African-American History: Civil Rights Movement Primary Sources (1950-1970)

The National Archives document collection of the Supreme Court milestone decision, that ruled separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Overview of historical documents and legislation related to the Civil Rights era.

On December 1, 1955, during a typical evening rush hour in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42-year-old woman took a seat on the bus on her way home from the Montgomery Fair department store where she worked as a seamstress. Before she reached her destination, she quietly set off a social revolution when the bus driver instructed her to move back, and she refused. Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested that day for violating a city law requiring racial segregation of public buses

Digital copy of this act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.

Digital copy of the Voting Rights Act signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

Digital copies of documents related to MLK, Jr., last campaign. On February 12, 1968, 1,300 Black sanitation workers in Memphis began a strike to demand better working conditions and higher pay. Their stand marked an early fight for financial justice for workers of color as part of the civil rights movement. The strike also drew Martin Luther King Jr. and fatefully became the setting for his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and his assassination.

An extensive collection of exhibitions, articles and primary sources related to African American history. Topics include slavery, abolition and emancipation, reconstruction, segregation, and Black migration, and civil rights.

Immediately after the Civil War ended, some states began imposing restrictions on the daily lives of African Americans. By the end of the 19th century, laws or informal practices that required that African Americans be segregated from whites were often called Jim Crow practices, believed to be a reference to a minstrel-show song, "Jump Jim Crow."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, is America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Founded in 1909, it was at the center of nearly every battle for the rights and dignity of African Americans in the twentieth century. Today, the NAACP honors its heritage of activism and continues to work for civil rights.

The papers of Rosa Parks (1913-2005) span the years 1866-2006, with the bulk of the material dating from 1955 to 2000. The collection, which contains approximately 7,500 items in the Manuscript Division, as well as 2,500 photographs in the Prints and Photographs Division, documents many aspects of Parks's private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African American.

LOC’s Civil Rights Resource Guide (compilation of external websites).

Survey of Collections and Repositories of resources not held @ LOC. You can search by state or subject matter.

FBI Records: The Vault contains documents and other media that have been released through the FOIA and scanned into digital copies. This link contains FBI documents related to the black Civil Rights movement, from the FBI Vault. Includes sources on Malcolm X, Benjamin Lawson Hooks, Fannie Lou Hammer, James Farmer, Thurgood Marshall, the Mississippi Burning case, white supremacist groups, NAACP, Nation of Islam, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and much more

The FBI began COINTELPRO—short for Counterintelligence Program—in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. All COINTELPRO operations were ended in 1971. Although limited in scope (about two-tenths of one percent of the FBI’s workload over a 15-year period), COINTELPRO was later rightfully criticized by Congress and the American people for abridging first amendment rights and for other reasons.