Racism & Social Injustice
Racism and Social Injustice
A collection of eBooks to encourage learning and research in systemic racism, racial justice, and anti-racism.
Public Housing, Racial Policies, and Civil Rights: The Intergroup Relations Branch of the Federal Public Housing Administration, 1936-1963
Public housing at the federal level was introduced in 1937 and was intended to provide public financing of low-cost housing in the form of publicly- managed and owned multifamily developments. This collection includes directives and memoranda related to the Public Housing Administration's policies and procedures. Among the documents are civil rights correspondence, statements and policy about race, labor-based state activity records, local housing authorities' policies on hiring minorities, court cases involving housing decisions, racially restrictive covenants, and news clippings. The intra-agency correspondence consists of reports on sub-Cabinet groups on civil rights, racial policy, employment, and Commissioner's staff meetings.
The Minority Voter, Election of 1936 and the Good Neighbor League
This collection is designed as a case study of minority involvement in a presidential election campaign, using the 1936 Democratic Campaign as a model. The 1936 election provides an excellent example partly because of the availability of manuscript material on the Good Neighbor League, a vital force in helping make minorities part of the Roosevelt coalition in 1936. Through recruitment and publicity, the League was one means Democrats used to attract minority voters to Roosevelt. Their activities show that bringing together such a coalition was not a chance occurrence, but a well- planned political move whose basic premise was the New Deal legislative program. Minorities proved by their participation that they would be a significant influence in elections to come.
The War on Poverty and the Office of Economic Opportunity: Administration of Antipoverty Programs and Civil Rights, 1964-1967
This collection brings together a series of Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) collections that highlight efforts to meld the issue of civil rights and antipoverty initiatives. 1) Alphabetical File of Samuel Yette, 1964-1966: Yette was the Special Assistant to the Director of Civil Rights. Among his records are correspondence, reports, antipoverty program analyses, minutes of meetings, transcripts of testimonies, and other material. 2) Program Files, 1964-1967: These records consist of correspondence, weekly reports on civil rights matters, reports by civil rights coordinators, equal employment opportunity guidelines, and more. 3) Records Relating to the Administration of the Civil Rights Program in the Regions, 1965-1966: These records arranged by region > state > local areas and cities consist of correspondence between regional coordinators, various civil rights groups, labor organizations, members of Congress, and community groups regarding the activities of the OEO.
Civil Rights and Social Activism in Alabama: The Papers of John LeFlore, 1926-1976 AND Records of the Non-Partisan Voters League, 1956-1987
John L. LeFlore (1903–1976) was the most significant figure in the struggle for Black equality in Mobile, Alabama, throughout southern Alabama and Mississippi, and along the Florida Gulf Coast. Materials in the collection document LeFlore's prolific work in both public and private life. LeFlore was the first African American appointed to the Housing Board and, with J. Gary Cooper, was the first African American elected to the state legislature from Mobile since Reconstruction. The Non-Partisan Voters League was organized in Mobile, Alabama. The exact date of its origin is unknown, but it is believed to be before 1956, the year the attorney general of the state of Alabama and the state court system forced the NAACP to cease all operations in the state. The bulk of the materials date between 1961 and 1975.
The Legal Battle for Civil Rights in Alabama: Vernon Z. Crawford Records, 1958-1978 Civil Rights Cases AND Selections from the Blacksher, Menefee & Stein Records
This collection consists of selected portions of the records of attorney Vernon Z. Crawford (1919–1986) and the Blacksher, Menefee and Stein law firm whose work represents a significant contribution to the shape of the civil rights movement in 20th century Alabama. Documents include legal documentation, complaints, petitions, requests, depositions, handwritten notes, correspondence, exhibits (maps, plans of school buildings, population diagrams), and surveys relating to cases on the following: discriminatory juror selection, civil rights violations (police harassment and brutality), discrimination in employment, school desegregation, and minority vote dilution.
U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: Integration of the University of Mississippi and the Use of Military Force, 1961-1963
This collection is from the Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations (ODCSOPS) relating to the use of Federal marshals, U.S. Troops, and the federalized National Guard in Oxford, Mississippi, 1962-1963, on the occasion of James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi. The records cover events such as the riots of September 30 and Governor Barnett’s efforts to obstruct Federal marshals, as well as daily events on campus and Meredith’s progress under integration. The files detail the extensive Federal involvement, including preparations for the military operation, Executive Orders , after action reports on the costs and lessons of Federal involvement, congressional correspondence on the military’s involvement, and effects on the media, public, and in particular, students and staff at Ole Miss.
U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Little Rock Integration Crisis, 1957-1958
This publication covers President Eisenhower's use of Federal troops and the Arkansas National Guard in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957-1958. The operation is detailed from the planning for intervention prior to deployment, up to the withdrawal of troops at the end of the school year. Records include a journal of events, an ODCSOPS summary of the operation, a historical report prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, papers on Governor Faubus' actions with regard to integration, press reports and observations by Army officers on the reaction of the community, and congressional correspondence.
U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Military Response to the March on Washington, 1963
This collection reveals details of the Federal Government's plans to militarily intervene in the 1963 March on Washington (codenamed Operation "Steep Hill") in the event the march became disorderly. Army staff communications and memos tracked the plans of the March organizers throughout the summer, and the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations prepared contingency plans for cooperation with District of Columbia police for controlling the march. The records also include intelligence reports and estimates, congressional correspondence, press articles, and maps planning the route of the March and facilities needed. These records give an insight into the personalities and events at the March on Washington. In addition, there is small quantity of records relating to the plans to intervene in Alabama in 1963 over the issue of school integration.
African America, Communists, and the National Negro Congress, 1933-1947
The National Negro Congress was established in 1936 to "secure the right of the Negro people to be free from Jim Crowism, segregation, discrimination, lynching, and mob violence" and "to promote the spirit of unity and cooperation between Negro and white people." It was conceived as a national coalition of church, labor, and civil rights organizations that would coordinate protest action in the face of deteriorating economic conditions for Blacks. The National Negro Congress (NNC) was the culmination of the Communist Party's Depression-era effort to unite Black and white workers and intellectuals in the fight for racial justice, and marked the apex of Communist Party prestige in African American communities. This collection comprises of the voluminous working files of John P. Davis and successive executive secretaries of the National Negro Congress. Beginning with papers from 1933 that predate the formation of the National Negro Congress, the wide-ranging collection documents Davis's involvement in the Negro Industrial League and includes the "Report Files" of Davis's interest and work on the "Negro problem."
Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League
Booker T. Washington, founder of the National Negro Business League, believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. In 1900, he established the League "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. The League included small African American business owners, doctors, farmers, craftsmen, and other professionals. Its goal was to allow business to put economic development at the forefront of getting African-American equality in America. Booker T. Washington felt that there was a need for African Americans to build an economic network and allow that to be a catalyst for change and social improvement.
Black Liberation Army and the Program of Armed Struggle
If one were to examine, African American history, one would be surprised to find a long history of militant armed struggle. Rebellions of enslaved people, urban "guerilla" activities in the 1960s, rural defense leagues, were all part of a tapestry of Black militancy. An icon of Black armed struggle, the Black Liberation Army, was a linchpin in understanding the development of the armed rebellion phenomenon in the late 1960s through early 1980s. Composed largely of former Black Panthers (BPP), the Black Liberation Army'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.
Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement: The Papers of Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford)
In Black Nationalism and the Revolutionary Action Movement a wealth of material from Ahmad's personal archive--letters, speeches, financial records, and more--are augmented with FBI files and other primary sources. The collection sheds light on 1960s radicalism, politics, and culture, and provides an ideal foundation for coursework in African-American studies, radical studies, post-Colonial studies. The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) formed in 1962 among undergraduates at Central State College. RAM engaged in voter registration drives, organized local economic boycotts, and held free history classes at its North Philadelphia office. The group soon expanded its efforts, supporting demonstrations in the southern United States to end segregation and fighting to eliminate police brutality against the African-American community. Muhammad Ahmad, a protege of Malcolm X, was instrumental in RAM's activities. This collection provides scholars with unique and insightful documents covering individuals, organizations, issues, and events related to the civil rights movement: H. Rap Brown, New York v. Herman Benjamin Ferguson, law enforcement, Nation of Islam, SNCC, reparations, and much more.
Civil War in Words & Deeds
The Civil War was the defining experience in the development of the United States. America continues to struggle with the issues of race, civil rights, the politics of federalism, and heritage which are legacies of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Civil War Service Reports of Union Army Generals
A few generals digressed from military events and expressed personal feelings about the war and slavery. One such report, written by Brigadier General John W. Phelps, reflects the writer’s strong abolitionist sentiment; another, submitted by Brigadier General Davis Tillson, expresses dissatisfaction with the work habits of African Americans. Brigadier General Daniel Ullmann’s report includes a printed speech entitled "Organization of Colored Troops and the Regeneration of the South," in which he emphasized the positive attributes of African Americans as revealed through his experiences with Black recruitment and as a commander of Colored Troops. Brigadier General David Hunter included in his report a copy of a letter written by President Lincoln, dated April 1, 1863, concerning the recruitment and enlistment of African Americans. Brigadier General Napoleon Buford’s report briefly discusses the establishment, in 1864, of an orphanage for African American children in Helena, Arkansas. A few generals also extended their remarks to encompass duty during Reconstruction. For example, General Carlin, in his follow-up report, gave a detailed account of events during his service as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in Tennessee. In particular, he discussed a riot in Laurens County, S.C., in October 1870, in which a number of people were murdered allegedly by political adversaries belonging to the Ku Klux Klan. Carlin was assigned the task of apprehending the rioters.
Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist, and Woman
Fannie Lou Hamer was a voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She 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, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant activist of civil rights.
FBI File: Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The assassination on April 4, 1968, of Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, triggered a massive manhunt culminating in the arrest of James Earl Ray. The 44,000-page case file of the Federal Bureau of Investigation documents the bureau’s role in finding Ray and obtaining his conviction. The file also includes background information amassed by the FBI on Dr. King’s social activism. This archive is of particular interest to students of the civil rights movement and of the continuing controversy surrounding Dr. King’s murder.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945
Contains a collection of essential materials for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement-concerned with the issues of Lynching, Segregation, Race riots, and Employment discrimination. FDR assumed the presidency of a nation in which white supremacy was a significant cultural and political force. Many states denied or severely restricted voting rights to African Americans and used their political power to further diminish their status and to deny them the benefits and opportunities of society. There was constant pressure on FDR to support anti-lynching legislation. But civil rights were a stepchild of the New Deal. Bent on economic recovery and reform and having to work through powerful Southern congressmen, whose seniority placed them at the head of key congressional committees, the president hesitated to place civil rights on his agenda. FDR’s record on civil rights has been the subject of much controversy. This collection from FDR’s Official File provides insight into his political style and presents an instructive example of how he balanced moral preference with political realities.
Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s.
Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s provides valuable information and reference materials on the most influential individuals, groups and activities of a critical era in American history. Including: COINTELPRO: The Counterintelligence Program of the FBI; FBI File on Abbie Hoffman; FBI File on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina; FBI File on Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; FBI File on the Fire Bombing and Shooting at Kent State University; FBI Files on Malcolm X; FBI File: MIBURN (Mississippi Burning); FBI File on Muslim Mosque, Inc.; FBI File on the Organization of Afro-American Unity; FBI File on the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman Underground Organization; FBI File on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; FBI Investigation File on Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984.
Black Americans of all political persuasions were subject to federal scrutiny, harassment and prosecution. The FBI enlisted Black "confidential special informants" to infiltrate a variety of organizations. Hundreds of documents in this collection were originated by such operatives. The reports provide a wealth of detail on "Negro" radicals and their organizations that can be found nowhere else. This collection consists of a select group of collections including: COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist "Hate" Groups; FBI File on A. Philip Randolph; FBI File on Adam Clayton Powell; FBI File on the Atlanta Child Murders; 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; 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.
Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress
The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a civil rights organization formed in 1946 by a merger of the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. It became known for involvement in civil rights cases such as the Trenton Six and justice for Isaiah Nixon. The CRC also held multiple high profile protests in Washington DC and at the UN. Due to its Communist Party affiliations, the CRC was cited as subversive and communist by U.S. President Harry S. Truman's Attorney General Thomas Clark. This collection comprises the Legal Case and Communist Party files of the Civil Rights Congress, documenting the many issues and litigation in which the CRC was involved during its 10-year existence. These papers provide valuable insight on the activities of the Civil Rights Congress, most notably in cases involving civil rights and civil liberties issues, such as those of Willie McGee (Mississippi), Rosa Lee Ingram (Georgia), Paul Washington (Louisiana), Robert Wesley Wells (California), the Trenton Six (New Jersey), the Martinsville Seven (Virginia), and many others
Grassroots Civil Rights and Social Action: Council for Social Action
The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches voted to create the Council for Social Action in 1934. The Council worked to focus on continuing Christian concern for service, international relations, citizenship, rural life, and legislative, industrial and cultural relations. The records in this collection trace the Council's active participation in social action, its engagement in race relations, Native American relations, opposition to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, and the protection of the civil rights of war victims and Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. The collection is sourced from the Congregational Library in Boston, Massachusetts.
Grassroots Civil Rights & Social Activism: FBI Files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr.
The FBI files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. that make up this collection were assembled by Dr. Gerald Horne, author of Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party, and the breadth of issues addressed by these records is astounding. Davis served as a leader in local, district, and national leadership bodies of the Communist Party USA and thus concerned himself with a broad range of organizational, political, and theoretical questions. There is news of grassroots organizing successes and failures, minutes from meetings held on all the levels on which Davis engaged, and reports from member-informers on all the major political and theoretical debates.
Integration of Alabama Schools and the U.S. Military, 1963
The dramatic confrontation between the governor of Alabama and the president of the United States in June 1963 resulted in the federalization of the entire Alabama National Guard. The imposition of federal law allowed two Black students admission into the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. This archive details Operation Oak Tree, the code name for the Army's plans to intervene in Alabama in the event of civil disturbances related to school integration in May 1963. Operation Palm Tree extended the operation over a wider area. The documents in this collection are sourced from the Records of the Department of the Army, in the custody of the National Archives of the United States
James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi
This collection is from the Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations (ODCSOPS) relating to the use of Federal marshals, U.S. Troops, and the federalized National Guard in Oxford, Mississippi, 1962-1963, on the occasion of James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi. The records cover events such as the riots of September 30 and Governor Barnett’s efforts to obstruct Federal marshals, as well as daily events on campus and Meredith’s progress under integration. The files detail the extensive Federal involvement, including preparations for the military operation, Executive Orders, after action reports on the costs and lessons of Federal involvement, congressional correspondence on the military’s involvement, and effects on the media, public, and in particular, students and staff at Ole Miss.
Papers of Amiri Baraka, Poet Laureate of the Black Power Movement
Amiri Baraka is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist. As a young man in the 1960s, Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) galvanized a second Black Renaissance, the Black Arts movement. The ideological and political transformations of Amiri Baraka from a Beat poet in Greenwich Village into a militant political activist in Harlem and Newark was paradigmatic for the Black Revolt of the 1960s.
Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement
The Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, Washington, D. C., is a unique resource for the study of the era of the civil rights movement in the United States. Included here are transcriptions of close to 700 interviews with those who made history in the struggles for voting rights, against discrimination in housing, for the desegregation of the schools, to expose racism in hiring, in defiance of police brutality, and to address poverty in the African American communities. Originally envisioned by the late United Nations Secretary Ralph J. Bunche, the body of interviews was first known as the Civil Rights Documentation Project and has been critical to African American scholarship about this period since the first interviews became public in the late 1970s. The alphabetical guide to the names of those interviewed reveals the astounding range of the project. The elite and most respected national figures in the civil rights movement, the founders of numerous Black Power organizations, scholars who developed African American studies as a discipline, educators, lawyers, church leaders, and grassroots organizers from both the rural South and the urban North are all present. They share their diverse views on the anatomy of pivotal struggles, tell stories about their personal political trajectories, and, as a whole, offer insight into the reality of movement life.
Rastafari Ephemeral Publications from the Written Rastafari Archives Project
The Written Rastafari Archives Project (WRAP) involves an exclusive collection of the most well-known Rastafari ephemerals, newsletters, magazines, newspapers, booklets, statements, letters, articles and assorted literature - written and published by a number of Rastafari Mansions, organizations, groups and individuals over the past four decades. The provocative literary materials in this WRAP Collection provide an historical time stamp and current affairs commentary on the transitional period in the Rastafari Movement's development - a period extending from the early 1970s through to the present. It is a forty year period during which the Rastafari Movement has been spreading across the Afro-Atlantic world in one form or another and becoming progressively globalized.
Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Enforcement of Federal Law in the South, 1871-1884
This collection on law and order documents the efforts of district attorneys from southern states to uphold federal laws in the states that fought in the Confederacy and lie east of the Mississippi River. This publication includes their correspondence with the attorney general as well all other letters received by the attorney general from the states in question during that period, including the correspondence of marshals, judges, convicts, and concerned or aggrieved citizens. This publication comprises the letters and enclosures contained in the source-chronological file for various states in the South. The correspondence covers a variety of subjects connected with legal matters: Reconstruction conflicts; civil rights; voting rights; internal revenue and customs; regulation of trade, commerce, and transportation; special classes of claims involving the United States; the defense and supervision of public officers; protection of the rights and property of the United States; and other subjects. The correspondence also covers such administrative matters as the submission of statistical reports, authorizations of expenditures, retention of assistant counsel, and the conduct of litigation.
Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Communist Party: Papers of James and Esther Cooper Jackson
James E. Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson, African American communists and civil rights activists, are best known for their role in founding and leading the Southern Negro Youth Congress (1937-48). This collection contains the correspondence of both Esther Cooper and James E. Jackson, James Jackson's lectures, research notebooks, speeches, and writings (published and unpublished), subject files, correspondence, internal documents and printed ephemera pertaining to the Southern Negro Youth Congress and the periodical Freedomways, legal and other materials pertaining to the Smith Act indictments of James Jackson and other communists, Communist Party internal documents, many of a programmatic nature, and clippings (articles by and about the Jacksons).
Greensboro Massacre, 1979: Shootout between the American Nazis and the Communist Workers Party
On November 3, 1979 a rally and march of African American industrial workers and Communists was planned in Greensboro, North Carolina against the Ku Klux Klan. The "Death to the Klan March" was to begin in a predominantly Black housing project called Morningside Homes. Communist organizers publicly challenged the Klan to present themselves and "face the wrath of the people." During the rally, a caravan of cars containing Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party drove by the housing projects where the Communists and other anti-Klan activists were congregating. What then occurred is in dispute, from rock-throwing and taunts on both sides to the sound of gunfire and deaths of five protest marchers. This collection of FBI, local and state police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, shed new light on the motivations of the Communist organizers, the shootings, subsequent investigations, and efforts to heal the Greensboro community.
The Quest for Labor Equality in Household Work: National Domestic Workers Union, 1965-1979
The National Domestic Workers Union was founded in Atlanta in 1968 by Dorothy Bolden to help women engaged in household work. The collection consists of records of the United Domestic Workers Union (U.S) from 1965-1979. The correspondence (1965-1979) reflects Bolden's efforts in organizing the Union and includes such correspondents as Julian Bond, Senator Sam Nunn, Senator Herman Talmadge, Allen Williams, Andrew Young, and other Georgia and national political figures. The subject files (1967-1979) cover a myriad of topics illustrating the Union's involvement in the Black community, the Manpower Program, the Career Learning Center, the Homemaking Skills Training Program, Maids Honor Day, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), and various federal agencies. The collection contains minutes of the Union (1968-1971, 1978), the Citizen's Advisory Committee on Transportation (1970-1972), the Citizens Neighborhood Advisory Council (1972-1978), and MARTA (1973-1975). The collection also contains financial documents (1968-1979) including budgets, membership records, and files relating to Equal Opportunity Atlanta, which funded many of the Union's projects; and legal documents including agreements and contracts with Economic Opportunity Atlanta.
War on Poverty: Office of Civil Rights, 1965-1968
"The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of people whose incomes were below the federal poverty threshold but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Historians have suggested that the most important domestic achievement of the Great Society may have been its success in translating some of the demands of the civil rights movement into law. Files contain information regarding civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr; Roy Wilkins; Whitney Young; and Andrew Young. "
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Midwestern States
The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Midwestern states in this collection include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Northeastern States
The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Northeastern states in this collection include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Southern States
"The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Southern states in this collection include Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia."
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Texas
The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. This collection covers Texas specifically.
War on Poverty Community Profiles: Western States
"The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Western states in this collection include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. "
We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
The United States Supreme Court's decision in Boynton v. Virginia granted interstate travelers the legal right to disregard local segregation ordinances [i.e. outlawed racial segregation] regarding interstate transportation, restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company that had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow travel laws remained in force throughout the South. The Freedom Riders set out to challenge this status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses. The first Freedom Ride began on May 5, 1961. Led by CORE Director James Farmer, 13 riders (seven black, six white) left Washington, D.C., on Greyhound and Trailways buses. Their plan was to ride through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, ending with a rally in New Orleans, Louisiana. Only minor trouble was encountered in Virginia and North Carolina, but some of the Riders were arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Winnsboro, South Carolina. But, mob violence in Birmingham, Alabama would attempt to end this first Freedom Ride.
Bush Presidency and Development and Debate Over Civil Rights Policy and Legislation
This collection contains materials on civil rights, the development of civil rights policy, and the debate over civil rights legislation during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and during his tenure as vice president.
Transcripts of the Malcom X Assassination Trial
This collection makes widely available the complete transcripts of the controversial trial of three men for the assassination of Malcolm X. Reproduced here are records of the New York State Supreme Court, which include a full testimony of all witnesses, including the two who spoke in secrecy to hide their identities; preliminary motions, summations, the court's charge, the verdicts, and the sentences; and a confession made years after the trial by one of the men convicted.
Official and Confidential Files of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
The 164 files reproduced here were collected and maintained in Hoover's own office during his directorship, from 1924 to 1972. This unique collection contains extensive documentation, mostly derogatory, on such figures as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Several of the files also concern controversial FBI activities, such as attempts to discredit the civil rights movement.
FBI File on Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. attorney general from 1960 to 1964 and a presidential candidate in 1968, came under special scrutiny by the FBI because the bureau’s aging but popular director, J. Edgar Hoover, considered him a political enemy. The materials in this file document not only many of Robert Kennedy’s activities but also Hoover’s enmity toward him. In addition to coverage of Kennedy’s public appearances and speeches, the file includes details of his trip to Alabama to meet with Governor George C. Wallace.
Slavery and Antislavery: A Transnational Archive, Part 1: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Focusing on the abolitionist movement and the conflicts within it, the anti- and pro-slavery arguments of the period, and the debates on the subject of colonization. Explores the economic, gender, legal, religious, and government issues surrounding the slavery debate.
Slavery and Antislavery: A Transnational Archive, Part 2: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World
Chronicles the slave trade as a key global phenomenon which influenced the course of commerce, philosophy, morality, literature, empire, law, government, and international relations. Covers the activities of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading with Africa in detail. Expands coverage of the debates over the abolition of the slave trade, and provides documents that illustrate the slave trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, North America, and Europe.
Slavery and Antislavery: A Transnational Archive, Part 3: The Institution of Slavery
Examines the institution of slavery through legal documents, plantation records, personal accounts, newspapers, and government documents, opening up opportunities for in-depth research on how enslaved people struggled to loosen the chains of slavery by whatever means necessary. Explores slavery as a labor and legal system, the relationship between enslaver and enslaved person, slavery and religion, free labor, and the lives of free African Americans.
Slavery and Antislavery: A Transnational Archive, Part 4: Age of Emancipation
Examines the emancipation of formerly enslaved people, activities of the government in dealing with formerly enslaved people and the Freedmen’s Bureau. Articulates the views of the Republican Party and postwar problems and issues in the South, Post-bellum views of the anti-slavery movement and the outgrowth of the suffrage movement. Documents activities of religious groups in establishing schools and hospitals for formerly enslaved people and preparing young men for the ministry.
The Making of Modern Law: American Civil Liberties Union Papers (Primary Sources)
Free speech, citizenship, race, discrimination, immigration, labor, radicalism, and related topics.
The Making Modern Law: American Civil Liberties Union Papers, Southern Regional Office
This unique manuscript collection offers digital access to the papers of the Southern Regional Office of the American Civil Liberties Union, primarily in the period 1945 to 1990. The collection has never been scanned or filmed before, and covers topics including school segregation; local challenges to busing; the suppression of voting rights; student anti-war protest; and legal cases relating to women, sexism, and overtime pay. The archive consists of memos, court documents, amicus briefs, publications, testimony, administrative files, personnel records, meeting minutes, and files related to the history of the Southern Regional Office. The papers are housed at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University.
Associated Press Collections Online: U.S. Cities Bureau Collection
Major subjects include the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. and family, the 1968 U.S. Democratic convention in Chicago, the My Lai massacre trial of Lt. William Calley. The Birmingham bureau was in the front lines of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s covering the Birmingham bombings and the events in Selma from 1963 to 1966. Other subjects relating to African-American history and race relations include desegregation, the Nation of Islam, Jesse Jackson, Jr., the Black Panthers and racism. U.S. Presidents: George H.W. Bush, George, W. Bush, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and John F. Kennedy are all represented in the files.
Sabin Americana
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500–1926 offers a perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late fifteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. Covering more than 400 years and more than 65,000 volumes in North, Central, and South America and the West Indies, this easy-to-use digital collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions, and momentous events of the time through sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature, and more. Topics include: Slavery — memoirs, original speeches, lectures, sermons, discourses, reports to legislatures across America, pamphlets, books, and international essays, and Civil War — a wide array of memoirs, political tracts, published legislative proceedings, and broadsides, amongst many others.
Racism and Civil Rights in Literature
Racism and Civil Rights in Literature - Inequality. Jim Crow. Black Power. The Civil Rights movement is embedded in the fabric of history, impacting all aspects of modern life.
Slavery, Abolitionism, and Reconstruction in Literature
Slavery, Abolitionism, and Reconstruction in Literature - One cannot begin to understand contemporary issues around race without addressing the history and long-lasting impacts of slavery.
Voices of Diversity in Literature
This collection offers a literary mosaic of 150 authors, such as Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Langston Hughes, V. S. Naipaul, and Alice Walker. Revered for awakening a sense of connection, it supports courses in political science, women’s studies, and more. Fifteen topical treatments explore facets of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality through the lens of themes like Chicano/a short fiction, Native American short stories, the Harlem Renaissance, rap music, and street lit.
Race and Civil Rights Module
Consists of case studies devoted to the exploration of issues related to race & racism throughout history. Each case study is backed with an accessible collection of hand-chosen primary sources, along with a bibliography, and relevant discussion questions. All curated content has been chosen by an editor-in-chief, who has also reviewed the case studies for accuracy and teachability.
Public Health Module
Consists of case studies devoted to the exploration of intersectional issues related to public health throughout history. Each case study is backed with an accessible collection of hand-chosen primary sources, along with a bibliography, and relevant discussion questions. All curated content has been chosen by an editor-in-chief, who has also reviewed the case studies for accuracy and teachability.
Political Extremism and Radicalism Module
Consists of case studies devoted to the exploration of political extremism and radicalism as it relates to both far-right and left groups. Topics include female activism, organizing hate, interwar facism, mainstreaming facism, terrorism on the U.S. and more.
Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees: Japanese-American Relocation Centers, 1944-1946
The rosters, which are part of the Records of the War Relocation Authority, consist of alphabetical lists of evacuees resident at the relocation centers during the period of their existence. The lists typically provide the following information about the individual evacuees: name, family number, sex, date of birth, marital status, citizenship status, alien registration number, method of original entry into center (from an assembly center, other institution, Hawaii, another relocation center, birth, or other), date of entry, pre-evacuation address, center address, type of final departure (indefinite leave, internment, repatriation, segregation, relocation, or death), date of departure, and final destination. Included for each center are summary tabulations on evacuees resident at the center and on total admissions and departures.
Japanese American Internment: Records of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
Although histories exist about this chapter in American history, this digital collection of Japanese relocation camp newspapers record the concerns and the day-to-day life of the interned Japanese-Americans. Although articles in these files frequently appear in Japanese, most of the papers are in English or in dual text. Many of the 25 titles constituting this collection are complete or substantially complete.
Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life
Although histories exist about this chapter in American history, this digital collection of Japanese relocation camp newspapers record the concerns and the day-to-day life of the interned Japanese-Americans. Articles in these files frequently appear in Japanese, most of the papers are in English or in dual text. Many of the 25 titles constituting this collection are complete or substantially complete. Editions have been carefully collated and omissions are noted. A sampling of titles include: Rohwer Outpost, Poston Chronicle, Gila News Courier, Tulean Dispatch, Granada Pioneer, Minndoka Irrigator, Topaz Times, Manzanar Free Press, Denson Tribune, and Heart Mountain Sentinel.
Personal Justice Denied: Public Hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment, 1981
These documents reflect the Commission's twenty days of hearings and testimonies from more than 750 witnesses between July and December 1981, in cities across the country. These witnesses included Japanese Americans and Aleuts who had lived through the events of WWII, former government officials who ran the internment program, public figures, internees, organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League, interested citizens, historians, and other professionals who have studied the subjects of the Commission's inquiry. Included also are publications, reports, press releases, photographs, newspaper clippings, and transcripts that relate to the hearings. Many of the transcripts are personal stories of experiences of evacuees.
Correspondence from German Concentration Camps and Prisons
Items originating from prisoners held in German concentration camps, internment and transit camps, Gestapo prisons, and POW camps, during and just prior to World War II. Most of the collection consists of letters written or received by prisoners, but also includes receipts for parcels, money orders and personal effects; paper currency; and realia, including Star of David badges that Jews were forced to wear. Letters sent to camps: Auschwitz; Buchenwald; Dachau; Flossenburg; Lublin/Majdanek; Mauthausen; Mittelbau; Neuengamme; Ravensbruck; and Sachsenhausen. Letters sent by prisoners from: Auschwitz; Bergen Belsen; Buchenwald; Dachau; Esterwegen; Flossenburg; Fort VII; Gross-Rosen; Herzogenbush; Lublin-Majdanek; Mauthausen-Gusen; Mittelbau-Dora; Natzweiler; Neuengamme; Ravensbruck; Sachsenhausen and Stutthof.
German Anti-Semitic Propaganda, 1909-1941
This collection comprises 170 German-language titles of books and pamphlets. The collection presents anti-Semitism as propaganda in politics, economics, religion, and education. Most of the writings date from the 1920s and 1930s and many are directly connected with Nazi groups. The works are principally anti-Semitic, but include writings on other groups as well, including Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jesuits, and the Freemasons. Also included are history, pseudo-history, and fiction.
Nuremburg Laws and Nazi Annulment of Jewish German Nationality
This collection consists of index cards listing the name, date and place of birth, occupation and last address of Jews whose German citizenship was revoked in accordance with the "Nuremberg Laws" of 1935, including Jews from Germany, Austria and Czech Bohemia. The cards are generally in alphabetical order. Suffix names "Israel" for men and "Sara" for women were added by law in 1936 to readily identify persons of Jewish descent.
Testaments to the Holocaust. Documents and Rare Printed Materials from the Wiener Library, London
Testaments to the Holocaust is the online publication of the archives of the Wiener Library, London, the first archive to collect evidence of the Holocaust and the anti-semitic activities of the German Nazi Party. It contains documentary evidence collected in several different programmes: the eyewitness accounts which were collected before, during and after the Second World War, from people fleeing the Nazi oppression, a large collection of photographs of pre-war Jewish life, the activities of the Nazis, and the ghettoes and camps, a collection of postcards of synagogues in Germany and eastern Europe, most since destroyed, a unique collection of Nazi propaganda publications including a large collection of 'educational' children's' books, and the card index of biographical details of prominent figures in Nazi Germany, many with portrait photographs. Pamphlets, bulletins and journals published by the Wiener Library to record and disseminate the research of the Institute are also included. 75% of the content is written in German.
Holocaust (The) and Records of Concentration Camp Trials: Prosecution of Nazi War Crimes
This collection provides unique documents on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi concentration camp commandants and camp personnel. Documents include: correspondence; trial records and transcripts; investigatory material, such as interrogation reports and trial exhibits; clemency petitions and reviews; photographs of atrocities; newspaper clippings; and pamphlets. Many concentration (and later extermination) camps and sub-camps are represented in this collection, including Mauthausen, Dachau, Belsen-Bergen, Buchenwald, Treblinka, Sobibor, sub-camp Gros-Raming, sub-camp Gusen I, sub-camp Ebensee, and others.
Jewish Question (The): Records from the Berlin Document Center
This collection comprises documents from a wide variety of sources, including the Gestapo, local police and government offices, Reich ministries, businesses, etc., pertaining to Jewish communities. These records are organized into various sub-collections, i.e., Archiv Schumacher, Streicher, Hans Frank, Hauptarchiv der NSDAP, Geschaedigte Juden, etc., and Ordner, or folders, and include newspaper clippings, letters, manuscripts, pamphlets, reports and other documents originating with the Sturmabteilung (SA), Schutzstaffel (SS), Gestapo, Reich Ministry of Justice, and Reichskulturkammer (RKK, Reich Chamber of Culture) from 1920- 1945.
Public Health Archives: Public Health in Modern America 1890-1970
Understand the impact of public health legislation, policies, and campaigns at the local, national, and federal levels.