Although the roots of the civil rights movement go back to the 19th century, the movement peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. African American men and women, along with whites, organized and led the movement at national and local levels. They pursued their goals through legal means, negotiations, petitions, and nonviolent protest demonstrations.

  • African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) ChurchThe A.M.E. Church evolved out of the Free African Society at the end of the 18th century in Philadelphia. The Society was a response to the discrimination against black Methodists who requested aid from the charitable funds of their church. Even during these initial years, the organization surpassed its immediate purpose and included religious, social, and intellectual aspects.
  • African Union SocietyFormer slaves, including Newport Gardner and Pompe (Zingo) Stevens, were two of the leaders in creating the African Union Society. By providing the basic record-keeping services previously mentioned, the society hoped to encourage a strong family structure for all blacks in Newport. Additionally, the AUS took on young black apprentices in hopes of creating a pathway to freedom for them. One of the ways Gardner was able to purchase his freedom was through trade work, and he naturally believed in its value to lift up others. For its members, the African Union Society provided the typical benefits of a mutual aid society, a buffer from the effects of illness and death in the family. Beyond the local welfare of blacks, the organization made contact with free blacks in a number of surrounding communities, hoping that expanded membership would lead to greater advancement of the race overall. They also pooled financial resources to provide loans and facilitated black purchase of property.
  • Attaining Civil Rights In Baltimore 1946-1960Looking at the events as a whole there is no pattern in the changes. The differential pace of overcoming obstruction to change for the better continued even in circumstances where it was ordered by court action. As has been already noted, in 1947 the Baltimore School System received the Hollander award for promoting integration in the schools...
  • Bethune, Mary McLeodAn educator, organizer, and policy advocate, Bethune became one of the leading civil rights activists of her era. She led a group of African American women to vote after the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution (giving women the right to vote).
  • Brown Fellowship SocietyMutual aid societies were maintained by blacks throughout the United States. The goal of the groups was to provide much needed benefits to their communities that whites controlled and often withheld. In the south, it was particularly difficult to sustain a black organization of any kind since assemblies of non-whites were considered dangerous. Still, some southern cities, including Charleston, SC, stratified individuals by three race descriptions: white, black, and mulatto. Those considered mulattoes were sometimes able to avoid the most severe oppressive measures carried out by whites while having to adhere in the majority of ways. The Brown Fellowship Society (BFS) was a response to this three-race cultural environment of Charleston and came together in 1790. Those who joined usually considered themselves mulatto...
  • Civil Rights MovementAlthough the roots of the civil rights movement go back to the 19th century, the movement peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. African American men and women, along with whites, organized and led the movement at national and local levels. They pursued their goals through legal means, negotiations, petitions, and nonviolent protest demonstrations.
  • DuBois, W.E.B.Du Bois was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) — the largest and oldest civil rights organization in America. Throughout his life Du Bois fought discrimination and racism. He made significant contributions to debates about race, politics, and history in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, primarily through his writing and impassioned speaking on race relations.
  • Effect of Economic Conditions Upon the Living Standards of Negroes 1928 It has been shown by a study made for the University of Georgia that the Negro in Georgia spends io per cent of his income on food. With the high cost of housing, clothing, etc., he cannot afford more. Add to the limited amount of food its inferior quality and lack of variety, and (because the woman must work) the hastily prepared and irregular meals, and you have a fruitful cause of ill health. Washerwomen often begin early in the morning and do not eat breakfast until noon. They often leave home before breakfast without feeding their children, and the latter eat what is left over from the day before. The Negro is unable to pay now for medical and dental care when necessary. He has always been unable to get credit at drug stores, and there is not enough aggregate capital to provide their own drug stores in many communities; therefore the obtaining of medicine during times of illness is always difficult. He is unable to continue to provide from his own pocket in a group way those health facilities denied him because of race, such as private hospitals and the like.
  • Family Life Of The Negro In The Small Town-- 1926Even the briefest account of the family life of the Negro must include a consideration of the history back of the present Negro family. This history naturally divides itself into three periods: Africa, slavery, and freedom. While the African period, it must be remembered, does not claim our attention because an unbroken social tradition still affects the present formation of the Negro family -although traces of the African tradition were detected in marriage ceremonies near the opening of the present century —it is necessary to call attention to this period because of subsequent events. In Africa the Negro lived under regulated sex relations which were adapted to his social and physical environment. It was through the destruction in America of these institutionalized sex relations that slavery was able to bring about complete subordination.
  • Franciscan Sisters of MarySister Antona was a pioneer who advocated for peace and justice between groups who were divided in healthcare work, yet the best example of her excellence in social action is outside of the healthcare setting in 1965. Answering the call for an inter-faith demonstration, she was selected to represent the SSMs in Selma, Alabama for a march to support black voting rights. When the nuns present became the vanguard of the group, she received media attention and became the voice of the demonstrators: "I am here because I am a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness."
  • Frazier, Edward FranklinIn Frazier’s view professional social work included speaking out on major issues of the day rather than going along with the status quo. His social work activism went hand-in-hand with his activism and contributions to the black movement in the 1920s. He opposed U.S. participation in World War I because he felt it was hypocritical given the racial discrimination in the United States, and he was also arrested for protesting the movie "Birth of a Nation."
  • Free African SocietyThe Free African Society’s legacy is acknowledged in Philadelphia at the site of the original Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church as “the forerunner of the first African-American churches in this city”. The contributions of the group during the yellow fever outbreak in 1793, as well as the racially charged dialogue that followed, acknowledge both the willingness of free blacks to serve the larger community and the difficulty in assuaging bigoted fears and suspicions at that time. Finally, the Free African Society provided the valuable social services of looking after the sick, the poor, the dead, the widowed, and the orphaned of their marginalized membership.
  • Freedmen’s BureauAt no time was the federal government more involved with African Americans than during the Civil War and Reconstruction period, when approximately four million slaves became freedmen. No agency epitomized that involvement more than did the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually called the Freedmen's Bureau. No series of essays on the impact of federal records on historical research on African Americans would therefore be complete without some mention of the Freedmen's Bureau (Record Group 105) and related military records in the National Archives.
  • Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in AmericaBlacks who were interested in starting their own branch of the Odd Fellows had discussions with whites in these unincorporated lodges. While these efforts were unsuccessful, they were able to secure incorporation with the Order through a lodge in England. They officially started activities in 1843, and the early membership drew from two established black groups who lacked mutual benefit components: the Philomethan Literary Society and the Philadelphia Company and Debating Society. One of the key players in the development of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America was Peter Ogden. He reportedly swayed American blacks interested in the Odd Fellows to focus their attention on gaining affiliation with an English lodge rather than lodges in the United States. Ogden presented the admission application in person to the appropriate committee during one of his voyages while in England.
  • Granger, Lester B.Lester Blackwell Granger introduced civil rights to the social work agenda as a national and international issue. He focused attention and advocacy energy on the goal of equal opportunity and justice for all people of color, even while focusing on the condition of black people in the United States. He is credited with leading the development of unions among black workers as well as integrating white unions. He led the integration of black workers in defense industries and the beginnings of racial integration in the military services during World War II.
  • Haynes, George EdmundSouthern segregation policies were granted legitimacy by the Supreme Court’s “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. The alternatives for former slaves were limited. They could work for white farmers as tenants or sharecroppers, barely a step above slavery, or they could leave the South. Many opted to migrate and moved north to find a better life. Two people stepped forward at this time to provide leadership and help build an organization dedicated to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream – one Negro, one white; one man, one woman – and together, they founded the National Urban League.
  • Jim Crow Laws and Racial SegregationFollowing the end of the Civil War and adoption of the 13th Amendment, white southerners were not happy with the end of slavery and the prospect of living or working “equally” with blacks whom they considered inferior. To try and maintain the status quo, the majority of states and local communities passed “Jim Crow” laws that mandated “separate but equal" status for African Americans.
  • Johnson, Cernoria M. Cernoria Johnson was the director of the Washington office of the National Urban League from the late 1950's to the early 1970's where she was a close colleague of Whitney Young. During her years with the Urban League, she was involved with the development and passage of the Great Society legislation and she served on the first advisory committee to the Medicaid Program enacted in 1965.
  • King, Rev. Martin Luther, Jr.In 1963, Dr. King led a massive civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Ala., and organized drives for black voter registration, desegregation, and better education and housing throughout the South. During these nonviolent campaigns he was arrested several times, generating newspaper headlines throughout the world. In June, President John F. Kennedy reacted to the Birmingham protests by submitting broad civil rights legislation to Congress. Dr. King was the final speaker at the historic March on Washington DC (August 28, 1963), where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In June the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Also in 1964, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • March on Washington, D.C. August 28, 1963On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people from across the nation came together in Washington, D.C. to peacefully demonstrate their support for the passage of a meaningful civil rights bill, an end to racial segregation in schools and the creation of jobs for the unemployed.
  • March on Washington, D.C.: Rev. King's "I Have a Dream" SpeechOn August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people from across the nation came together in Washington, D.C. to peacefully demonstrate their support for the passage of a meaningful civil rights bill, an end to racial segregation in schools and the creation of jobs for the unemployed. It was the largest demonstration ever held in the nation’s capital, and one of the first to have extensive television coverage. The march is remembered too as the occasion for Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
  • March on Washington, DC: Final Organization PlansOriginal documents prepared for the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom
  • March on Washington, DC: Lincoln Memorial ProgramOriginal documents for the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom
  • Migration of Negroes Into Northern Cities 1917In the first place, this movement of Negroes, while it is larger and more widespread due to the present unusual conditions, has been going on for the past three or four decades. It may not have attracted as much attention because it was going on quietly and at a slower rate. But there has been a steady stream and the moving causes are the same. An indication-of this fact is the increase of Negro population since.1880 in the following nine northern and border cities: Boston, Greater New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Evansville, Indianapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis. Between 1880 and 1890 the Negro populationof these nine cities increased about 36.2 per cent. From 1890 to 1900 it increased about 74.4 per cent and from 1900 to 1910 about 37.4 per cent.
  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleIn its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial discrimination. In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy. By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches, and was influential in winning the right of African-Americans to serve as officers in World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 registered for the draft. The following year the NAACP organized a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith's silent film Birth of a Nation, a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan.
  • Next Steps In Interracial Relations: 1944Every American who is worthy of the title "citizen" has carried a deep sense of shame and a feeling of almost personal responsibility for what happened in 1943 in New York City, Los Angeles, Beaumont, Mobile, and Detroit. Those bloody and costly riots were warnings of how far this nation still has to go in order to develop the single-minded purpose and the well-disciplined unity that are needed to win this war. It is possible mathematically to calculate the loss of man-hours of labor, of war materials, and of property caused by those riots. It will never be possible, however, to calculate the more severe loss of confidence by American citizens in their government and the loss of trust and cooperation between white and Negro Americans who should be working and planning together, wholeheartedly, for victory.
  • Rustin, Bayard: Master OrganizerIn 1956, he took leave from the League to advise Martin Luther King on non-violent tactics during the Montgomery bus boycott. When the pacifist Rustin first met King, he slept with a pistol under his pillow and had armed guards. He who introduced him to pacifism and non-violent tactics. In 1957, he and King started to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Given his political and sexual past, other black leaders, especially Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, forced him to resign. While Rustin did not have to resign from his role in organizing King’s 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom, A. Phillip Randolph got the up-front publicity. In putting the march together, Rustin was known for paying meticulous attention to every detail and for seeming to be everywhere at once. He was the engine that made it go.
  • The Assimilation Of Negro Immigrants In Northern Cities 1917The first prerequisite in the task of organizing a local community for the absorption of a large new population of negro citizens is the establishment of a vocational bureau. In the past, when labor agencies brought the majority of negroes who came North, the problem of employment was simple. They were assured of jobs before they arrived. But now the majority of immigrants come without such inducement. They come in larger numbers and at all times of the year, when the demand for labor is strong and when it is slack. This situation is fraught with danger because in a few days idling about the city in search of a job the immigrant may come into contact with conditions and people whose influence is demoralizing and may destroy his chance of ever becoming a useful citizen.
  • The Menace Of Racial And Religious IntoleranceWhile my calling is not in the line of practical social work, I believe social science and social work should go hand in hand. I have been identified with this body for twenty-five years, for at the beginning of my teaching I joined the National Conference of Charities and Correction, as it was then called, and attended my first meeting in Topeka in I900. Through the twenty-five years that I have been teaching sociology at the University of Missouri I have always stressed the point that social theory is for the sake of social work, that theory is no good without practice; and my department has tried to turn out many practical social workers. Some of them, I am glad to see, are a part of this audience. So I feel myself one of you, and I am going to talk to you straight from the shoulder, face to face.
  • The Negro and Relief - Part IThis practice of the displacement of Negro labor by white labor began even before the depression. The Negro felt its effect as early as 1927. From the very beginning it has been stimulated by outside forces. For instance, an organization called the Blue Shirts was set up in Jacksonville, Florida, about 1926 for the express purpose of replacing Negroes in employment with white men. An organization called the Black Shirts was formed at Atlanta, Georgia, late in 1927 for the same purpose. The Black Shirts, whose regalia consisted chiefly of black shirts and black neckties, published a daily newspaper. They frequently held night parades in which were carried such signs as "Employ white man and let 'Niggers' go"; "Thousands of white families are starving to death-what is the reason?"; and "Send 'Niggers' back to the farms."
  • The Negro and Relief: Part IIAbout the only source to which the Negro can look for real aid today is the United States government. Experience has shown that local authorities cannot be trusted to administer equably government funds in many sections of the country so far as Negroes are concerned. I am satisfied that the national administration is eminently fair and wants to reach out and see the benefits of its recovery program extended to every citizen, but this ideal is neutralized in many local communities. On the other hand, one does not need to argue for complete centralized control by the federal government, but rather for a degree of protection for a group which experience has proved suffers at the hands of local administrators.
  • The Voting Rights Act of 1965President Johnson signed the resulting legislation into law on August 6, 1965. Section 2 of the Act, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition against the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on the literacy tests on a nationwide basis. Among its other provisions, the Act contained special enforcement provisions targeted at those areas of the country where Congress believed the potential for discrimination to be the greatest.
  • Tubman, HarrietTubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
  • Urbanization And The Negro: 1933It is a significant fact that while there was a distinct loss in both Negro and white rural farm population during the past decade, the land operated by Negroes decreased by 31,835,050 acres, approximately 5,992 square miles (an area slightly larger than the combined land areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island), between 1920 and 1930. At the same time there was a very substantial increase of 34,743,840 acres, or approximately 54,287 square miles for white farm operators.
  • Washington, Booker TaliaferroDuring his era, Booker T. Washington exerted much power on behalf of the African American community. Though many Black intellectuals disagreed with him and his tactics, his way of thinking appealed to many middle and working class Blacks. His connections with the prominent White Americans allowed him to serve as a conduit for funds that served African American community.
  • Washington, Forrester BlanchardAlthough Washington repeatedly attempted to persuade the Roosevelt administration that addressing the challenges faced by African Americans went beyond offering direct relief or common labor, he soon discovered that African Americans were not the primary focus of the administration’s political agenda. He did not want to continue on in a role that he felt would only make African Americans dependent on welfare and subsequently resigned from FERA and returned to Atlanta where he felt he could be more effective as he pursued his interests in social justice for African Americans.
  • Young, Whitney M. JrA noted civil rights leader and statesman, Young worked to eradicate discrimination against blacks and poor people. He served on numerous national boards and advisory committees and received many honorary degrees and awards —including the Medal of Freedom (1969), presented by President Lyndon Johnson—for his outstanding civil rights accomplishments.