Very informative and thoroughly detailed, chronological history of the Civil Rights Movement. It's like one stop shopping. Wished I had come upon this site before as a post-BA teacher-candidate with one course to graduation; this would have served me very well through my assignments. The bibliography listing is awesome.
I can always appreciate history being told in an objective manner and not as HIS-story. You have done that vey well. I will continue to use this site as resource for my personal enlightenment, to teach my grandchildren, and as a resource during my career.
Thank you for pulling it all together in one place. Providing authentic links to other sites with historical information would be appreciated too. (Maybe you already have done so; will continue to browse). Your recommendation of how teachers can approach such meaningful, vital history from a perspective other than the "heroes" focus in their lesson planning is absolutely marvelous! Keep up the good work! I'll definitely be recommending this website to others.
Linda Wilkins, Waxahachie, TX, 12/15/10
Thank you all so very much for making these primary sources available to students, professors, and the general public. You are providing a very significant service, especially at this time when critical thinking skills are so de-emphasized in the media and many educational settings.
A little more background information about the documents would be very helpful for those using them as references for scholarly papers — i.e., place of original publication, publisher, specific authors, etc. For reference, the document I am using is "The Basis of Black Power."
Again, thank you so very much!
David Hofland, Torrance, CA, December 05, 2010
I've been visiting your blog for a while now and I always find a gem in your new posts. Thanks for sharing.
MeemeNam, United States, November 28, 2010
Thank you Freedom Movement Veterans, first, for your activism and now for sharing your accounts. I will continue to read this website and continue to learn more as I have today.
When reading about the swift, massive and state-backed resistence to school integration, I actually felt hopeful. It tells me that we today can — and are called to — push forward and have victories as the Civil Rights Movement did following the school integration backlash. The push-back against affirmative action, the "war on drugs" (which I consider a war on Civil Rights), the justification of torture, the anti-immigrant speech, laws and actions, the amendments curtailing the rights of gays, the Tea Party, etc... could cause one to lose hope. But I see that such conditions are not at all unique to our day.
I, today, reaffirm my committment to study, teach, organize and do whatever I am called to do for freedom for as long as I have my faculties.
Marj Evans-de-Carpio, Burnsville, MN, November 28, 2010
I am a single white mother of a 4 year old white son from a broken family with 6 sibblings, and a world full of hate in the middle of Missouri. I remember at 10 I had a teenage cousin who dated a black man, she was in college, on the honor roll, doing well, but was disowned and kicked to the curb for her audacity in dating a black man. That was in the early 1990's, over 30 years after the civil rights movement.
I have been struggling with how my President has been treated not only in the news, but among so many in the public. I have white friends I never knew were racist who now use the "n" word around me and make other vulgar comments, things I am astonished they would even think, let alone say.
I have always known racism and sexism were not dead, but seeing them come out in all their glory terrifies me. I thought my son would have a life past all this hate, I was 34 when I had him and I had hoped the generation in between, my neices and nephews, would somehow be the bridge to end the hate. But as they age, the youngest being 18, I see that I did not have as much of an effect on them as I thought, and they too are chosing the hate their parents have, instead of the future like I did.
I want to make things better for my son, but I do not know what to do. It is literally as if people have amnesia. I have friends who dated other races, have grandchildren and even children of other races and are at the very least ignoring the hate and at the worst participating in spreading the hate. When I ask them, "Hey what about your kids," they just shrug, as if to say, well it does not apply to them, but one day it will.
I have black friends who live with their heads in the sand and pretend that things are not going backward, and when I confront them, they simply stop speaking to me, or make me feel as if I am stretching the truth.
My heart is heavy, I will read every page of this site, and when my son is at the point to study this, he will read every page of this site. Thank you for you time in compiling this tribute. I will pray every day that more and more people will visit it so that maybe, just maybe this one time, we will not repeat the mistakes of our parents.
Victoria Hess, Moberly, MO, November 27, 2010
Thank you so much for this website. Stumbled upon this treasure while navigating on '100 Black Women' site. I'm a SF native. We were poor Negroes back in 1966 when we got our first TV. Turned the thing on and there were 'coloreds' in the South being sprayed with fire hose water, attacked by police dogs and 'officers'. Had no idea I was being prepared for the Black Power Movement of the '60's & beyond. Many experiences have caused me to love being a 'natural' black woman.
I plan to use your website as an ethnic studies resource for all students, especially those of African ancestry, at the H.S. where I work.
I'll be in touch as I learn more about resouces & guest speakers.
Thank you.
D. Smith, November 21, 2010, San Francisco CA
This is an amazing website. I am a college prof. on a Fulbright teaching fellowship in India where I have just completed a course on U.S. history. Indian students are incredibly interested in the history of CRM, and it was an honor to teach them about it. I am going to Kathmandu next week to lecture about the movement and how race and caste discrimination are similar. I will be giving historical info to volunteers and paid staff to an organization that promotes civil rights for the Dalit, the "untouchables" in Indian and Nepalese society. Nothing will fulfill this goal better than having them read from your stories to inspire them today. Your dedication and bravery, then, lives on. Thank you for what you did — it will never be forgotten.
Ann Denkler, presently in Hyderabad, India; permanently in Falls Church, VA. November 18, 2010
I was in college at FSU in 1957, and I clearly remember that some journalism students from FSU went to FAMU and rallied black students to march in the streets of Tallahassee and to sit with them on stools at the sandwich bar of a local department store. They were refused service, and several white girls were arrested. Why can't I find any information on this? The time line drawn by historians and museum curators nowadays credits four young men in Greensboro, NC (1960), for the first of such sit-ins?
Richard Mitchell, Crystal Beach, FL. October 9, 2010
Thanks a lot for collecting and sharing all this useful information on the Civil Rights Movement. I graduated from university with a thesis on Stokely Carmichael and his Black Power Rhetoric, unfortunately back then I did not know about this site.
I would be glad to have your feedback on my website on stokely-carmichael.com. I will be publishing my analyses of Carmichael's speeches on Black Power on this site soon.
Feel free to contact me at mail(at)stokely-carmichael.com.
Gian Marc, Germany, October 09, 2010
I was just three when my parents became more active in the Civil Rights Movement. My parents took my little sister and myself along on not all but many of the civil rights activities. I remember very clearly going with a mixed group to a whites only restaurant, nice, clean and cool, and becoming very confused when the waitress made us go to the very crowded and hot soda fountain next door. I remember being in a black church in the choir loft and listening to the beautiful voices lifting in song and lifting me up higher than the loft, itself. I very clearly remember all the knees I looked at at the Lincoln Memorial where I was taken during the March on Washington and listened to Martin Luther King, Jr's I Have a Dream speech. Again, the most vivid part of that memory was the glorious singing. I will bear these memories with me always.
Ann McConnell (tarnack58@gmail.com) , Great Falls, MT. August 29, 2010
Thanks so much for collecting and sharing all of this
relevant information. We need to know the past to face up the
present...
deeply grateful,
Marian
Marian del Moral, Granada, Spain. August 9, 2010
I am writing a dissertation on the attempts to integrate the Jackson, Mississippi Schools — particularly the years 1968-1972. If anyone has suggestions or can offer assistance with this endeavor, please email me at:
Thank you in advance for your willingness to help,
Susan Ferrell
Doctoral Student — Georgia State University
Gainesville, GA. August 6, 2010
I have always been a supporter of civil rights and human rights. This site is a wonderful tribute to those who fight for the rights of all. It was my honor to meet Paul Duncan McConnell and to call him my friend. He remained steadfast in his belief that freedom is an in-alienable right of ALL human beings.
Michelle Lell, Florida. August 6, 2010
So the younger generations can keep conditions on the ground
within a healthy perspective, that meaningful change is
possible.
Y
Carly Mihalakis, Berkeley, CA. July 31, 2010.
The Civil Rights Movement is known in the UK but does not really feature in our schools curriculum. Beyond old films such as Mississippi Burning, there is little readily available literature.
I have just finished reading The help by Kathryn Stockett and found the book to be very shocking in terms of the segregation and racism intrinsic to the Southern US in the 1960s. I figured some of the narrative to be literary licence and Googled Jackson Mississippi 1960.
I have been left speechless by your website and have discussed the subject with my two teenage sons who prior to actually reading the segregation laws explicitly refused to believe me.
I would like to pay tribute to the movement for its bravery and tenacity. As someone who has visited the US on many occasions, and always been met with the finest welcome and hospitality, I only hope that these dark days are now long gone. Please assure me that is the case?
My sincere thanks for providing this information. It has been both shocking, enlightening and humbling.
Peter Williams. Cardiff, United Kingdom. July 27, 2010
[Thank you so much for your kind words. The
legally-mandated de jure segregation that used to pervade
the South is no longer with us, but racism, discrimination, and
de facto segregation continue to this day. I should
mention that veterans of the Freedom Movement despise the film
Mississippi Burning and consider it a pack of lies from
start to finish, because of its total distortion of the role the
FBI actually played and its equally distorted view of Blacks and
the role they played in the struggle. A far better, and more
accurate film is Freedom Song with Danny Glover as well as
the movies and documentaries listed in the
Film & Viedo section of
our Bibliography.]
I was in Jackson Miss. in the winter 1964-65 and am trying to locate the addresses of some of the old fighters who were also staying at the Freedom House in Jackson. I know that Charles Horowitz is deceased. Two others whose first names only I remember were Phil and George (whites). Is there anyone who can give me info? My email is: helmut.reinicke@club-internet.fr. Thanks!
Helmut Reinicke, France, July 23, 2010
God bless the sacrifices that so many dedicated people made for racial equality. In the early sixties my step-father, a (white) lawyer in Elgin, IL filed suit against a restaurant that refused serving a black man in the group he was with, and fought for civil rights all his professional life, including attending the 1963 March on Washington. Let us not forget the people of all races that stood side by side in this great battle of inequality. Let us also remember that racial hatred only encumbers those who hate, and interferes with the racial bridges needed for all of us to come together as Americans.
PK, Tennessee, July, 14, 2010
I am not from Mississippi, but by choice moved here from California, but a Washingtonian. When I was younger I watched millions of people come to the nation's capital during the civil rights movement. They were determined, dedicated and passionate people who would die to make things right for my generation. I was ignorant of the fact at that time to think that everything in the world concerning race would change. How dissapointing. However, things have changed for the best. When the Jews were in captivity, even they had to be freed. The differenet is that we as a race have forgotten our past and begin to love other races before we love ourselves. As a Black woman and with a daughter, I would first love to be loved by a Black man before any other race. So, integration has had its greatness, but it has also separated us as a people. No other race, leave their race more than the Black man. How sad. Our children our suffering and our women are lonely. Are we yet free? God is our only help with our lasting ill effects of self hatred, poverty, lack of education in a large way and now, homosexuality.
Deborah Thomas, Ridgeland, MS, 5/29/2010
This is a wonderful reminder and a gold mine of information. I'm a baby boomer, first generation that entered the promised land because of the sacrifice of the heroes on this site. I mourn that my generation did not pass your torch on to our children. they don't carry on the work as a community of black people with the passion and understanding of the issues that fired your spirit. We need that kind of passion now to advance the health care agenda as the new Civil Rights Movement. I hope you find the will to mentor the new movement. Bless you for what you've already done.
Deb, Boston MA, May 4, 2010
I'm an adult education instructor in Winchester, KY. I've sent the links to the Alabama literacy test samples to our staff — most of our learners, African-American and white alike, have no appreciation for how much it means to be able to vote and how many people suffered, fought, and died for that right. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And one extra thank you — one of my learners is a Reverend, 70 years old. He remembers the days when he and his family and friends were routinely denied the right to vote, by hook or by crook, by law or by a good old (white) boys club. I admit not knowing enough Kentucky history to know when African-Americans here finally got the chance to truly exercise their right to vote — but I'll bet he does! At any rate — your web site will help me help him improve his GED language skills and give him another opportunity to teach ME a little something (yes, he's taught me more than I've taught him). He's well on his way to earning his GED, and I know he'll love reading through your web site.
So once again — thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
Sincerely, Nikk Katzman, April 10, 2010
Hi, im doing a research paper on the Civil Rights Movement. I need help in doing so.I'm really interested in this country's history.
[In compliance with the "Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act" we try not to post the email addresses of
students. To get help with your project, we suggest you check our
"Speakers List" at http://www.crmvet.org/vet/speakers.htm. This
is a list of Freedom Movement veterans who are willing to speak
or answer questions about the Movement.]
Brittney Morgan, Tallahassee, Florida, February 26, 2010