Today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF)’s Thurgood Marshall Institute announced the launch of Recollection: A Civil Rights Legal Archives, a first-of-its kind, searchable archival collection of oral histories, legal briefs, press releases, and correspondence related to more than 6,000 cases the organization has litigated since its founding. This effort is the culmination of five years of work by LDF’s dedicated team of archivists.
Recollection will give litigators, advocates, researchers, students, and the general public insight into eight decades of records on history-making work in educational equity, political participation, economic justice, and criminal justice. This archival website is a “living” resource that will be continuously updated to include newly digitized materials, including oral histories and editorial content that highlights LDF’s critical work to advance racial justice in the United States.***
Today’s announcement comes after a major portion of LDF’s early records were recently made available online for the first time through the Library of Congress in September 2024. About 80% of the approximately 80,000 items have been digitized thus far, resulting in approximately 210,300 images in the digital collection. The digitization significantly expanded research access to primary source materials for scholars and students studying the civil rights movement.
