On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregated public educational facilities unconstitutional. Click the links below to access resources to help you dig deeper into this seminal event in U.S. history. U.S. Reports Notes concerning Chief Justice Warren’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education 1954…
Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. To coincide with her trial on December 5, 1955, the Women’s Political Council initiated a one-day citywide bus boycott. At a meeting later that evening, a vote to extend the boycott was passed….
“African American Perspectives” gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors,…
Little Rock Nine historical newspaper coverage through 1963 Citizens’ Letters on the Little Rock Crisis Eisenhower Library Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins on the treatment of the Little Rock Nine December 17, 1957 letter Portrait of Roy Wilkins Little Rock Nine group portrait photo and curator’s note U.S. Troops escort African American students from Central High…
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the selections in the Books That Shaped America online exhibition. The curator’s note reads: This 1960 Pulitzer Prize winner was an immediate critical and financial success for its author, with more than 30 million copies in print to date. Harper Lee created one of the most…
Explain what you think this political cartoon is trying to say, using details from the illustration to support your conclusions. Jim Crow is the name often used to refer to segregation laws and customs following the U.S. Civil War. Do you think this cartoon is a good argument for or against African American rights? Why? Jump…
Today in History–May 18–the Library of Congress features the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which ruled on this day in 1896 that separate-but-equal facilities on intrastate railroads were constitutional. The decision gave legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws and the decision was not reversed until May 17, 1954 when the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that segregation was unconstitutional in the…