Civil Rights Movements Archives

From Here To There: The Staughton Lynd Reader

Book — Non-fiction. By Staughton Lynd, 2010. 320 pages.
A collection of unpublished talks and hard-to-find essays from legendary activist-historian Staughton Lynd.

Feb. 3, 1964: New York City School Children Boycott School

More than 450,000 New York City school children boycotted school as part of a protest for quality schools for Black and Latino students.

Viva La Causa

Film. Bill Brummel Productions. 2008. 39 minutes.
A documentary film and teaching guide on the grape strike and boycott led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s.

Feb. 6, 1961: “Jail, No Bail” in Rock Hill, South Carolina Sit-Ins

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sent four volunteers to Rock Hill, South Carolina to sit-in.

Feb. 12, 1946: Isaac Woodard Blinded by Police

Isaac Woodard Jr., a Black army sergeant, was beaten and left blind in both eyes by white police officers within hours of being discharged from the army.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition

Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert. 2021.
This biography of Rosa Parks accessibly examines her six decades of activism, challenging young readers’ perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the Civil Rights Movement.

Mural by Blake Chamberlain on an interior wall of the Women's Rights National Historical Park Visitor Center depicting influential people of the women's suffrage movement.

Seneca Falls, 1848: Women Organize for Equality

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
A role play allows students to examine issues of race and class when exploring both the accomplishments and limitations of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Unsung Heroes (Lesson) | Zinn Education Project

Unsung Heroes: Encouraging students to write about those who fought for social justice

Teaching Activity. Essay by Howard Zinn and lesson by Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 18 pages.
Students research and write stories about unsung heroes in U.S. history.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Bayard Rustin: Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By James Haskins. 1997. 128 pages.
Biography for middle school readers of Bayard Rustin.

We Shall Remain (Film) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes

Film. PBS. 2009. 450 minutes.
Three hundred years of Native American history.

Ella Baker Painting | Zinn Education Project

Ella Josephine Baker

Profile. Brief biography of Ella Josephine Baker, 1903–1986, activist and civil rights organizer.

Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Projects

Digital collection. Features 11 projects on labor and civil rights movements in the Pacific Northwest with oral histories, primary documents, and more.

The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By Teri Kanefield. 2014. 56 pages.
Illustrated book of a teenager who led a student walk out to protest substandard conditions at a Virginia high school in 1951.

Claudette Colvin (photo) | Zinn Education Project

March 2, 1955: Claudette Colvin Refuses to Give Up Her Bus Seat

At age 15, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman in Montgomery, Alabama.

Kids in Birmingham 1963

Digital collection. A resource for the stories of people who were children in Birmingham in 1963.

Side entrance to the Governor’s mansion on Capital Street in Jackson on June 17, 1965.

June 17, 1965: Protest for Voting Rights in Jackson, Mississippi

Five-year-old Anthony Quin and his mother and siblings protested against the election of five Mississippi Congressmen from districts where Black people were not allowed to vote. Refused admittance, they sat on the steps and police-instigated mayhem ensued.

May 27, 1972: First African Liberation Day Demonstration on the National Mall

The first African Liberation Day drew some 60,000 demonstrators in cities across the United States and Canada, including one on the National Mall in Washington D. C.

Parade in San Francisco for the first national Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1986.

Jan. 20, 1986: First National Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

The United States celebrated its first national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, three years after the holiday was signed into law and eighteen years after the fight for a King holiday began.

Citizenship Schools: They Say I’m Your Teacher

Film. Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Catherine Murphy. 2019. 9 minutes.
Documentary about Citizenship Schools.

Memories From Mississippi Freedom Summer: “I Never Will Forget”

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Sarah Blanc. 2014. 115 pages.
A collection of interviews conducted by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program over seven years in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The stories provide a powerful first person introduction to the history of the Mississippi Civl Rights Movement.

Until the Last Gun Is Silent

Historian Matthew Delmont joined Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones to discuss his latest book Until the Last Gun Is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America’s Soul. This class was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

Ten Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film

By Emilye Crosby

On each anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national media focus on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. This version of history, emphasizing a top-down narrative and isolated events, reinforces the master narrative that civil rights activists describe as “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, and the white folks came south to save the day.”

Here are 10 points to keep in mind about Selma’s civil rights history.

Bombed out cars by Jo Freeman | Zinn Education Project

‘Is This America?’: Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation

By Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart

Fannie Lou Hamer gripped the nation with her televised testimony of being forced from her home and brutally beaten (suffering permanent kidney damage) for attempting to exercise her constitutional right to vote.

“Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings?” she asked the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Undaunted By the Fight: Spelman College and the Civil Rights Movement, 1957-1967

Book — Non-fiction. By Harry G. Lefever. 2005. 304 pages.
The story of Spelman College students and faculty engagement in the Civil Rights Movement from 1957 to 1967.

May 2, 1963: Children of Birmingham Fill the Jails

In disciplined groups and singing freedom songs, students “ditch” class to march for justice and fill the jails.

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