Top of page
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
Alan Gevinson will retire this spring as special assistant to the chief of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. Here, he shares some of his best memories at the Library, including moments with Rep. John Lewis, Bill Moyers ... and his future wife.
Posted in: Audiovisual, Cataloging, Civil Rights, Gazette, Library Work and Employees, My Job, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Preservation and Conservation, Video
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Some of the most important works by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Frederick Douglass, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Cesar Chavez will be the focus of a new television series being produced by C-SPAN and the Library. The 10-part series — “Books That Shaped America” — starts on Sept. 18 and will examine 10 books …
Posted in: African American History, Alexander Hamilton, Civil Rights, Civil War, Exhibitions, Hispanic and Latino, Library Work and Employees, Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was 60 years ago today -- August 28, 1963. We look back at that historic day, both at how it developed and its aftermath, in an era when terrorism, violence and assassinations targeted civil rights volunteers, workers and organizers.
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, African American History, Civil Rights, U.S. Presidents, Washington DC
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
From 1961 to 1976, Ed Beach hosted “Just Jazz” on WRVR-FM in New York City. Beach played jazz — soloists, bands, traditional, modern — ranging from the early 1920s to the 1970s. He featured artists who achieved great fame — Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Max Roach — along with musicians new to his audience. The show is now preserved online by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a joint project of the Library of Congress and the Boston public broadcaster GBH.
Posted in: African American History, Civil Rights, Gazette, Music, Performing Arts
Posted by: Neely Tucker
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. It appears in the Jan.-Feb. issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. In the wake of emancipation during the Civil War, African Americans submitted petitions to government entities in greater numbers than ever before to advocate for equal treatment before the law. …
Posted in: African American History, Civil Rights, Civil War, Congress, LCM, Manuscripts
Posted by: Neely Tucker
This civic poster from the days of World War II is always a good reminder that the right to vote is something that millions of Americans have fought to earn, protect and defend. It cost something. So, as we always do on Election Day, we encourage you to exercise that right. Vote your conscience. We …
Posted in: Civil Rights
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Bill Russell, the legendary basketball player and civil rights stalwart who died Sunday at the age of 88, filmed an unforgettable conversation for the Civil Rights History Project, an oral history production by the Library and the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, in 2013. It's three hours and was conducted by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch. What comes through strongest is the rock-solid voice of Bill Russell, American icon, who learned from his grandfather to "don't take nothing from nobody."
Posted in: African American History, Civil Rights
Posted by: Brett Zongker
Historian George Chauncey, whose work has focused on LGBTQ issues for four decades, is the 2022 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The Kluge Prize awards $500,000 to scholars for distinguished work in fields outside those covered by the Nobel Prize. Previous winners include political historian Danielle Allen, philosopher Jurgen Habermas, former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and John Hope Franklin, the renowned scholar of African American history.
Posted in: Civil Rights, Kluge Center, LGBTQ, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Rosa Parks, one of the most consequential Americans of the 20th century, was born on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her activism was galvanized decades before the Montgomery bus boycott by the sexualized violence of whites against Blacks in her native Alabama. This activism is featured in this short documentary by the Library of Congress, which holds her papers.
Posted in: African American History, Civil Rights, Exhibitions, Manuscripts, Today in History