Civil Rights Resource Guide

External Web Sites

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, from PBS

The site includes resources about the civil-rights activist Bayard Rustin.

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site

The site consists of the Monroe Elementary School, one of the four segregated elementary schools for African-American children in Topeka, and the adjacent grounds.

Citizen King, from PBS

Citizen King explores the last five years in Martin Luther King Jr.'s life by drawing on the personal recollections and eyewitness accounts of friends, movement associates, journalists, law enforcement officers, and historians to illuminate this little-known chapter in the story of America's most important and influential moral leader. The site includes a timeline, maps, and a teacher's guide.

Civil Rights Digital Library

The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Civil Rights Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.

Civil Rights Documentation Project Web site, from the Dirksen Congressional Center

The Civil Rights Documentation Project provides an accounting of law-making based on the unique archival resources housed at The Dirksen Congressional Center. The project takes the form of an interactive, Web-based presentation with links to more than 100 digitized historical materials and other Internet-based resources about civil-rights legislation created by museums, historical societies, and government agencies.

Civil Rights Documentation Project, from the University of Southern Mississippi

This project from the University of Mississippi includes an excellent oral history bibliography and Civil Rights timeline. Transcripts and some audio files of the oral histories are provided. The interviews are indexed by subject, interviewee, and collection/archive.

The Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive, from University of Southern Mississippi

The Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive is an Internet-accessible, fully searchable database of digitized versions of rare and unique library and archival resources on race relations in Mississippi.

Civil Rights Oral History Interviews provided by Washington State University

This site focuses on Washington state residents with ties to the Civil Rights Movement. Includes an interview with Flip Schulke, who photographed James Meredith’s (University of Mississippi’s first African American student) first day at the University of Mississippi, and other interviews with participants in the movement.

February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four

Companion to a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Independent Lens film about four college students who, in 1960, "began a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in a small city in North Carolina. The act of simply sitting down to order food in a restaurant that refused service to anyone but whites is now widely regarded as one of the pivotal moments in the American Civil Rights Movement." Features biographies, photos, related links, and lesson plans.

Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore

Devoted to "one of the forerunners of the civil rights movement in America," who "did groundbreaking work in Florida [during the 1930s and 40s] in registering African American voters, investigating lynchings and police brutality, and fighting for equal education for blacks and whites." Includes letters from the NAACP organizer, a timeline (1896-1968), teacher's guide, interactive map, comments on Moore's legacy, and investigations of his unsolved murder.

Henry Ford Museum: Rosa Parks Bus

This site includes information about Rosa Parks and the story behind the bus in which she made history.

Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, from the University of Maryland School of Law

The Thurgood Marshall Library at the University of Maryland has worked since 2001 to create a complete electronic record of United States Commission on Civil Rights publications held in the Library's collection and available on the USCCR Web site. The publications are made available over the Internet as page image presentations in PDF format. Each item is linked to the appropriate bibliographic record in the Catalog. Publications are also searchable by keyword and accessible by date and title.

The King Center

This site provides links to information about Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a complete transcript of the MLK assassination conspiracy trial.

The Legacy of Medgar Evers, from National Public Radio (NPR)

This site for a radio show includes information about the legacy of the 1963 murder of Mississippi civil-rights leader Medgar Evers. The story notes that "once the leader in the number of lynchings in America, today Mississippi leads in the number of elected black officials." Includes audio of the show, Evers speaking, and the "Ballad of Medgar Evers," sung by the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers. Also includes links to related material.

Lest We Forget: Images From the Civil Rights Movement

Collection of portraits by twentieth-century artist Robert Templeton of leaders involved in the American Civil Rights movement. Features briefly annotated images of more than two dozen individuals such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Whitney Moore Young Jr. Also includes links to related sites.

Little Rock Nine

This site is devoted to the history of a landmark event in the history of school integration in the American South. In 1957, nine African-American high-school students were the first to enroll in the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Fearing an explosion of violence, President Eisenhower ordered that troops of the National Guard be brought in to protect the students. The site contains photos, videos, and newspaper articles of the time, as well as an update on the nine students and coverage of the dedication of the Central High Visitor Center on the fortieth anniversary of the historic events.

Looking Back - Brown v. Board of Education, from National Public Radio (NPR)

In a series of stories, NPR explores the high court's decision and its repercussions.

The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University

Since its inception in 2001, the Malcolm X Project at Columbia University has been concerned primarily with gathering and illuminating new research about El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz through two major initiatives: 1) the construction of a robust, web-based, multimedia version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and 2) the research and development of a biography of Malcolm X written by Dr. Manning Marable, the project’s director.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, from the Seattle Times

The Seattle Times presents an excellent collection of essays, sound clips, and photographs, as well as reflections from people who knew the civil-rights leader.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Newspaper Archive

A searchable archive of thousands of newspapers articles about Martin Luther King Jr., whose strong hope for social change never swerved from his belief in nonviolence. Also includes a timeline, a brief biography, and links to related sites. Some of the newspaper articles are fee-based.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University

The King Papers Project, initiated by the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, has been developed to host a definitive collection of King's most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, and unpublished manuscripts.

The Murder of Emmett Till, from PBS

The site includes information about the killing of Emmett Till that mobilized the Civil Rights Movement.

National Museum of American History: Separate Is Not Equal, Brown v. Board of Education

This exhibition commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education judicial case.

The Official Web Site of Malcolm X

The site has everything you want to know about this historical figure. Read his biography and read inspirational quotes from this talented speaker. Browse the photo gallery for pictures of Malcolm X throughout his life!

Oh Freedom Over Me

Like the 2000 American Radio Works series on which it is based, this site documents the events of the 1964 "Freedom Summer" voter-registration drive in Mississippi. Read or listen to transcripts from the series and interviews with Freedom Summer alumni, or click through the slideshow.

Remembering Jim Crow

This 2001 American Radio Works documentary covers the pre-civil rights Jim Crow South. It is a mix of history, first-person narratives, slideshows, and reference material that draws heavily from "Behind the Veil," the oral history project from Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

Reporting Civil Rights

The site presents the reporters and journalism of the American Civil Rights movement. Find writer profiles, a timeline for 1941 through 1973, and "Perspectives on Reporting," which features personal recollections from reporters active in that era. A companion to the two-volume set from the Library of America, Reporting Civil Rights.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

The four-part PBS documentary explores the "crushing subordination" for Southern blacks in an exploration of racial segregation from the end of slavery to the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

SNCC 1960-1966: Six Years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Covers the first six years of the organization's history, presenting its stand and activities on nonviolence, the Vietnam War, white liberalism, feminism, and Black Power. Also find profiles of prominent members John Lewis, Julian Bond, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, Ella Baker, and Stokeley Carmichael, and information on events (sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the Freedom Ballot, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and the 1963 March on Washington). Includes a timeline and sound files.

Teaching With Documents: Beyond the Playing Field - Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate, from the National Arhives and Records Administration

The National Archives and Records Administration holds numerous records relating to Jackie Robinson, many of which pertain to his period of civil-rights advocacy. Several belonging to that time have been reproduced on the site for educators teaching courses that involve civil-rights events and issues, character education, and effective citizenship skills.

Television News of the Civil Rights Era, 1950-1970, from the University of Virginia

The project aims to collect, digitize, and present television news footage from the period in streaming video format and to make these valuable materials available to scholars, teachers, and students. The project is currently a research work in progress.

Toward Racial Equality: Harper's Weekly Reports on Black America, 1857-1874

Text and Imagery taken from Harper's Weekly dating from 1857-74 on the subjects of the Civil War, slavery, Reconstruction, and culture and society. Some of the information here relates to the later Civil Rights Movement. There is also a link to information about the nineteenth century Ku Klux Klan hearings.

Troy University: Rosa Parks Library and Museum

The site includes information about the life of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

U.S. Census Bureau Facts for Features: Civil Rights Act of 1964: 40th Anniversary

Facts and statistics compiled in honor of the signing of the "landmark law [that] prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations, publicly owned or operated facilities, employment and union membership, and voter registration." Compares data from 1964 and 2002 in areas such as black elected officials, college students and graduates, and income and poverty. Includes audio files.

University of Michigan Library's Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive

This archive contains documents and images that chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present.

Unseen. Unforgotten, from the Birmingham News

Dozens of previously unpublished photographs from the Civil Rights era, located in 2006 in a storage closet at the Birmingham (Alabama) News. Organized by theme (such as the Freedom Riders, school desegregation, and voting rights) and year. Includes captions from the photo files.

Voices of Civil Rights

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress have teamed up to collect and preserve personal accounts of America's struggle to fulfill the promise of equality for all. Share your story and explore this site, a tribute to those who were a part of the civil-rights experience and to the continuing quest for equality.

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement, from the National Park Service

This site includes background information on the civil rights movement plus photographs of important events and more than forty significant historical sites.

Whitney M. Young Jr.: Little Known Civil Rights Pioneer, from the U.S. Department of Defense

This article describes Whitney M. Young, Jr.'s contributions to the civil rights movement and his role in making life better for African Americans in the armed forces. Includes biographical material about Young, who was a member of a segregated U.S. Army during World War II, president of the National Urban League, and 1968 recipient of the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.