Resource Guides: HIST041 Civil Rights Resources: Primary Sources & Websites

Civil Rights Movement - Primary Sources & Websites

Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive.
Presented by University of Michigan Library
BrownvBoard.org
The concept was to create an entity that would serve not simply as a commemorative organization, but as a crucible for public discourse around the ongoing impact and significance of Brown v. Board of Education. (from the website) Provided by The Brown Foundation.
The Civil Rights Era
Part of the Library of Congress American Memory Project.
The Civil Rights Digital Library
The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.
Presented by the University of Georgia
Eyes on the Prize - Video Clip Collection
This Web site contains about two hours of historic video footage on the United StatesCivil Rights Movement. Access any of the video directly through this list.
The King Center - Digital Archive
Links to thousands of documents about Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as a complete transcript of the MLK assassination conspiracy trial.
Life Magazine - Originals
Use this resource to find issues of Life Magazine that cover events, people and places of the Civil Rights Movement, but do not purchase the issues because we have print copies in the library.
The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University
Dedicated to the life and legacy of Malcolm X
Little Rock Central High School Civil Rights History
Arkansas Preservation Program
SNCC - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
History and Audio Recordings - Presented by ibiblio.org, an online public library
John Lewis describes his experience on the Freedom Rides
Julian Bond talks about the formation of SNCC
Bob Moses describes the Greenwood Voter Registration Project
Fannie Lou Hamer talks about registering to vote
Fannie Lou Hamer sings
John Winters talks about sit-ins
The SNCC Freedom Singers: Hold On
The SNCC Freedom Singers: We Shall Overcome
Little Rock Central High School Civil Rights History
Arkansas Preservation Program
The Whole World Was Watching: an oral history of 1968
A joint project between South Kingstown High School and Brown University's Scholarly Technology Group.

How to evaluate your sources

An extremely important part of the research process is evaluating your sources. With each source, you want to answer questions such as:

Who is the author and what is their expertise, authority and background in the area they are writing on?

Does the information look accurate? How can you tell?

Is it relevant to your research topic?

Is it current enough or is the date not important?
Is the information biased? How can you tell?

Trying to answer these questions for information you find on web sites can often be more of a challenge than print sources. With no editorial or review process on the web, it is crucial to evaluate the information you find to ensure it is credible, reliable and accurate. For help with evaluating all types of sources, check out the tutorials below.

Evaluating Sources of Information
Tutorial from the Owl at Purdue
Evaluating Information
from Clark College.
Critically Analyzing Information Sources
from Cornell University.