Civil
Rights in the USA
A comprehensive encyclopaedia of the struggle for civil rights in
the United States. Each
entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The
text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the
encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people
and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the
student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization,
etc., that produced the material. So far there are sections on:
Campaigners
(1860-1900), Campaigners (1900-1980), Issues, Events & Organizations
(1840-1900) and Issues, Events & Organizations (1900-1980).
Martin
Luther King Jr: Few have had as much impact upon the American
consciousness as the late civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. In recognition and support of his ideals of quality and fairness
for all, The Seattle Times created a Web site in 1995 that celebrates
this important historical figure. Since then, educators from throughout
the United States and the world have used the site as a teaching tool.
The site includes stories culled from The Seattle Times over the past
decade, as well as archival information such as a photo gallery and
audio clips of King's speeches. There's also a quiz and civil rights
timeline. One of the most fascinating features of the site is its
message board, which contains heartfelt tributes to King from people
of all ages all over the world. The site has proven very popular,
registering over 1 million page views each January and February.
Britannica
Guide to Black History:
The Encyclopaedia
Britannica Guide to Black History contains 600 articles that are illustrated
with historical film clips and audio recordings as well as hundreds
of photographs and other images. The material is organized in such
a way that enables the visitor to examine five centuries of black
heritage through five distinct time periods, from the slave revolts
of early America through the successes of the Civil Rights Movement.
Each era is further divided by topic, with biographies and photographs
of notable people and descriptions and documents of historic events.
Martin
Luther King Jr. Project: The King Papers Project is a major research
effort to assemble and disseminate historical information concerning
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the social movements in which he participated.
Initiated by the King Center for Nonviolent
Social Change in Atlanta, the website includes sections on
papers, speeches, sermons, autobiography, chronology and articles.
Black
History Museum: This creative website
provides several interactive exhibits on Black History. This includes
Black Resistance: Slavery in the U.S., The Tuskegee Airman, Jackie
Robinson, Black Panther Party, Black or White, The Million Man March,
The Scottsboro Boys and This Is Our War. There is also a Kid's Zone
with a collection of games and brain teasers.
Black
and Asian History: This Channel 4 website is a gateway to websites
about black and Asian history across the British Isles. You can search
for sites by location (via a map), time-line (via timeline) or subject
(via the search facility). The website also includes support material
that accompanied recent television programmes on black history.
Alabama
State Black Archives: The primary purpose of the State Black Archives,
Research Center & Museum is to create a repository of source materials
on African American history and culture. Its mission is three-fold:
(a) As an archive, to obtain, preserve and hold materials on African
American history and culture related to their achievement and general
experience; (b) As a research center, to make such materials on African
American history and culture available to scholars and others who
seek materials for educational and cultural purposes; (c) As a museum,
to display materials on African Americans in such a manner as to enhance
the general public awareness about African American history and culture.
The general goals are to encourage greater awareness of the achievements
and contributions of African Americans and the role they have played
in American society and the world, and to provide a better basis for
understanding racial and cultural differences.
Afro-American
Almanac: This website is an on-line presentation of the African
in America. A historical perspective of a nation, its people, and
its cultural evolution. From the beginning of the slave trade through
the Civil Rights movement, to the present. Sections include Biographies,
Historical Documents, Historical Events, Folk Tales, Links, Afro-Voices
and Issues in the News.
Voices
From History: The Nation journal has assembled a package
of articles and resource material on Black History. The selections,
all originally published in the pages of The Nation over the
past 135 years, feature articles that illuminate the magazine's steadfast
commitment to racial justice. The selected pieces take on many different
subjects and come from many different perspectives. This includes
articles by Jesse Jackson (1991), Alice Walker (1989), James Baldwin
(1980), Martin Luther King (1965), Leroy Jones (1964), I. F. Stone
(1956), W. E. B. Du Bois (1956), Langston Hughes (1926) and George
Schuyler (1926).
Legacy
of Harry T. Moore:
As leader of
the Florida
Progressive Voters League, Harry T. Moore
succeeded in tripling the enrollment of registered black voters. By
1945 over 116,000 black voters were registered in the Florida Democratic
Party. This represented 31 per cent of all eligible black voters in
the state, a figure that was 51 per cent higher than any other southern
state. Moore was also a full-time organizer of the NAACP in Florida
and
he
organized the campaign against the wrongful conviction of three African
Americans for the rape of a white woman in Groveland, Florida. Willis
McCall, the Sheriff of Lake County, shot two of the men while in his
custody. One was killed and other man was seriously wounded. After
the shooting Moore called for the McCall's suspension. A month later,
on 25th December, 1951, a bomb exploded in Moore's house killing him
and his wife. This excellent website produced by the PBS tells the
story of the first NAACP official killed in the civil rights struggle.
NAACP
Timeline: The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured
People was founded by a multiracial group of activists on 12th February
1909. For
more than ninety years, the NAACP has been built on the individual
and collective courage of thousands of people. People of all races,
nationalities and religious denominations, who were united on one
premise - that all men and women are created equal. This timeline
provides details of the activities and achievements of the NAACP.
Scottsboro
Case: The film
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy and this companion website offer insights
into topics in American history including race relations, civil rights,
the Depression, the Communist Party of the United States, and judicial
due process. You can use part or all of the film, or delve into the
rich resources available on this website to learn more about this
tragic case. Teaching activities
on the website are grouped into 4 categories: history, economics,
geography, and civics.
Without
Sanctuary: Searching through America's past for the last 25 years,
collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs
and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America.
With essays by Hilton Als, Leon Litwack, John Lewis and James Allen,
these photographs have been published as a book – "Without
Sanctuary" by Twin Palms Publishers. The online version of this
book is now available. Please be aware before entering the site that
much of the material is very disturbing. An exhibition of the photographs
is currently on show at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site
in Atlanta.
Lynching
in the United States: In 1930 Dr. Arthur Raper
was commissioned to produce a report on lynching. He discovered that
3,724 people had been lynched in the United States between 1889 and
1930. Over four-fifths of these victims were black but white trade
union activists were also targeted by lynch mobs. As Dr. Raper pointed
out: "Of the tens of thousands of lynchers and onlookers, only
49 were indicted and only 4 have been sentenced."
In
1935 attempts were made to persuade Franklin D. Roosevelt to support
a Anti-Lynching bill that had been introduced into Congress. However,
Roosevelt refused to speak out in favour of the bill that would punish
sheriffs who failed to protect their prisoners from lynch mobs. He
argued that the white voters in the South would never forgive him
if he supported the bill and he would therefore never win another
election.
This website provides a history of lynching in the United States and
includes details of the Michael Donald case that resulted in Henry
Hayes being executed on 6th June, 1997. It was the first time a white
man had been executed for a crime against an African American since
1913.
Rosa
Parks Portal: On December 1, 1955, seamstress Rosa Parks changed
America forever when she was arrested for refusing to yield her seat
to a white patron on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus. Mrs. Parks was
found guilty of disorderly conduct and that lead directly to the famous
Montgomery Bus Boycott. However, Mrs. Parks was not the "quiet
seamstress" as the media has often portrayed her. In 1943 she
became a member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and she served as its
secretary until 1956. After the Bus Boycott, Mrs. Parks lost her job
and, with her husband and mother, relocated to Detroit in 1957. The
Rosa Parks Portal claims to be the web resource directory for all
Rosa Parks sites online.
Black
Panthers: In October 1966 Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the
Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. Initially
formed to protect local communities from police brutality and racism,
the Black Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist
revolutionary
group. The group also ran medical clinics and provided free food to
school children. This
website looks at the history of the Black Panther movement and includes
biographies of leading figures such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred
Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown and Bobby Hutton.
African
American Publications is committed to providing students and adult
researchers with accurate, authoritative, and accessible information
on a wide variety of ethnic and ethno-religious groups in the United
States and Canada. In addition to Americans of African heritage, African
American Publications also offers a variety of print reference sets
and complementary biographical online resources covering Hispanics,
Asian Americans, Native Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Americans
of European descent, and notable American men and women. The website
includes nearly 1,200 authoritative biographies of notable African
American men and women.
Gale
Black History: Gale is a business unit of the Thomson Learning
division of The Thomson Corporation, a world leader in e-research
and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.
To celebrate Black History Month it has provided a free resource site.
Within this site, teachers and students can read biographies of significant
African-American individuals, follow a timeline of events that helped
shape African-American heritage and enjoy activities taken from the
Black History Month Resource Book.
History
of Jim Crow: The term Jim Crow originated in a song performed
by Daddy Rice, a white minstrel show entertainer in the 1830s. Rice
covered his face with charcoal paste or burnt cork to resemble a black
man, and then sang and danced a routine in caricature of a silly black
person. By the 1850s, this Jim Crow character, one of several stereotypical
images of black inferiority in the nation's popular culture, was a
standard act in the minstrel shows of the day. By 1900, the term was
generally identified with those racist laws and actions that deprived
African Americans of their civil rights by defining blacks as inferior
to whites, as members of a caste of subordinate people. This impressive
website provides an illustrated account of the history of Jim Crow.
Atlanta
Race Riot: Four decades after the Civil War had left Atlanta in
ashes, the city had transformed itself into the gateway of a new,
enlightened and racially progressive South. But in the fall of 1906,
the city was convulsed by a deadly race riot - one of the worst of
the Jim Crow era. This
website, produced by PBA, provides the story of how Atlanta descended
into four days of mob violence - an event that stymied race relations
for the next fifty years.
Paul
Robeson: On 24th June 1937 Paul
Robeson made a speech in London about art and politics: "Like
every true artist, I have longed to see my talent contributing in
an unmistakably clear manner to the cause of humanity. Every artist,
every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. There
are no impartial observers. The battle front is everywhere. There
is no sheltered rear. The artist must take sides. He must elect to
fight for freedom or for slavery." During the McCarthy Era these
political beliefs resulted in him been blacklisted in the United States.
He was still highly popular in Europe but the American government
took away his passport to stop him performing in other countries.
This time line produced by Rutgers
University provides
a detailed account of his life and times.
Black
Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain: This website is
a partnership between The National Archives (formerly the Public Record
Office) and the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), funded
by the New Opportunities Fund. This exhibition appears on Pathways
to the Past, the National Archives' website for lifelong learners.
The exhibition covers Black and Asian history in Britain from 1500
to 1850. Most of
the digitised documents presented in this exhibition are held by The
National Archives and appear in four galleries: Early Times, Africa
and the Caribbean, India, Work and Community, Rights and Culture.
History
of Black Footballers in Britain: Arthur Wharton was the world's
first Black professional footballer and 100 yards world record holder.
He was probably the first African to play professional cricket in
the Yorkshire and Lancashire leagues. But while he was beating the
best on the tracks and fields of Britain, the peoples of the continent
of his birth were being recast as lesser human beings. The tall Ghanaian
irritated white supremacists because his education and sporting triumphs
refuted their theories. In the late Victorian era, when Britain's
economic and political power reached its zenith and when the dominant
ideas of the age labeled all blacks as inferior, it was simply not
expedient to proclaim the exploits of an African sportsman. Phil Vasili's
excellent website tells the story of Arthur Wharton and other black
footballers in Britain.
Black
History & Classical Music: It's a little-known fact that composers
and musicians of African descent have been contributing to classical
music since Mozart's time! Marie-Antoniette's music director was Black.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a violin sonata for a Black violin virtuoso,
and accompanied him on piano at its first performance. This website
provides an excellent introduction to Black History and Classical
Music.
American
Lynching and Music: Lynching is the illegal execution of an accused
person by a mob. It was originally a system of punishment used by
whites against African American slaves. There was a decline in lynching
during the First World War but more than seventy blacks were murdered
in this way in 1918. Ten black soldiers, several still in their army
uniforms, were amongst those lynched. Between 1919 and 1922, a further
239 blacks were lynched by white mobs and many more were killed by
individual acts of violence and unrecorded lynchings. This website
provides recordings that deal with lynching: Strange Fruit (Billie
Holiday) The Death of Emmett Till (Bob Dylan), Vigilante Man (Woody
Guthrie), Taneytown (Steve Earle), Ballad of Medgar Evers (Phil Ochs)
and A Pawn in their Game (Bob Dylan).
Black
Presence in History: A forum for people wishing to discuss Black
History. Current subjects include Black Merchant Seamens Memorial,
The Other Side of Slavery, The First Blackman to Vote, Black History
Month, Black G.I's in the UK, Black People on the Home Front, Black
Racism, Slave Reperations, Black People in Britain before the Second
World War, Second Generation Jamaicans and the Black Irish.
Black
Facts Online: This website is an online searchable database of
Black History Facts that you can use to: Perform full text searches
for Black History Facts! Find out what happened in Black History today!
Find out what famous Black people were born on your birthday! Help
you research papers and articles! Help educate yourself and your children
on Black History!
Multicultural
History: A collection of articles on Black History including Caribbean
Family History (Kathy Chater), Slavery in Barbados (Karl Watson),
British Anti-Slavery (John Oldfield), World War One and the West Indies
(Glenford D Howe), Colonies, Colonials and WWII (Marika Sherwood),
Slave Island in New York (TJ Davis), Multiracial Britain (Diane Abbot).
This BBC website also includes biographies of Marcus Garvey, Mary
Seacole, William Cuffay, William Davidson, Olaudah Equiano, Claudia
Jones and Phillis Wheatley.
Black
History: Operation Black Vote is the first initiative to focus
exclusively on the Black democratic deficit in the UK. It believes
that without a strong political voice for African, Asian, Caribbean
and other ethnic minorities, the ideal of equality of opportunity
- regardless of race and colour - will remain an ideal. On its website
it includes news and articles relating to Black History. This includes:
Bernie Grant, Militant Parliamentarian, Great African American Inventors
and Engineers, Henry Johnson, Harlem Hellfighter, Janet Adegoke, Lord
David Pitt, Mahindra Singh, RAF Squadron Leader, Nazrul Islam, and
Walter Tull.
100
Great Black Britons: According to Patrick Vernon "the aim
of 100 Great Black Britons is to educate all cultures and to impress
upon people the rich and diverse historical background of Black Britain".
This website showcases the positive black culture and history, which
is often overlooked and neglected. It is hoped that the nomination
list will give national attention to the history of the black community
in Britain over the last 1000+ years. People featured include Septimus
Severus, Mary Prince, William Cuffay, Mary Seacole, Olaudah Equiano,
Harold Moody and Robert Wedderman.
A
Visual Record of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Virginia Foundation
for the Humanities has collected together a large number of images
on the subject of slavery. This collection is envisioned as a tool
and a resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students,
and the general public. The images are arranged in eighteen categories.
Maps, Pre-Colonial Africa, Capture of Slaves, European Forts &
Trading Posts in Africa, Slave Ships & the Atlantic Crossing,
Slave Sales & Auctions, New World Agriculture & Plantation
Labour, Plantation Scenes, Domestic Servants Miscellaneous Occupations,
Marketing & Urban Scenes, Music & Dance, Family Life, Religion
& Mortuary Practices, Military Activities & U.S. Civil War,
Physical Punishment, Emancipation & Post-Slavery Life and Portraits
& Illustrations of Individuals.
Emmett
Till: Last week the US justice department announced it was reopening
the case of Emmett Till, the black teenager who was murdered in Mississippi
in 1955, providing an early catalyst for the civil rights movement.
Fourteen-year-old Emmett, from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's
home in the southern hamlet of Money on August 28 1955, after accusations
that he had wolf-whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. His body
was pulled from the Tallahatchie river with a bullet in the skull,
an eye gouged out and his forehead crushed on one side. The two white
men accused of killing him - Mrs Bryant's husband, Roy, and his half
brother, JW Milam - were acquitted by an all-white jury. But Milam
later confessed to the crime.
Tommie
Smith: In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith won gold
in the 200m by setting a new world record. His teammate, John Carlos,
took bronze. Both men were black Americans and after a lifetime of
racial discrimination, they decided to hit back. At the medal ceremony,
as The Star-Spangled Banner played, Smith raised his right, black-gloved
fist to represent black power, while Carlos's raised left fist represented
black unity. Peter Norman, the Australian athlete who won the silver
medal, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in sympathy.
Smith and Carlos were banned from the Olympic village and received
countless death threats. Tommie Smith's website tells the full story
of these events.
Do
you want to have your website listed in our web directory? If so,
send a brief description (about 150 words) and the URL to spartacus@pavilion.co.uk.
