Daniel Murray, a pioneer in the black history movement, worked at the Library of Congress for 52 years, from 1871 to 1922. He began as special assistant to Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford, later serving as a librarian and a bibliographer of works by African-Americans. In “The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the […]
(The following is a guest post from Ryan Reft, modern U.S. historian in the Manuscript Division.) “No son has ever left home whose family had greater pride in him than we have in you,” wrote prominent Washington D.C. lawyer and African American civic leader William LePre Houston to his son, Charles Hamilton Houston in September […]
Library experts involved in making the papers of Rosa Parks available online answered questions in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on Tuesday. During the Reddit AMA, experts from the Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, the Prints and Photographs Division and Educational Outreach took questions about Rosa Parks and about how the Library cataloged, preserved, digitized, and […]
The Rosa Parks Collection at the Library of Congress has been digitized and is now online. The collection, which contains approximately 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs, is on loan to the Library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. The Library received the materials in late 2014, formally opened them to researchers in […]
Considered the most significant piece of civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It banned discrimination in public accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants, theaters and retail stores. It outlawed segregation in public education. It banned discrimination in employment, and it […]
(The following is a story written by my colleague, Mark Hartsell, editor of The Gazette, the Library of Congress staff newsletter.) Simeon Wright still recalls the terror of the night they came and took his cousin away. “I woke up and saw these two white men standing at the foot of my bed,” Wright said. […]
(The following is a story written by Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library’s staff newsletter, The Gazette, for the May-June 2014 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. The Library exhibition, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Long Struggle for Freedom,” opens June 19 in the Thomas Jefferson Building.) Civil Rights activist Roy Wilkins […]
(The following is an interview from the July-August 2013 edition of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. You can read the issue in its entirety here.) Adrienne Cannon, African American history and culture specialist for the Manuscript Division, discusses the scope of the Library’s civil rights collections. When did the Library of Congress begin collecting […]