Skip to Main Content
Gale homepage

LibGuides

Gale Research Complete: Archives Unbound Guide

A subject focused guide for the Archives Unbound Collections available in Gale Research Complete

Civil Rights Collections

We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961

Source Institution:
Federal Bureau of Investigation Library
Extent:
4,285 images
Date Range:
1961
 
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists that rode interstate buses into the segregated South to test the United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia. Boynton had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company that had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow travel laws remained in force throughout the South. The Freedom Riders set out to challenge this status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.

Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement

Source Institution:
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D. C.
Extent:
27,002 images
Date Range:
1967-1973 (covers the 1950s through early 1970s)
 
The Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is a unique resource for the study of the era of the American civil rights movement. Included here are transcriptions of close to 700 interviews with those who made history in the struggles for voting rights, against discrimination in housing, for the desegregation of the schools, to expose racism in hiring, in defiance of police brutality, and to address poverty in the African American communities.

Civil Rights and Social Activism in Alabama: The Papers of John LeFlore, 1926-1976 and Records of the Non-Partisan Voters League, 1956-1987

Date Range:
1926-1987
Extent:
Manuscript
Language:
English
Source Institution:
University of South Alabama
 
John L. LeFlore (1903–1976) was the most significant figure in the struggle for black equality in Mobile, Alabama, throughout southern Alabama and Mississippi, and along the Florida Gulf Coast. Materials in the collection document LeFlore's prolific work in both public and private life. LeFlore was the first African American appointed to the Housing Board and, with J. Gary Cooper, was the first African American elected to the state legislature from Mobile since Reconstruction. / The Non-Partisan Voters League was organized in Mobile, Alabama. The exact date of its origin is unknown but it is believed to be before 1956, the year the attorney general of the state of Alabama and the state court system forced the NAACP to cease all operations in the state. The bulk of the materials date between 1961 and 1975.

Bush Presidency and Development and Debate Over Civil Rights Policy and Legislation

Source Institution:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Library
Extent:
133,499 images
Date Range:
1989-1991 (small amount of material from 1981-1989)
 
This collection contains materials on civil rights, the development of civil rights policy, and the debate over civil rights legislation during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and during his tenure as vice president. Contents of this collection includes memoranda, talking points, correspondence, legal briefs, transcripts, news summaries, draft legislation, statements of administration policy (SAP's), case histories, legislative histories and news-clippings covering a broad range of civil rights issues.

Grassroots Civil Rights & Social Activism: FBI Files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr.

Source Institution:
Personal Collection of Gerald Horne
Extent:
71,934 images
Date Range:
1941-1990
 

The FBI files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. that make up this collection were assembled by Dr. Gerald Horne, author of Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party, and the breadth of issues addressed by these records is astounding. Davis served as a leader in local, district, and national leadership bodies of the Communist Party USA and thus concerned himself with a broad range of organizational, political, and theoretical questions. There is news of grassroots organizing successes and failures, minutes from meetings held on all the levels on which Davis engaged, and reports from member-informers on all the major political and theoretical debates.

Benjamin J. Davis (1903-1964), one of the best known African American members of the Communist Party USA and a figure central to any history of activism in Harlem in the years of the Great Depression, World War II, and the McCarthy period, was the object of intense scrutiny by the FBI and other government intelligence operations for the whole of his political life.

Grassroots Civil Rights and Social Action: Council for Social Action

Source Institution:
Congregational Library and Archives
Extent:
32,376 images
Date Range:
1934-1956
 
The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches voted to create the Council for Social Action in 1934. The Council worked to focus on continuing Christian concern for service, international relations, citizenship, rural life, and legislative, industrial and cultural relations. The records in this collection trace the Council's active participation in social action, its engagement in race relations, Indian relations, opposition to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, and the protection of the civil rights of war victims and Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. The collection is sourced from the Congregational Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress

Source Institution:
Schomburg Center, New York Public Library
Extent:
115,378 images
Date Range:
1946-1955
 
The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was established in 1946 to, among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against…labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities." The CRC arose out of the merger of three groups with ties to the Communist Party, the International Labor Defense (ILD), the National Negro Congress, and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. CRC campaigns helped pioneer many of the tactics that civil rights movement activists would employ in the late 1950s and 1960s. The CRC folded in 1955 under pressure from the U.S. Attorney General and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused the organization of being subversive.
The records in this collection represent the files of the national office of the Congress, based in New York City, including several hundred case files; publications produced and received by the Congress; files of the Literature Department; Executive Director William Patterson's correspondence files; correspondence and other materials from Civil Rights Congress chapters around the country, including case files of the New York chapter; and files of the New York headquarters of the Communist Party of the United States of America, created during the trial of twelve Communist leaders, 1948-1949, including two black members, Benjamin J. Davis and Henry Winston, consisting of correspondence, transcripts, legal briefs, and printed material.

The Legal Battle for Civil Rights in Alabama: Vernon Z. Crawford Records, 1958-1978 Civil Rights Cases

Date Range:
1958-1978
Extent:
Manuscript
Language:
English
Source Institution:
University of South Alabama
 
This collection consists of selected portions of the records of attorney Vernon Z. Crawford (1919–1986) and the Blacksher, Menefee and Stein law firm whose work represents a significant contribution to the shape of the civil rights movement in 20th century Alabama. Documents include legal documentation, complaints, petitions, requests, depositions, handwritten notes, correspondence, exhibits (maps, plans of school buildings, population diagrams), and surveys relating to cases on the following: discriminatory juror selection, civil rights violations (police harassment and brutality), discrimination in employment, school desegregation, and minority vote dilution.

U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Little Rock Integration Crisis, 1957-1958

Language:
English
Source Institution:
National Archives (United States)
Extent:
Manuscript
Date Range:
1957-1958
 
This publication covers President Eisenhower's use of Federal troops and the Arkansas National Guard in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957 -1958. The operation is detailed from the planning for intervention prior to deployment, up to the withdrawal of troops at the end of the school year. Records include a journal of events, an Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations & Plans summary of the operation, a historical report prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, papers on Governor Faubus' actions with regard to integration, press reports and observations by Army officers on the reaction of the community, and congressional correspondence.

U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Military Response to the March on Washington, 1963

Language:
English
Source Institution:
The National Archives (U.S.)
Extent:
Manuscript
Date Range:
1963
 
This collection reveals details of the Federal Government's plans to militarily intervene in the 1963 March on Washington (codenamed Operation "Steep Hill") in the event the march became disorderly. Army staff communications and memos tracked the plans of the March organizers throughout the summer, and the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations prepared contingency plans for cooperation with District of Columbia police for controlling the march. The records also include intelligence reports and estimates, congressional correspondence, press articles, and maps planning the route of the March and facilities needed. These records give an insight into the personalities and events at the March on Washington. In addition, there is small quantity of records relating to the plans to intervene in Alabama in 1963 over the issue of school integration.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945

Source Institution:
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY
Extent:
15,428 images
Date Range:
1933-1945
 
This new series contains a collection of essential materials for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement-concerned with the issues of Lynching, Segregation, Race riots, and Employment discrimination. FDR assumed the presidency of a nation in which white supremacy was a significant cultural and political force. Many states denied or severely restricted voting rights to African Americans and used their political power to further diminish their status and to deny them the benefits and opportunities of society. There was constant pressure on FDR to support anti-lynching legislation. But civil rights were a stepchild of the New Deal. Bent on economic recovery and reform and having to work through powerful Southern congressmen, whose seniority placed them at the head of key congressional committees, the president hesitated to place civil rights on his agenda. FDR's record on civil rights has been the subject of much controversy. This new collection from FDR's Official File provides insight into his political style and presents an instructive example of how he balanced moral preference with political realities.