U.S. History: Primary Sources: African-American History

Explores the lives and history of African American women from colonial times to the rise of plantations in the South, through the Great Migration to the Civil Rights movement, and towards the close of the twentieth century.

More than sixty women are profiled -- some never before written about -- from key figures like Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella Baker, and Septima Clark to some of the smaller players whowho were crucial to the success of the civil rights movement.

Excerpts from primary sources on the Underground Railroad include the dramatic escapes of Henry Brown, Frederick Douglass, and William and Ellen Craft; David Walker's Appeal; narrative of Harriet Tubman; text from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; and several accounts of fugitives who found safety in Canada.

This anthology on the period of post-Civil War reconstruction focuses on the problems facing the freed slaves, carpetbaggers, Presidential policy vs. radical Republicans, social and economic problems in the south, Black Codes, the Ku Klux Klan, and the move for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

This anthology presents key aspects of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s.

A history of Jim Crow laws and American race relations that showed segregation in the South dated only to the 1880s. Its publication in 1955, one year after the Supreme Court ordered that schools be desegregated, helped counter arguments that the ruling would destroy a centuries-old way of life.

ollows several generations in the lives of a slave family. The saga begins with Kunta Kinte, a West African youth captured by slave raiders and shipped to America in the 1700s. The family is depicted up until the Civil War, when Kunte Kinte's grandson gains his emancipation.

Based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer from Colorado, who successfully managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan and became the head of the local chapter.

Recollections taken from interviews compiled by the Behind the Veil Project at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Accompanying MP3 CD contains the complete American RadioWorks documentary and additional selections from the Behind the Veil Project.

Reminiscences of slaves and ex-slaves about their experiences from the leaving of Africa through the Civil War and into the early twentieth century.

Traces the beginnings of slavery and the beginnings of the abolitionist movements.

Explores the system of segregation in the South known as Jim Crow.

Explores the beginnings and the practices of the Ku Klux Klan from a social club to a white racist vigilante organization.

Traces the decision made in the landmark segregation case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.