Learn about the impact of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, often considered one of the most influential laws in U.S. history, that created a new America.

Library of Congress collection of books, pamphlets, and photographs that are tied together for a special presentation "The Progress of a People." Proceed through the three sessions: Segregation and Violence, Solving the Race Problem, and Contributions to the Nation using historical documents.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the experiences of African American Soldiers in World War I. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

An excellent overview of the African American experience in America beginning with West Africa during the slave trade, through emancipation and reconstruction, to "New beginnings."

These materials document the goals and activities of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights; from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

This is a collection of three video lessons about Sammy Davis Jr., comedy, race, segregation in 1960's Hollywood, politics, identity, and The Civil Rights Movement.

This site explores Black America's quest for equality from the early national period through the twentieth century. Content includes the work of abolitionists in the first half of the nineteenth century, depictions of the long journey following the Civil War towards equality in employment, education and politics, strategies used to secure the vote, recognition of outstanding black leaders, and the contributions of sports figures, black soldiers, artists, actors, writers and others in the fight against segregation and discrimination.

Original footage [34:12] beginning in 1947 explores South Africa's Apartheid policy featuring several interviews with black leaders.

Meet a woman who broke all the barriers to become a champion for civil rights: Constance Baker Motley lawyer, state senator, and federal judge. [1:52]

As an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, Burke Marshall played a key role in the federal government's efforts to desegregate the South. Representing the presidential administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Marshall mediated conflicts between civil rights protesters and southern white officials. In this interview, Marshall recalls the 1961 Freedom Rides and the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi.

This collection uses primary sources to explore school desegregation in Boston. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Student activist Jonathan Butler and Congressman John Lewis sit down to discuss the Eyes on the Prize series and the Civil Rights Movement in this video from Eyes on the Prize: Then and Now. Lewis reflects on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery protest march. Shortly after the march began, Alabama State troopers met the marchers with violence as they crossed Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis also describes experiences from his childhood and youth, when he began to question segregation and other inequalities, and first's student activists. [4:28]

The citizens of Indpendence Heights near Houston, Texas were the subjects of this NEH-funded community history project, which is designed for students to gain a holistic sense of the role of history in understanding the world around them. Since the emergence in the 1970s of the New Social History, historians have increasingly focused on community studies as an important approach to understanding the past.

This collection of excerpts from legislation and court decisions documents key phases of the legal struggle to gain and implement equal education.

These historically significant primary documents trace the evolution of the church in the black south into a significant part of the community.

Transcript of the Supreme Court's opinion in the 1955 Brown II case decision, which placed increased emphasis on implementing the 1954 Brown decision to desegregate public schools, thus overturning the 1896 decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson, as it pertained to public schools.

Transcript of the infamous Supreme Court decision that established the constitutionality of the principle of "Separate but equal," public facilities for members of different races. This was eventually overturned by the 1954 and 1955 decisions in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Registration for a free Findlaw account may be necessary.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This video segment, adapted from NOVA, chronicles the education of leading chemist Percy Julian. Although Julian began his elementary school years in the Deep South under Jim Crow laws, he became one of the few African Americans of his time to earn a Ph.D.