February is Black History Month. In honor of this occasion, the Law Library will publish a blog each week highlighting resources that focus on African American leaders in their law-related fields: Civil Rights Activists; Justices & Judges; Government Officials; and, Firsts in Their Field.
In this first entry of the series, explore materials on African American history and some of the nation’s most revered civil rights activists, who are known for their fight against social injustices and lasting impact on the lives of black citizens. Highlighted resources include documentaries and books by or about James Baldwin, Daisy Bates, Rosa Parks, Charles Hamilton Houston, Benjamin Hooks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Featured Databases:
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Also included in the collection are UNC Press titles, scholarly articles and periodicals, and much more.
Oxford African-American Studies Center
The Oxford African American Studies Center provides over 10,000 articles by top scholars in the field on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. The core content includes: Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; African American National Biography; Dictionary of African Biography; and, The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought.
govinfo : Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, partnership with The University of Maryland
Since its inception in 1957, the United States Commission on Civil Rights has been at the forefront of efforts by the Federal Government and state governments to examine and resolve issues related to race, ethnicity, religion and, more recently, sexual orientation. Although the fortunes of the Commission have ebbed and flowed with changes in presidential administrations, the Commission has continued to be a vital part of the effort to build an America that is truly equal. By providing access to the historical record of this important federal agency, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library will offer scholars an opportunity to examine the efforts of the Commission more closely. Available as a partnership of the United States Government Printing Office, The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library.
Peace Research Abstracts
Covers essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, Genocide, human rights, international law, refugees voluntary and nongovernmental organizations, armed conflicts, civil wars, territorial disputes, terrorism, counterterrorism, democratisation, migration, arms control, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, humanitarian aid, cultural relations, race relations, interpersonal violence, ethnic relations, race relations, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Print & Video Resources:
Eyes on the Prize : America’s Civil Rights Movement
Call Number: E185.61.E94 2006 DVD
Volumes 1-3 tell the story of America’s civil rights years from 1954 to 1965; volumes 4-7 examine the new America from 1966 to 1985, from community power to the human alienation of urban poverty.
The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir by Daisy Bates
Call Number: F419.L7B3
On September 3, 1957, Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to surround all-white Central High School and prevent the entry of nine black students, challenging the Supreme Court’s 1954 order to integrate all public schools. On September 25, Daisy Bates, an official of the NAACP in Arkansas, led the nine children into the school with the help of federal troops sent by President Eisenhower–the first time in eighty-one years that a president had dispatched troops to the South to protect the constitutional rights of black Americans.
Boycott
Call Number: PN1997.2.B696 2001 DVD
One woman refuses to give up her seat in a “whites only” section of a public bus. The bus stops. The city stops. The world stops. December 1, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama. A time when resentment gives birth to rebellion; when a gesture has the power to bring about change. This single act by Rosa Parks inspires an uprising that will make history, and make a leader of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin
Call Number: E185.61.I15 2017 DVD
I Am Not Your Negro is a 2016 American documentary film based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, Remember This House. The film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin’s reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr, as well as his personal observations of American history.
The March for Civil Rights : The Benjamin Hooks Story by Benjamin Hooks and Jerry Guess
Call Number: KF373.H66A3 2003
The author recounts his inspiring leadership role in the ongoing struggle for civil rights and racial equality in America and abroad.
Selma
Call Number: PN1997.2.S4384 2015 DVD
The unforgettable true story chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement.
Undoing Plessy : Charles Hamilton Houston, Race, Labor, and the Law, 1895-1950 by Gordon Andrews
Call Number: KF373.H644A53 2014
The book explores the manner in which African Americans countered racialized impediments, attacking their legal underpinnings during the first half of the twentieth century. Specifically, Undoing Plessy explores the professional life of Charles Hamilton Houston, and the way it informs our understanding of change in the pre-Brown era. Houston dedicated his life to the emancipation of oppressed people, and was inspired early-on to choose the law as a tool to become, in his own words, a “social engineer.” Further, Houston’s life provides a unique lens through which one may more accurately view the threads of race, labor, and the law as they are woven throughout American society.