correspondence, oral histories, and personal records. The materials cover Baraka's involvement in the politics in Newark, N.J. and in Black Power movement organizations such as the Congress of African People, the National Black Conference movement, the Black Women's United Front. Later materials document Baraka's increasing involvement in Marxism.
Contents: Series I: Black arts movement, 1961-1998 -- Series II: Black nationalism, 1964-1977 -- Series III: Correspondence, 1967-1973 -- Series IV: Newark (New Jersey), 1913-1980 -- Series V: Congress of African People, 1960-1976 -- Series VI: National Black conferences and National Black Assembly, 1968-1975 -- Series VII: Black Women's United Front, 1975-1976 -- Series VIII: Student Organization for Black Unity, 1971 -- Series IX: African Liberation Support Committee, 1973-1976 -- Series X: Revolutionary Communist League, 1974-1982 -- Series XI: African socialism, 1973 -- Series XII: Black Marxists, 1969-1980 -- Series XIII: National Black United Front, 1979-1981 -- Series XIV: Miscellaneous materials, 1978-1988 -- Series XV: Serial publications, 1968-1984 -- Series XVI: Oral histories, 1984-1986 -- Series XVII: Komozi Woodard's office files, 1956-1986.
--OCLC
Primary resources related to the history, culture, and politics of the American 1960s.
Includes diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary covering the history, culture, and politics of the 1960s. Themes include: arts, music, and leisure ; civil rights ; counter-culture ; law and government ; mass media ; new left and emerging neo-conservative movement ; student activism ; Vietnam War ; women's movement.