[The Library of Congress's Civil Rights History Project is news to us. Hat tip: Paige Roberts.]
On May 12, 2009, the U. S. Congress authorized a national initiative
by passing The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law
111-19). The law directs the Library of Congress (LOC) and the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History
and Culture (NMAAHC) to conduct a survey of existing oral history
collections with relevance to the Civil Rights movement to obtain
justice, freedom and equality for African Americans and to record new
interviews with people who participated in the struggle, over a five
year period beginning in 2010.
The activists interviewed for this project belong to a wide range of
occupations, including lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, journalists,
professors, and musicians, among others. The video recordings of their
recollections cover a wide variety of topics within the civil rights
movement, such as the influence of the labor movement, nonviolence and
self-defense, religious faith, music, and the experiences of young
activists. Actions and events discussed in the interviews include the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), the Albany Movement
(1961), the Freedom Rides (1961), the Selma to Montgomery Rights March
(1965), the Orangeburg Massacre (1968), sit-ins, voter registration
drives in the South, and the murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in
1955, a horrific event that galvanized many young people into joining
the freedom movement.
Many interviewees were active in national organizations such as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNNC). Other interviewees were key members of
specialized and local groups including the Medical Committee for Human
Rights, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, the Cambridge (Maryland)
Nonviolent Action Committee, and the Newark Community Union Project.
Several interviews include men and women who were on the front lines of
the struggle in places not well-known for their civil rights movement
activity such as Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Saint Augustine, Florida; and
Bogalusa, Louisiana. Several of the interviews were conducted with the
children of local civil rights leaders including Clara Luper, Robert
Hicks, and Gayle Jenkins.
This site also guides researchers to collections in several Library
divisions that specifically focus on the Civil Rights movement as well
as the broader topic of African American history and culture. The Civil
Rights History Project Collection (AFC 2010/039) contains 401 items
consisting of video files, videocassettes, digital photographs and
interview transcripts, with several more such items to be added once the
interviews conclude in 2015.
