Civil Rights Movement Archive
Submissions Policy

Submitting Material About the Movement, Yourself, Your Thoughts

If you were a Movement veteran active between 1950-1970 with CORE, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, SCEF, SSOC, Delta Ministry, Deacons for Defense, a local Movement organization, or some other group active in the Southern Freedom Movement, we ask you to contribute yourself. Please add your name, history, and testimony to the Civil Rights Movement Archive Roll Call. And if the spirit moves, add a tribute for one who has moved on.

Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement are encouraged to submit materials for posting on this site. In addition to welcoming all materials created as part of the Southern Freedom Movement (1950-1970), we encourage and actively seek from veterans listed on the Roll Call more recent narratives, opinions, and commentaries that reflect the diversity of perspectives held by Freedom Movement veterans — then and now.

Note that our site is for documenting what we did and experienced in the Southern Freedom Movement, what it meant to us, what we learned from it, and how we view it today. We hope our site can contribute to rebuilding the beloved community that we once shared. Therefore, personal attacks on named individuals, or carrying on old vendettas, is not appropriate.

Types of Materials

Veterans Roll Call, and In Memory page.

To list yourself in the Roll Call you must be a living Movement veteran. A friend or family-member can ask that a deceased Movement veteran be listed on our In Memory page. We welcome tributes to or remembrances of Movement veterans from people who personally knew the veteran.)

Written Materials From the Era.

We seek Movement-related written materials from 1950-1970 such as leaflets, reports, publications, plans, letters, maps, and so on that were created by movement activists. Since our site is the voice of the freedom fighters whose boots were on the ground, we do not include news articles or materials written by observers, reporters, academics, grad-students, etc. We can use either the original documents, good quality photocopies, or scanned PDFs as described below.

Stories, narratives, oral-histories, interviews, and thoughts, commentaries.

Regardless of when written, we welcome materials created by Movement veterans that recall or describe their Movement experiences or relates those experiences to current events. While we're flexible about length, we can't publish books. As a general rule of thumb, 10-15 pages is normally about the maximum length of a narrative or commentary (except in special circumstances). You can send us good quality photocopies, scanned PDFs, or audio/video recordings as described below.

Photos.

We welcome submissions of original photos from the Civil Rights Movement 1951-1968 regardless of who took them. Photos should be scanned at 300dpi in JPG or TIFF format. (Please do NOT send us images in PNG GIF WEBP or PDF formats.)

To the degree possible, photos should be annotated in an accompanying text file. When possible annotation info can include:

• Brief note as to what it shows (why its worth preserving)
  
• Date (or year) it was taken if known
  
• Names of identifiable individuals (right to left if in a group) if known
  
• Name of photographer and/or copyright holder if known

Documents

For documents there are three options, listed below in our order of preference:

1. Send us the originals via postal mail (see address below). We'll do the scanning. If you wish, we will return the documents to you after we've scanned then. Otherwise, they will eventually end up at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

2. Send us good quality photocopies via postal mail. We'll do the scanning. If the document is faded, please adjust the contrast on the copy machine if that is feasible.

3. Scan the documents yourself and send us the digital files. Documents should be scanned at 300dpi into PDF format. If the scanner offers the choice, please choose "searchable" or "OCR."

   Note that we cannot use documents in JPG or JPEG format because they cannot be searched for text. Nor can we use images of documents taken by a hand-held cell phones. So please use an actual scanner machine. When scanning, if the original document is faded, please enhance the contrast with the scanner controls.

   If you don't have a scanner, FedEx, Office Depot, Office Max, or similar outfits have scanners you can use for a fee (or they will do the scanning). If you wish, you can send us the receipt, and if we use the material you sent we'll reimburse you for the scanning cost.

Video & Audio Recordings.

We seek audio and video recordings of Movement events from 1950-1970 and also Movement activist interviews, discussions, presentations, and panels about the Movement and its impact. Video and audio recordings should contain at least seven minutes of substantive content and can be as long as a couple of hours. Multi-person recordings should have substantial material related to the Freedom Movement and prominently feature at least one Movement activist. Videos should be in MP4 MOV AVI and MPEG formats. Audios should be in MP3 or WAV formats.

To the degree possible, recordings should be annotated in an accompanying text file or a link to a webpage. When possible annotation info should include:

• Brief note as to what's in the video (why its worth viewing)
  
• Video title and/or topic
• Names and identification of speakers/participants
  
• Date (or year) that it was made
  
• Name of video producer, production company, or institution
  
• Copyright holder

How to Submit Materials

There are two ways to contribute materials to the site:

1. Postal Mail. You can postal-mail to original documents, good quality photocopies, and photographs for us to scan. We can then either return them to you, or add them to the CRMA physical collection that will eventually end up in the John Hope Franklin Center collection at Duke University. Contact us at for mailing instructions.

2. Digital Transfer.

   • You can email attachments to us at webspinner@crmvet.org.

   • For large files such as audio/video recordings or zip files, contact us at webmaster@crmvet.org and we will arrange for uploading/downloading via platforms such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, etc.

Usage Terms & Conditions

We welcome your submissions under the following conditions:

• We cannot pay you for your materials. We are a non-commercial educational site, we have no corporate or foundation funding nor do we carry advertisements. Our labor is donated, our expenses are paid out of our own pockets and the personal donations of Movement activists and supporters.

• Use of Materials.

  In plain English: You let us post and use your work, but you still own it and can do anything else you want with it.

  In lawyer talk: By submitting materials to us, you grant us a non- exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license, without payment. And with the right to sub-license (to other Site users and people and entities who help to administer or maintain the Site), to view, post, copy, reproduce, modify, distribute, publicly display and otherwise use your submitted materials on our website. "Non-exclusive" means that you retain rights to the work you send us, and you can use that work elsewhere, however you wish.

• Use of your name.

  In plain English: If you sign up on the Activist Roll Call or send us something to post with your name or contact info on it, we can display on the website.

  In lawyer talk: By adding your name to the Roll Call and otherwise submitting to us materials that identify you, you grant us the non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual right, without payment but with the right to sub-license (to other Site users and people and entities who help to administer or maintain the Site), to use your name, nickname and other personal attributes, including your likeness and image (for photographs), autograph (for signed documents) and biographical information (for personal histories and testimonies), on our website.

  If you are submitting documents (such as a letter or article) whose copyright is owned by someone other than yourself, you are responsible for obtaining the rights and consents that are necessary for us to use the materials.

The Civil Rights Movement Archive is a 501c3 nonprofit corporation.

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