SMU Students Spend Spring Break on a Civil Rights Pilgrimage
The students will travel by bus to visit many of the most famous locations of the civil rights movement including Little Rock Central High School, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
University of Virginia Acquires Historial Documents of a Black-Owned Bank
The First State Bank in Danville, the last of the Jim-Crow era Black-owned banks in the state of Virginia, recently donated a large collection of its historical records to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia.
George Mason University Students Recreate Some of the Iconic Photographs of Black History
The students found actors who resembled the historical figures and secured costumes and designed sets to recreate the original scenes in old photographs.
Quinnipiac Students Get the Opportunity to Study the Bones of a Slave
A slave whose bones were preserved by his slaveowner will be studied by students before he is given a Christian burial in Waterbury, CT.
New Film Recreates Black History at the University of Virginia in the 1970s
The film project was co-created by Kevin Jerome Everson, professor in the department of art and Claudrena Harold an associate professor of history at the university.
New Poem by Jupiter Hammon, a Slave, Discovered at Yale Library
Jupiter Hammon was born into slavery in 1711. Although a slave, he attended school and learned to read and write. Later in life he wrote essays and poetry and is generally considered the first African American writer to be published.
1805 Bill of Sale for Three Slaves Donated to Duke University
The bill of sale lists three slaves, Elizabeth, a 20-year-old woman and her daughter Harriet who was six months old. A third slave Delilah, aged 14, was also included. The three slaves were sold for a total of $493.
Old Movie of African American Baseball Players Found in the University of Georgia Archives
The film, made around 1919, was found in the archives of the Pebble Hill Plantation that were donated to the Walter J. Brown Media Archives of the University of Georgia Libraries.
New Hip-Hop Collection Established at the College of William and Mary
The effort will assemble oral histories, audio and video recordings, publications, posters, and memorabilia by Virginia-based hip-hop artists and businesses.
Petition Calls on UCLA to Establish the Jackie Robinson Institute of Sports Business
An online petition calls on the University of California to establish an institute of sports business to honor the legacy of Jackie Robinson. The petition also seeks to rename a portion of a street adjacent to the UCLA campus, Jackie Robinson Way.
Duke University to House Hate Group Archives of the Southern Poverty Law Center
The collection includes more than 90 boxes of materials that include periodicals, pamphlets, flyers, and other documents that hate groups in the United States have sent to members and recruits over the past 30 years.
Huge Digital Archive of Civil Rights History Being Created in North Carolina
The entire project includes 38 manuscript collections and archival record groups held by libraries at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that make up the Triangle Research Libraries Network.
Emory University Acquires the Papers of Ophelia DeVore Mitchell
Ophelia DeVore Mitchell was the founder of one of the first modeling agencies for African Americans and a pioneer in the "Black Is Beautiful" movement. Now over 90 years of age, she continues to own and help run an African American newspaper.
Sweet Briar College Receives Grant to Preserve a Slave Cabin on Its Campus
Sweet Briar College in Virginia recently received a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to preserve a 1840 slave cabin on campus and to incorporate the building into Sweet Briar College’s curriculum.
New Website Examines the History of Blacks in Theological Education
Yale University has launched a new website chronicling the history of theological education for African Americans. The website, entitled Been in the Storm So Long, has a particular focus on Blacks at the Yale Divinity School.
Researchers Publish a Collection of Poems That Supported Black Troops in the Civil War
During the Civil War thousands of poems in support of African American troops were published in newspapers across the nation. Researchers at the University of Nebraska and the University of Cambridge have collected and published a sample of these poems online.
The University of Memphis Library Plays Major Role in Award-Winning Documentary Film
The director of the award-winning documentary film has stated that the film would not have been possible without the help of the special collections unit of the University of Memphis Library.
Exhibit Explores the Role of African Americans at the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago
The exhibition, entitled “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition,” was inspired by a pamphlet with the same title that was co-authored by civil rights activist Ida B. Wells.
Historic Marker Placed at the Site of 1963 Sit-In by Tougaloo College Students
Fifty years ago, students from historically Black Tougaloo College staged a sit-in at a lunchcounter in a Woolworth’s store in Jackson, Mississippi. The students were beaten by a White mob. Now a historic marker has been placed at the site of the old Woolworth's store.
Tulane University Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Its Racial Integration
In the early 1960s, two Black students filed a lawsuit seeking admission to the graduate programs at Tulane University in New Orleans. They lost the suit. But in 1963, the Tulane University board of trustees decided to admit Black students to graduate programs.
Hampton’s William Harvey Named One of the Top Five HBCU Presidents of All-Time
William R. Harvey, president of Hampton University has been named by two organizations as one of the top five HBCU presidents of all time. Norman Francis, current president of Xavier University in New Orleans, was also selected by one organization for the honor.
Scholar Documenting the History of Black Businesses in Wichita
Robert Weems, the Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State University in Kansas, is collecting artifacts and has undertaken an extensive oral history project on Black businesses in the city.
Morgan State Scholar’s Research on What May be the Oldest African American Neighborhood in...
Dale Glenwood Green, an assistant professor of architecture and chair of the Historic Preservation Program at Morgan State University in Baltimore, found a deed from 1788 which shows a purchase of land in "The Hill" district of Easton, Maryland, by a free African American couple.
University of South Carolina Honors the History of Booker T. Washington High School
Booker T. Washington High School in Columbia, South Carolina, one of the first public high schools for African Americans in the city, closed in 1974. The building was purchased by the University of South Carolina and has now been renovated. The renovations include displays that preserve the history of the high school.
Alice Walker Comes Under Fire for New Book
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has been harshly criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Walker has been highly critical of the Israeli government and has compared the plight of the Palestinians to Blacks in the Jim Crow South.
Tuskegee University Receives the Archives of a Civil Rights Icon
Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson has donated her personal memorabilia collection to Tuskegee University. Robinson was among the marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965.
Duke University Completes Digitalization of Eight Civil Rights Collections
The Content, Context, and Capacity Project is a joint effort of Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University, and North Carolina State University. When the project is completed next year, more than 350,000 documents will have been digitized.
New Book Explores the Causes of the 1992 Race Riot in Los Angeles
A new book by Brenda Stevenson, a professor of history at UCLA, makes the argument that the causes of the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King case can be traced back to the March 1991 murder of a Black teenager by a Korean shopkeeper.
Tuskegee University Marks the 100th Anniversary of Its Campus Hospital
Speaking at the ceremonies were relatives of Louis Rabb, the first administrator of the hospital, and John A. Kenney who came to Tuskegee in 1902 and served as the personal physician to Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
University Saving a Historical But Controversial Mural From a Building Scheduled for Demolition
The University of Tennessee is preserving a mural painted in 1954 that was defaced in 1970 due to objections of how it portrayed African Americans. The mural was hidden behind paneling for more than 30 years.
University Project Creating a Database of Runaway Slave Advertisements
Christian Friar, a student at the Mississippi University for Women, is spending the summer chronicling runaway slave advertisements in pre-Civil War newspapers from Alabama and Mississippi.
University of Maryland Award Will Honor Sports Journalists Who Work for Racial Equality
The award is named for Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith, two African American journalists who documented Jackie Robinson's effort to racially integrate Major League Baseball.
University of Virginia Debuts an Online Archive of TV News Footage From the Civil...
The archive includes 20 years of news broadcasts from WSLS-TV in Roanoke during the period 1951 to 1971. According to the Library of Congress, only about 10 percent of the television news footage from this period has been saved.
Mary Baldwin College Students Preparing a Documentary on Black History of Staunton, Virginia
Once the students began collecting stories they found that there as such a rich history of undocumented experiences that the effort has been expanded and will now include a documentary film.
Texas Christian University Mounts an Oral History Project of the Civil Rights Era
The Texas Communities Oral History project seeks to recover, preserve and make openly accessible the history of racial, ethnic, gender and economic groups traditionally underrepresented in historical archives.
The University of Virginia to Examine Its Ties to Slavery
The University of Virginia has announced the formation of a commission that will investigate the university's historical relationship with slavery. The commission is made up of 27 faculty and staff, students, alumni, and members of the local community.
