The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century documents one of the most inspiring social movements in American history—with two new modules available for free trials:
- Module 1: Federal Government Records (37 titles)
- Module 2: Organizational Records and Personal Papers (36 titles)
The first two modules of ProQuest History Vault offer all levels of researchers the opportunity to study the most well-known as well as the unheralded events of The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history.
In celebration of Black History Month, ProQuest is offering free access to 1.3 million pages of primary source material on the Civil Rights Movement, now through February 10th. Don’t forget to visit our Black History Month page, and librarians, click here to find out more information on requesting longer free trials.
The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records focuses on the political side of the freedom movement, the role of civil rights organizations in pushing for civil rights legislation, and the interaction between African Americans and the federal government in the 20th century.
The collections in this module include documentation on the major milestones and events of the civil rights movement: Brown v. Board of Education in 1954; the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955; the Little Rock School Desegregation Crisis in 1957; the sit-in movement of the early 1960s; civil rights demonstration in Albany, Georgia, in 1961-1962, and in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963; the March on Washington in August 1963; the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Bloody Sunday and the Selma to Montgomery March; the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike in 1968.
This module also contains important documentation that shows the longer arc of the freedom struggle both before and after the highpoint of the post-World War II civil rights movement. These topics include:
• Forced labor in the first half of the 20th century
• Migration of African Americans to urban areas that began during World War I
• East St. Louis riot of 1917
• Scottsboro case and campaigns for the passage of anti-lynching legislation
• Heroic combat record of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II
• President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights
The collections in module 2 of History Vault cover many of the same events that are covered in module 1, offering excellent opportunities for retrieving results across multiple collections. Consisting of records of civil rights organizations and personal papers, the module 2 collections also branch out to cover other aspects of African American life in the 20th century, like religion, sports, education, fraternal organizations, and even the field of entertainment.
A particular highlight of module 2 is the records of Claude A. Barnett’s Associated Negro Press. Founded by Barnett in 1919, over the next five decades the Associated Negro Press covered an amazing variety of stories on black life in America as well as foreign news of interest to blacks. It is in the pages of the Associated Negro Press and the files collected by Barnett that researchers will find documentation on things like Marian Anderson’s powerful concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939; Jackie Robinson’s desegregation of Major League Baseball in 1947; and the controversial re-election of Joseph H. Jackson to his fifth term as president of the National Baptist Convention in 1961. The Barnett Papers also feature interesting coverage of the 1963 March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech.”
The March on Washington is a good example of the benefits of cross-searchability in History Vault because unique documentation on this speech and the March itself is also found in the Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the A. Philip Randolph Papers, and the Bayard Rustin Papers.
In addition to these collections, module 2 includes the papers of Mary McLeod Bethune, the Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and two collections on the Black Power Movement. Mary McLeod Bethune’s Papers document the life of one of the most influential African Americans in the quarter century from 1930–1955, founder of Bethune-Cookman College, president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, founder and president of the National Council of Negro Women, member of the National Youth Administration during the New Deal, and founder of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs (the so-called “Black Cabinet”).
The Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), the oldest African American women’s organization in the United States, feature documents on the state and local affiliates of the NACWC, publications of the organization’s national office, minutes from the NACWC’s national convention from 1895–1992, and materials on important civic leaders like Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Mary Church Terrell, Margaret Murray (Mrs. Booker T. Washington), Mary McLeod Bethune, Jennie Moton (Mrs. Robert Moton), Hallie Quinn Brown, and Daisy Lampkin. Finally, module 2 includes collections on two black power organizations: the Revolutionary Action Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.
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