Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movements focuses on unearthing and digitizing the histories of civil rights activism by the everyday citizens of Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Asian American/Pacific Islander communities. The program will include up to four collections, targeted for completion by the end of 2025.
The first collection in development will focus on the African American experience and will draw on primary source materials from colleges and universities, historical societies, public libraries, community archives and other institutions.
"This collection is drawn from the FBI Surveillance Files on the Black Liberation Army, a black nationalist-Marxist militant organization that operated in the 1970’s.
"[1970-1983]
Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the organization’s stated goal was to “take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of black people in the United States.” (1970 - 1983).
Drawn from the personal collection of Dr. Muhammad Ahmad, founder of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). [1962-1999]
"RAM was engaged in voter registration and education drives, protesting segregation and police brutality, and demanding Black Studies at colleges and universities.
Although RAM was dissolved in 1968 it influenced the African People’s Party, Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and many others. (1962-1999)"
The Black Freedom Struggle offers the opportunity to study the most well-known and also unheralded events of the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.
Includes a selection of digitized photographs, letters, diaries, and other documents. Oral history transcripts are also available, as well as finding aids for manuscript collections.
More than 100 manuscript collections documenting the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. In them you will find official records of organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); the personal papers of movement leaders and activists such as Amzie Moore, Mary King and Howard Zinn, letters and diaries of northern college students who went South to volunteer for the summer; newsletters produced in Freedom Schools; racist propaganda, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and brochures, magazine articles, telephone call logs, candid snapshots, internal memos, press releases and much more.
A collection of primary source material from the Race Relations Department at Fisk University, focusing on race relations across three pivotal decades in the struggle for civil rights in the United States. [1943-1970]
The work of the Department highlighted topics such as poverty and inequality, class, housing, employment, education and government policy. This resource sheds light on the work of the Department through the digitization of extensive records from the Department’s archives, now held at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.
The site combines narrative with hundreds of videos and documents to tell the story of one of America's most influential black freedom movement organizations.
