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Civil Rights History Project  Share

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Civil Rights History Project

About this Collection Collection Items Articles and Essays

Articles and Essays

The March on Washington
For many Americans, the calls for racial equality and a more just
society emanating from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28,
1963, deeply affected their views of racial segregation and intolerance
in the nation.  Since the occasion of March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom 50 years ago, much has been written and discussed
about the moment, its impact on society,...

Collecting and Presenting the Freedom Struggle at

the Library of Congress
What makes a mass social movement? How is it defined? What
happened as part of the movement and why? What are its obvious
features and its hidden aspects? Who are the actors, both famous and
obscure? These are among the prominent questions to keep in mind
when we seek to understand the historical origins, changing
meanings, and the current resonance of social and cultural...

Music in the Civil Rights Movement

African American spirituals, gospel, and folk music all played an
important role in the Civil Rights Movement. Singers and musicians
collaborated with ethnomusicologists and song collectors to
disseminate songs to activists, both at large meetings and through
publications. They sang these songs for multiple purposes: Back
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motivate them through long marches, for psychological strength
against harassment and brutality and sometimes to simply pass the
against harassment and brutality, and sometimes to simply pass the...

Nonviolent Philosophy and Self Defense

The success of the movement for African American civil rights across
the South in the 1960s has largely been credited to activists who
adopted the strategy of nonviolent protest. Leaders such as Martin
Luther King, Jr., Jim Lawson, and John Lewis believed wholeheartedly
in this philosophy as a way of life, and studied how it had been used
successfully by Mahatma Gandhi to protest...

School Segregation and Integration

The massive effort to desegregate public schools across the United
States was a major goal of the Civil Rights Movement. Since the 1930s,
lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) had strategized to bring local lawsuits to court,
arguing that separate was not equal and that every child, regardless
of race, deserved a first-class education. These lawsuits were
combined...

The Murder of Emmett Till

The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 brought nationwide
attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi.
While visiting his relatives in Mississippi, Till went to the Bryant store
with his cousins, and may have whistled at Carolyn Bryant. Her
husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, kidnapped and
brutally murdered Till, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River.
The newspaper...

Voting Rights
When Reconstruction ended in 1877, states across the South
implemented new laws to restrict the voting rights of African
Americans. These included onerous requirements of owning property,
paying poll taxes, and passing literacy or civics exams. Many African
Americans who attempted to vote were also threatened physically or
feared losing their jobs. One of the major goals of the Civil Rights
Movement was to...
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Women in the Civil Rights Movement
Many women played important roles in the Civil Rights Movement,
from leading local civil rights organizations to serving as lawyers on
school segregation lawsuits. Their efforts to lead the movement were
often overshadowed by men, who still get more attention and credit
for its successes in popular historical narratives and
commemorations. Many women experienced gender discrimination
and sexual harassment within the movement and later...

Youth in the Civil Rights Movement

At its height in the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement drew children,
teenagers, and young adults into a maelstrom of meetings, marches,
violence, and in some cases, imprisonment. Why did so many young
people decide to become activists for social justice? Joyce Ladner
answers this question in her interview with the Civil Rights History
Project, pointing to the strong support of her elders in...

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