Civil Rights History - U.S. Civil Rights Movement

U.S. History > African American> Civil Rights

U.S. History > Modern American > Civil Rights Movement

Ann Arbor: A Women's Town, 1900-1975
"The city of Ann Arbor has a very colorful history, and some of the best storytellers in Ann Arbor are the African American women interviewed by Lola Jones and her daughter Carole Gibson. Their organization, called Another Ann Arbor, Inc., produced two documentary films from the interviews. 'Ann Arbor: A Woman's Town' covers the first half of the twentieth century. The second film, 'A Change Was in the Air' chronicles the tumultuous Civil Rights Era in Ann Arbor,
from the 1950s-1975...This web site is a collection of clips from the two documentaries. In these clips, you'll meet several women who not only tell the story of Ann Arbor, but were actually part of the history."
- CHICO, University of Michigan School of Information

The Birmingham News - Special Report

• Unseen. Unforgotten.
  "These Birmingham News photographs of the civil rights movement have not been seen by the public. Until now."

Brown v. Board of Education - See our separate Brown v. Board of Education page.

Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
"The 'Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive' project will result in the creation of an Internet-accessible, fully searchable database of digitized versions of rare and unique library and archival resources on race relations in Mississippi...For the first phase of the project, USM Libraries is cooperating with the USM Center for Oral History to offer 125 oral history transcripts on the civil rights movement, such as those by civil rights leaders Charles Cobb, Charles Evers, Aaron Henry, and Hollis Watkins. This collection also includes oral histories of race-baiting governor Ross Barnett, national White Citizens Council leader William J. Simmons, and State Sovereignty head Erle Johnston."
McCain Library & Archives, University of Southern Mississippi

Civil Rights Movement Veterans
"This website is of, by, and for Civil Rights Movement Veterans...Its purpose is to begin renewing the ties that once bound us together in a beloved community. It is a place for finding lost friends. It is an online testimony for documenting what we did in the Southern Freedom Movement, what it meant to us, and what we have done since. It is a tool for helping fellow veterans in need. And it is a living memorial for our fallen comrades.

Civil Rights Oral History Bibliography
"A bibliography of Oral History Interviews on the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi."
University of Southern Mississippi Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage and the Tougaloo College Archives

National Geographic Online

• Touchstone: A Visit to the Civil Rights Memorial
  "Take five minutes to travel with Peggy Steele Clay to the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Watch the memories unfold..."

Harry T. Moore Homesite
"...developed to commemorate the lives two pioneering American black civil rights workers...They were murdered in their home in Mims when a bomb was exploded under their bedroom on Christmas evening, 1951. It was the first killing of a prominent civil rights leader, and was the spark that ignited the American civil rights movement."

Jump, Jim Crow, or What Difference Did Emancipation Make?
"A teaching resource in American History created by Lynn Jones, a librarian at the Teaching Library, UC Berkeley, for the California Heritage Project, and the BANDL Librarians' Network."
Sections include: What's Jim Crow ; Jim Crow Timeline ; Freemen's Bureau ; Black Codes ; Stories ; Laws ; Images ; Songs ; Glossary ; For Teachers ; Related Web Resources.

Martin Luther King, Jr. see our separate page - MLK

National Civil Rights Museum
Includes a virtual tour

NPR - Looking Back - Brown v. Board of Education (December 2003)
"Fifty years ago this week, the Supreme Court heard final arguments in the landmark desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education. The following May, the court ruled that separate schools for black and white children were unconstitutional. In a series of stories, NPR explores the high court's decision and its repercussions."

• The Supreme Court and 'Brown v. Board of Ed.'
  The Deliberations Behind the Landmark 1954 Ruling

PBS - American Experience - Citizen King (January 2004)
Companion website to the PBS broadcast of the documentary by Orlando Bagwell and Noland Walker.
"Citizen King explores the last five years in King'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."
Sections include: Video ; Opinions ; The Film & More ; Special Features ; Timeline ; Maps ; Teacher's Guide.

PBS - American Experience - Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (January 2004)
Website companion to the TV broadcast.
"...offers insights into topics in American history including the Civil War, slavery, abolition, race relations, definitions of freedom and citizenship, civil rights, black suffrage and election to political office, impeachment, regional political differences, nationbuilding after war, the cotton economy, sharecropping, federal government intervention in the states, and more."
Sections include: Watch the Program ; 40 Acres and a Mule ; Plantations in Ruins ; Black Legislators ; Northerners in the South ; Slave to Sharecropper ; In God We Trust ; White Men Unite ; State by State ; Teacher's Guide ; 1870 Map ; Black Citizens.

PBS - American Experience - Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
"...The [1931] trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War, yield two momentous Supreme Court decisions and give birth to the Civil Rights Movement."
Includes: Film Transcript ; Primary Sources ; Bibliography ; Timeline ; Maps ; People & Events.

PBS - American Experience - The Murder of Emmett Till (January 2003)
Website companion to the TV broadcast
"The brutal killing that mobilized the civil rights movement."
Sections include: Confession: Read the killers' shocking admission of guilt ; Segregation: Chicago and Mississippi, then and now, through the eyes of teens ; Forum: Experts answer questions about civil rights and Emmett Till's story ; The Film ; Special Features ; Timeline ; People & Events ; Teacher's Guide.

PBS - Independent Lens - Strange Fruit
Web companion to the TV broadcast of the independent film by Joel Katz.
"STRANGE FRUIT explores the history and legacy of a song unique in the annals of American music. Best-known from Billie Holiday's haunting 1939 rendition, the song 'Strange Fruit' is a harrowing portrayal of the lynching of a black man in the American South...The film tells a dramatic story of America's past by using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter."

• Protest Music
  Sections include: Slavery ; Abolitionists and Women's Rights ; The Workers ; The Great Depression ; War, Labor and Race ; Civil Rights and Vietnam ; Anti-Establishment ; Message Music.

PBS - P.O.V. - Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (January 2003)
Website companion to the film by Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer.
"During his 60-year career as an activist, Rustin formulated many of the strategies that propelled the civil rights movement, but his open homosexuality forced him to remain in the background, making him the 'Brother Outsider.'"
Sections include: Rustin's Work ; Rustin's Legacy ; Special Features ; Behind the Lens ; Talking Back ; Talking Back ; Resources ; Classroom ; About the Film.
__________

PBS - The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
"A landmark four-part series [Fall 2002], THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW explores segregation from the end of the civil war to the dawn of the modern civil rights movement."
Episodes: Promises Betrayed (1745-1896) ; Fighting Back (1896-1917) ; Don't Shout Too Soon (1918-1940) ; Terror and Triumph (1940-1954).
Sections include: A Century of Segregation ; Jim Crow Stories ; A National Struggle ; Interactive Maps ; Tools & Activities ; For Teachers ; Resources.

Seattle Times: Martin Luther King Jr.
A nice K-12 site including an Electronic Classroom with quizzes, study guides and more

SNCC 1960-1966
Six Years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
"This site covers the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from its birth in 1960 to 1966, when John Lewis was replaced by Stokely Carmichael as chairman. This event marks a decided change in philosophy for SNCC, and one that warrants an equal amount of attention. However, we have focused on the first six years of the movement, in order to adequately explore such events as sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and Freedom Summer."

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

U.S. Government Information: Affirmative Action and Civil Rights
University Libraries Government Publications, University of Colorado, Boulder
Maintained by Margaret M. Jobe

University of Maryland - Thurgood Marshall Law Library

• Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights
  "By providing access to the historical record of this important Federal Agency the Thurgood Marshall Law Library will offer scholars an opportunity to examine the efforts of the Commission more closely."

Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries - Online Exhibits

• Virginia Black History Archives (VBHA)
  "...is an attempt to help document the history of African Americans in the Richmond and central Virginia area."
  • Separate But Not Equal: Race, Education, and Prince Edward County, Virginia
    "This online exhibit explores the history of the Prince Edward County, Virginia school segregation issues of the 1950s and 1960s."
  • Voices of the Civil Rights Era
    Selected audio clips of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X
    Webcorp Multimedia

We Shall Overcome : Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement
National Register Travel Itinerary

Online Degree Information

Earn an associates, bachelors or masters degree in a variety of subjects and disciplines today. We have hundreds of degree programs to choose from. Browse through our selection of some of the best online schools and universities and take the first steps towards securing your academic future.