New Book Series Planned on the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection
The University of Georgia Press and Morehouse College have announced that they will develop a new book series based on the Martin Luther King Jr. collection held at Morehouse. The archive at Morehouse contains more than 10,000 items.
Duke University Debuts New Website Documenting the Voting Rights Struggle
The site, entitled "One Person, One Vote: The Legacy of the SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights," went live one week before the 50th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" voting rights march in Selma, Alabama.
A New Archive Documents a Key Event in Duke University’s African American History
Duke University has acquired the archives relating to the production of the documentary film The Education of Ida Owens. Ida Owens was the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. at Duke.
Creating an Electronic “Freedom Trail” of Civil Rights Sites
Dave Tell, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, is developing a smartphone app using GPS technology that will guide visitors to key sites involving the murder of Emmett Till in 1955.
Vanderbilt’s Black Studies Research Center Renamed to Honor Callie House
The African American and Diaspora Studies Program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recently renamed its research arm the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Black Cultures and Politics.
Wayne State University to Honor a Civil Rights Movement Martyr
Wayne State University in Detroit has announced that it will award the first posthumous honorary degree in its 145-year history to Viola Gregg Liuzzo. A White woman from Detroit, Liuzzo was slain in Alabama in 1965 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Previously Unseen Photos of the Selma-Montgomery Voting Rights March
Southern Methodist University in Dallas has recently released a series of photographs of the 1965 Montgomery to Selma voting rights march that were taken by a student at the university. The photographs have never been published before.
Will the University of North Carolina Rename a Building That Honors a KKK Leader?
In 1922 the university named its new history department building in honor of William Lawrence Saunders. A colonel in the Confederate Army, Saunders is said to have been a major figure in the Ku Klux Klan after the war.
University of Virginia Names New Building After Former Slaves of University Professors
Both Isabella and William Gibbons were slaves who were owned by different professors at the University of Virginia prior to the Civil War. The new Gibbons Hall will house about 200 students this fall.
West Virginia University Receives Donation of Artwork Depicting Racial Injustice
Harvey and Jennifer Peyton are donating a series of paintings to the Art Museum of West Virginia University that deal with racial injustice in the 1930s to the 1960s.
University of Maryland Archaeologists Conduct Dig at Earliest Settlement of Free Blacks
A team of archaeologists from the University of Maryland is currently conducting a research project in Easton, Maryland, which they believe may be the site of oldest settlement of free Blacks in the United States.
Home of Civil Rights Pioneer Pauli Murray Designated a “National Treasure”
In 1938, Pauli Murray mounted an unsuccessful legal effort to gain admission to the all-white University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Harvard University Acquires Copy of Unfinished Play by James Baldwin
One of the main characters in the Baldwin play, Peter Davis, is based on Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphone Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard.
University of California, Riverside Honors the Tuskegee Airmen
The library at the University of California, Riverside has been collecting historical materials about the Tuskegee Airmen since 2005 with a focus on the personal archives of three Tuskegee Airmen from California.
A New Digital Archive of Documents Relating to Free Persons of Color in Antebellum...
In Louisiana, free people of color enjoyed a relatively high level of acceptance and prosperity during the antebellum period. In 1810, free people of color made up 29 percent of the population of New Orleans.
Ole Miss Students Conduct Archaelogical Dig at Former Slave Quarters
The dig occurred at the Hugh Craft House in Holly Springs that was built in the 1840s. The 1860 Census listed nine slaves living in a detached kitchen building at the Hugh Craft House.
Oral History Project on Richmond’s Historic Fulton District Is Now Available Online
The predominantly Black Fulton district in the East End of the city of Richmond was razed during the 1970s as part of the city's urban renewal project. Now Virginia Commonwealth University has made available online interviews from 32 former residents of the district.
Oral History Project Is Documenting the Stories of Teachers During the Civil Rights Movement
The project is called Teachers in the Movement and it is led by Derrick P. Alridge, a professor in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Dr. Alridge hopes to record 200 interviews of teachers by the end of 2016.
Columbia University Acquires the Archives of Dancer Arthur Mitchell
Included in the collection are the administrative papers, grant proposals, financial records, teaching materials and other documents from the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Also included in the archive are some of Mitchell's personal papers and correspondence.
Emory University Students Explore Cold Case Files From the Civil Rights Era
Since 2011, Emory University in Atlanta has offered a course on the cold case murder files from the civil rights era. Students are instructed on investigative journalism techniques and then pursue leads on cold case files from Georgia's past.
University of Virginia’s Holsinger Collection Offers a Look at Early 20th-Century African Americans
The University of Virginia has digitized the work of studio photographer Rufus W. Holsinger, who worked in Charlottesville, Virginia, from the late 19th century through World War I. The collection includes 500 portraits of African Americans.
University of Kansas Institute to Examine Modern Black Poetry
This July, 21 faculty members and four graduate students from colleges and universities across the country will come to the campus of the University of Kansas in Lawrence for an institute entitled "Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement."
Amherst College Receives the Papers of Hugh Price
Price, who graduated from Amherst in 1963, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 1994 to 2003, Price was president of the National Urban League.
University Students Uncover the Secrets of Old African American Photo Albums
Professor Martha Jones at the University of Michigan made it a project of her class on African American's women history to find out as much as they could about Arabella Chapman whose photographic albums were found in the university's archives.
New Book Explores the History of Storer College in West Virginia
Storer College was founded in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1865 by the Freewill Baptist Home Mission Society. It was the first college in West Virginia that admitted African Americans.
University of Pittsburgh Acquires the Archives of Jazz Pianist Erroll Garner
Garner was born in Pittsburgh in 1921. He began playing piano at age 3 and by the age of seven was performing on the radio. In 1944, Garner moved to New York City where he became a leading performer and composer.
Universities Create Historical Online Archive of Recent Baltimore Protests
The University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County are teaming up with the Maryland Historical Society to create an archive to document the history of the Baltimore protests surrounding the death of Freddie Gray in April.
Records of 4 Million Former Slaves to Soon Be Available Online
FamilySearch, a nonprofit genealogy organization operated by the Mormon Church, has announced that it will soon make available online the millions of records of former slaves that were collected by the Freedmen's Bureau.
East Carolina University Honors Its First African American Bachelor’s Degree Recipient
Laura Marie Leary earned a bachelor's degree at East Carolina University in 1966. A scholarship named in her honor will be awarded to students who are majoring in fields where minorities have traditionally been underrepresented.
Sojourner-Douglass College Loses Accreditation, Files Lawsuit Against Accrediting Agency
On June 30, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education revoked the accreditation of predominantly Black Sojourner-Douglass College in Baltimore. Now the college has filed a federal lawsuit against the accrediting body.
Archive of African American Women Soldiers’ Letters Donated to Harvard University
Maryline Morris Whitaker sent 1,000 packages of hair care products to African American women serving in combat areas overseas. The letters she received in return from the soldiers have been donated to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Virginia Colleges and Universities Join Together to Discuss Their Shared Historical Legacies
A new consortium of 12 colleges and universities in Virginia recently held its first meeting to discuss how the educational institutions have dealt with and will deal with the issue of slavery.
Southern Illinois University Research Finds That “Old Slave House” Is Probably a Misnomer
Archaeological research conducted by scholars at Southern Illinois University Carbondale at the Hickory Hill State Historic Site in Gallitan County, Illinois, dispels local legends that a nineteenth-century estate home was the hub of a Reverse Underground Railroad.
Morgan State and West Virginia University Students Team Up for Journalism Project
Students from each school traveled with faculty members to Selma, Alabama, and used photographs, videos, and the written word to tell stories from the city past as well as investigating the community's present and hopes for the future.
University of Texas to Move Statue of Jefferson Davis to an Educational Exhibit
On the Main Mall of the University of Texas at Austin are seven statues. Along with George Washington, there are statues of several Confederate officials. University of Texas President Gregory Fenves has decided to remove the Jefferson Davis statue.
University Professor Finds an Audio Tape of an Early “I Have a Dream” Speech
On November 27, 1962, nine months before Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a huge crowd at the Lincoln Memorial, he used the words "I have a dream" in a speech at a segregated high school in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. A recording of the speech will soon be available online.
