History Web Links:
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
Dr. Chris Schutz, Tennessee Wesleyan College

 
 
The African-American Freedom Struggle in the Late 19th Century
1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision establishing the
precedent for Jim Crow segregation for the first half of the 20th century

 
Laying the Seeds: 1900-1945
Eleanor Roosevelt 1936 Speech "The Negro and Social Change"

 
On the Eve of the Movement:  1945-1955 
President Truman's 1948 Executive Order on civil rights estabilishing
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services
President Truman's Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the U.S.
Armed Forces, 1948
1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision,  (which
         desegregated the public school system, and overturned the 1896 Plessy
         decision)
    -- the written decision for Brown v. Board of Education
    -- Library Congress on the 50th anniversary of the  Brown decison
    -- Profile of African American scholar Kenneth Clark, whose research paved 
         the way for the Supreme Court's favorable decision in the Brown decision
Links on Jackie Robinson, 1947 integrator of Major League Baseball-- see links on Consensus America, 1945-1960
The shocking confession of the white murderers of Emmett Till (his 1955
murder by whites set off a national firestorm over the lingering abuses of the
Jim Crow South-- and thus helped pave the way for early civil rights
movement), as published in Look magazine, January 1956
Extensive site on the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 (including original news articles, biographies of boycott figures, timelines, and video clips)

 
 
The Early Period of the Civil Rights Movement:  1954-1959
1957 Little Rock school desegregation crisis:
    --Documents relating to the 1957 Little Rock School desegregation crisis
        (including correspondence between Pres. Eisenhower & Arkansas Gov. 
         Faubus)
    --40th Anniversary site on the 1957 integration of Little Rock, Arkansas' 
           Central High School
Virginia's campaign of "Massive Resistance" against the Brown vs. Board decision 

 
Martin Luther King
Collection of Speeches by Dr. King
PBS website on Martin Luther King
FBI Files/Investigation on Dr. King

 
 
Civil Rights Movement
An overview of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)-- including a timeline, profile of people, issues and events, and audio of songs and interviews 
The famous 2/1//60 Greensboro Woolworth's sit-in which inspired the sit-in movement and later launched the pivotal civil rights organization Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)  (includes many interview audio clips with the 4 participants).
1964 SNCC Position Paper on Sexism within the Movement
Pres. John F. Kennedy's 6/11/63 speech to the nation introducing a civil rights bill (following the tumultuous integration of the University of Alabama) (includes written transcript and audio clip)
Letters written during SNCC's 1964 Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi

 
 
White Counter-Reaction Against the Movement
Alabama Gov. George Wallace (& subsequent presidential candidate):
     --George Wallace's famous 1963 confrontational, segregationist speech which heightened racial tensions in the deep South
      --Wallace's June 1963 "Speech at the Schoolhouse Door," temporaily blocking the University of Alabama's door to integration
     --Alabama Dept of Archives and History site profile on George Wallace
     --PBS website on George Wallace
     --Account of George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign
     --Profile on Arthur Bremer (attempted assassin of Wallace in 1972)
     -- An interview with Wallace biographer Dan Carter on Wallace's legacy
     -- 1968 Wallace for President brochure

 
Black Power
FBI Files/Investigation on founder of the Nation of Islam, Wallace Fard
PBS website on Huey Newton (co-founder of the Black Panther Party)

 
 
Contemporary Outcomes of Civil Rights Activists
SNCC's Bob Moses' Algebra Project, training inner-city kids in math literacy
Congressman John Lewis (former chair of SNCC) webpage
The "Little Rock Nine" (who integrated that Arkansas school system in 1957) today.
Cleveland Sellers (former SNCC organizer and author of The River of No Return)
Julian Bond (former SNCC organizer and politician) as current chair of the NAACP Board of Directors
Julian Bond, in his other capacity of professor of history at University of Virginia
Chuck McDew (former chairman of SNCC)
Bob Zellner (first white field secretary for SNCC)
profile of SNCC leader Jim Forman.
(and a brief profile of Jim Forman's son, who has carried on his father's legacy as
a lawyer)
Personal website of SNCC activist Joan Browning