Africana Studies

"Provides a comprehensive view of the NAACP's evolution, policies, and achievements from 1909-1970. Included are minutes of directors' meetings, monthly reports from officers to the board of directors, proceedings of the annual business meetings, records of the association's annual conferences, plus special reports on the most important issues for the NAACP. The records of the annual conferences are excellent for studying the major concerns of the NAACP on a yearly basis."

"The NAACP branch files in this module chronicle the local heroes of the civil rights revolution via NAACP branches throughout the United States, from 1913-1972. The contributions of scores of local leaders—attorneys, community organizers, financial benefactors, students, mothers, schoolteachers, and other participants—are revealed. These files will allow students new opportunities to explore the contributions of NAACP local leaders. The Youth Department Files reveal the energy and talent of college students and other young people."

"The NAACP was involved in several subjects that did not rise to the level of major campaigns but were still vital to the organization. This module contains records on those subjects, revealing the wide scope of NAACP activism and interest. These files cover subjects such as civil rights complaints and legislation, the Klan, Birth of a Nation, the Walter White-W. E. B. Du Bois controversy of 1933-1934, communism and anticommunism, NAACP’s relations with African colonial liberation movements, the War on Poverty, and the Black Power Movement."

"Major campaigns for equal access to education, voting, employment, housing and the military are covered in this module. The education files document the NAACP's systematic assault on segregated education that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The voting rights files cover the NAACP's campaign against the white primary, discriminatory registration practices, the grandfather clause, and the triumphs of the 1957 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

"This NAACP module consists of the working case files of the NAACP’s general counsel and his Legal Department staff for 1956 to 1972. The files document the NAACP’s aggressive campaign to bring about desegregation throughout the United States, particularly in the South. In total, this module contains over 600 cases from 34 states and the District of Columbia. The cases pertain to school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, employment discrimination, freedom of speech, privacy, freedom of association, and housing discrimination."

"This module focuses on NAACP's efforts to combat lynching, mob violence, discrimination in the criminal justice system, and white resistance to civil rights efforts. Other files cover segregation and discrimination complaints regarding public accommodations and recreational facilities. A particularly rich set of records in this module is the NAACP file on one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the 20th century--the case of the Scottsboro Boys. The NAACP's efforts to win passage of a federal law against lynching are also documented."