02 August 2023
Antislavery Print Culture in Nineteenth Century Canada West
Nina Reid-Maroney is Professor of History at Huron University College and was a 2021 Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow at the British Library.
In the summer of 1861, the physician, editor, and Black abolitionist, Dr. Martin Delany returned from a scientific expedition in west Africa to his home Chatham, Canada West. Immersed in the news of the American war, preparing for a lecture tour, and at work on the second section of his serialized antislavery novel, Blake, or The Huts of America, Delany found time to oversee a corrected edition of his Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party, first published in 1860. His preface reviewed the work’s publication history, noting that the previous edition, left in the hands of a friend in England who had subsequently taken ill, found its way into print without important endorsements, editorials, and the table of contents. Delany’s attention to the details of the text and his concern that “many things of much importance, which should have been included, were omitted” speaks to his engagement in abolitionist print culture not only as an author, but as an editor and publisher who understood the activist power of print across a transatlantic network that he had helped to build.1
The 1861 Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party is part of a significant body of British Library material - including scientific writing, ethnography, literature, freedom narratives, sermons and memoir - created by Black abolitionists and their antislavery allies based in nineteenth century Canada West. Starting from the recognition that each book is an archive, my Eccles Centre fellowship focused on the material history of abolitionist texts linked to Canadian abolitionist communities. The project examined copy-specific features, variations among editions, endorsements, advertisements, illustrations, and typography. Using the insights of history of the book and a comparative approach to copies of texts on both sides of the Atlantic, the project helps to reframe Canada’s antislavery history by tracing Black activist networks constituted in print.
From this perspective, familiar texts and authors appear in a new light. The 1851 London edition of Josiah Henson’s narrative is one of three versions and multiple editions of Josiah Henson’s autobiography published between 1849 and 1883. The British Library’s copy of the London edition, part of the third thousandth print run, varies significantly from the Boston edition of the text on which the 1851 edition was based. The London edition includes an account of the Black abolitionist community and school that Henson helped to found, placing Henson’s emancipation narrative in the context of the activist network of underground railroad and the practical resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Introductory material from its editor, the Congregationalist minister and antislavery reformer, Thomas Binney, focuses on Henson’s visit to Britain as an exhibitor at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. The paratextual materials of Preface and Appendix and advertisements help to situate Henson in British antislavery networks a year before the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the subsequent long and tortuous association of Josiah Henson with that work’s title character.
Ephemeral texts from the Library’s collections add depth and detail to the study of antislavery print culture, revealing connections between the aural culture of Black abolitionist work in Britain and the antislavery networks of the Great Lakes borderlands.2 In 1861, the Reverend Thomas Kinnaird, Black abolitionist and minister in the British Methodist Episcopal Church in Hamilton (Canada West) produced a four-page pamphlet distributed in support of his lecture tour in Britain, raising funds for a new church building and school. The pamphlet, one of only two extant copies, gathered recommendations from a long list of antislavery supporters in Canada West, London, and Glasgow. Its content maps an antislavery network grounded in small Canadian communities and extended across the Atlantic world, while its physical form, creased as though folded and tucked into a pocket and carried home, speaks to its material history and circulation as an antislavery text.
Other works draw attention to the period beyond the 1850s and 1860s, and to the continued conversation across the Black Atlantic in which a new generation of Black authors amplified and gave fresh resonance to voices of the antislavery movement. In 1889, Black activist S. J. Celestine Edwards met the Canadian Bishop of the British Methodist Episcopal Church, Walter Hawkins of Chatham. Hawkins’ time in the UK working on behalf of the BME Church brought him into the activist circles of Edwards, who used his activist platform as a writer, lecturer, and editor to address contemporary issues of race, civil rights, and identity. Edwards’ biography of Walter Hawkins (From Slavery to a Bishopric: The Life of Bishop Walter Hawkins, 1891) is often discussed in relation to the traditional genre of “slave narrative”; when placed alongside Edwards’ other writings in the British Library’s collections, the Hawkins biography can be read in new ways. A fragile copy of Edwards’ lecture titled “Political Atheism”, delivered, as the title page announces, to an audience of 1200 people and published in 1890, helps to situate From Slavery to a Bishopric in the context of Edwards wider political work, and points to an emerging historiography in the post-Emancipation Black Atlantic, in which Walter Hawkins narrative spoke with a voice of resistance that reached beyond the geographic, temporal, and ideological scope usually afforded early narratives histories of the underground railroad.
The project has implications for teaching antislavery history in my home institution of Huron University College, which has links to evangelical Anglican antislavery work, and is situated close to historical abolitionist communities in places such as London, Buxton, Chatham, Dresden, Amherstburg, Lucan (Wilberforce) and Windsor. In February 2023, I was able to share research with Huron students and colleagues, as part of a transatlantic undergraduate research project on colonialism, slavery, and resistance in history and memory. Following in the footsteps of Martin Delany, Samuel Ringgold Ward, Josiah Henson, and William Howard Day, whose activism brought them from London (Canada) to London in the years leading up to the American Civil War, students used methodologies of place-based history and history of the book to trace the complex transatlantic world of Black activists. In a workshop facilitated by the Eccles Centre and Huron colleague Scott Schofield (English and Cultural Studies, Huron University) students were able to compare editions and copies of antislavery texts at the British Library with works they had consulted in the Archives and Research Collections Centre at the University of Western Ontario. Steven Cook, Curator of the Josiah Henson Museum of African Canadian History in Dresden, Ontario, accompanied Huron students and faculty on the research trip, and spoke of the importance of the workshop in reconnecting community memory to the complex textual history of Josiah Henson.
The Eccles Fellowship has also laid the foundation for a new research partnership with the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society, Scott Schofield (Huron) and Deirdre McCorkindale (University of Guelph). Using research from the British Library as well as ongoing work with the Archives and Research Collections Centre at Western University, we are building a comparative database of rare antislavery books linked to nineteenth-century Chatham. The Fellowship demonstrated the significance of reconnecting books - material artefacts of the nineteenth-century's greatest struggle for human freedom - with the historical communities and context in which they were written, published, read, reprinted, and circulated.
Notes
1. Martin Delany, Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party. New York, Thomas Hamilton; London, Webb, Millington & co; Leeds, J.B. Barry, 1861.
2. R.J.M. Blackett, Building an Antislavery Wall : Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983; Hannah-Rose Murray, Advocates of Freedom : African American Transatlantic Abolitionism in the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
3. Douglas A. Lorimer, “Legacies of Slavery for Race, Religion, and Empire: S.J. Celestine Edwards and the Hard Truth (1894).” Slavery & Abolition 39 (2008): 731–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2018.1439670.
19 June 2021
Celebrating Juneteenth
Yesterday marked the first observance of Juneteenth as a national holiday in the US, following President Joe Biden signing the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law earlier this week. Today, Saturday 19 June, is actually Juneteenth, and marks the 156th anniversary of the day when enslaved people in Texas learned of their freedom. Whilst the Emancipation Proclamation delivered by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 had officially outlawed slavery in all the rebel states, enforcement generally relied on the arrival of Union troops. Texas was the most remote of the slave states and it wasn’t until 19 June 1865 that General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order Number 3 at locations around the city, informing Texans that all slaves were now free.
Juneteenth was marked by African American residents of Galveston in 1866 and annual celebrations gradually spread across Texas, then the south and eventually to other parts of the country, often thanks to Texans migrating. Celebrations are typically locally organised. In the early years they combined religious, civil and community elements.
In 1895 the community of Parsons, Kansas, a railroad town which would have had many black residents with connections to Texas, held its first community Juneteenth celebration. The ‘Local and Personal News’ column of the Parsons Weekly Blade, an African-American newspaper, reported that:
Last Wednesday the citizens of this city and vicinity, native Texans, assembled in the fair grounds to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the liberation of the bonded Afro-American of Texas. After indulging in various pleasures, they were called to the sumptuous repasts that were spread by our energetic ladies […]. At 3:30 the people were called together in the amphitheater to hear the speakers of the day.1
There were songs, including ‘Hold the Fort’, a gospel hymn inspired by a Union victory in 1864, which melds martial and Christian imagery, and ‘John Brown’s Body’, a popular song commemorating the executed abolitionist John Brown and his attack on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Both songs had been popular with the Union army during the Civil War. (They still held currency in 1895 and would continue to have a place in the gospel and folk traditions, as well as within protest and workers movements in the 20th century: you can find Pete Seeger, for example, performing both songs on YouTube if you’d like to hear them.)
Following the music and speeches by religious leaders, ‘an animated game of base ball was witnessed; when the happy throng repaired to their homes expressing themselves as highly pleased with their first Juneteenth celebration.’
Well into the 20th century, Juneteenth celebrations continued to have a regional flavour and were generally still associated with Texas. In 1941 The Negro Star, a black newspaper from Wichita, Kansas, ran an Associated Negro Press story, ‘Texas Preparing for “Juneteenth” Celebration’. Reporting from Houston, Texas, the item noted that, ‘This city, together with the rest of Tan Texas is busily preparing for the annual “Juneteenth” celebration, most colorful and all inclusive holiday celebrated by Negroes in the Lone Star state. Held on June 19th, civic, social and fraternal organizations join hands in celebrating their day of deliverance from slavery.’2 The article went on to explain that ‘most people use [the day] as a means of being excused from work. Few if any of them can be found on their jobs on that day. White employers have found it expedient to overlook their colored employees’ absence on Juneteenth.’ The main events were to be held in Emancipation Park, an area of the city originally solely used to mark Juneteenth but later donated to the city, and which, from 1922 to 1940 was the only park for African-Americans during segregation.3 There was to be ‘a traditional program of speaking and singing of spirituals […], and guests were to include ‘World war vets, Spanish-American war vets, and the few remaining ex-slaves.’ The inclusion of the formerly enslaved in an event taking place during the Second World War is a stark reminder, even now, of how near the experience of slavery is in human terms.
The popularity of Juneteenth celebrations dipped during the Civil Rights era, when campaigning energies were put towards integrationist efforts and making space for black Americans within existing social, political and cultural structures. However, with the rise of Black Power and renewed interest in African American history and culture in the late 1960s and 1970s, Juneteenth saw a resurgence across the US. This revival saw large celebrations take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 1970s.
In 1974 the Milwaukee Star, an African American newspaper, reviewed the inner city Juneteenth celebrations of the previous week, giving a sense of the vibrancy of the event with people ‘dancing, laughing and singing’ in a heavily-illustrated article.4 Black arts and culture had taken a larger role in the celebrations by this point: the article noted ‘on one side street a poet stands speaking to a small crowd on Black love, while next to him a local DJ tries hard to drown him out with a very loud James Brown record.’ The journalist, Michael Holt, also noted the political tensions encapsulated by the day, describing a pull between those who felt the anniversary should be a solemn occasion and those ‘who look at the festivities as a vehicle to relieve the inner frustrations, if only for a day.’ Holt quoted a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor who had told his class the previous year that the ‘so-called Juneteenth Day celebration “was nothing but a modern day version of the practice in slavery days of masters giving slaves the day off to get drunk and release tensions upon themselves.” But despite the explanation by the professor, many of his students could be seen roaming the streets on the so-call Black Fourth of July celebration.’
The connection to the Fourth of July Independence Day celebrations has often prompted reflection on the broader significance of Juneteenth. A thoughtful editorial by Paula Harris-White in the Afro-Hawaii News in July 1991 noted that the Fourth of July holiday ‘often serves as a reminder of the position that people of color have held in America. They have been slaves, coolie workers, “savages”, foreigners, in spite of the fact that this was their place of birth. For many Americans, actual independence came long after July 4, 1776. Sometimes people who thought they were free, could have that freedom arbitrarily revoked, even in the 20th century, because their name was Wantanabe or Yamada.’5 Harris-White went on to explain the origins of Juneteenth to her readers and observed, ‘I share this information with all of you because sometimes we need to put our history in perspective. While I do acknowledge those leaders who chose to liberate the thirteen colonies from England, as a woman of color, I can quite never forget that their act of declaring freedom did not include people like me.’
As Kevin Young, Andrew W. Mellon director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, noted in the New York Times on 18 June 2021:
What Juneteenth and other Emancipation days commemorate is both the promise of freedom and its delay. For June 19, 1865, doesn’t mark the day enslaved African Americans were set free in the United States but the day the news of Emancipation reached them in Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a holiday ringed, like a good brisket, though not in smoke but irony. Out of such ironies Black people have made the blues, made lemonade, made good. The lesson of Juneteenth is both of celebration and expectation, of freedom deferred but still sought and of the freedoms to come.6
For those interested in researching African American history at the British Library, the African American Newspapers 1827-1998 digital resource from Readex is an excellent starting point, and is available for registered readers to access remotely. You can find out about the range of remote access e-resources here, including the US Congressional Serial Set, American Broadsides and Ephemera, and Early American Newspapers.
-- Cara Rodway, Eccles Centre
June 2021
Footnotes:
1. ‘Local and Personal News,’ Parsons Weekly Blade (Parsons, Kansas), June 22, 1895 (p.4)
2. ‘Texas Preparing for "Juneteenth" Celebration,’ The Negro Star (Wichita, Kansas), June 6, 1941 (p.3)
3. ‘Emancipation Park, Written Historical and Descriptive Data’, Historic American Landscapes Survey, HALS No. TX-7, HABS/HAER/HALS Collection at the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division (available here)
4. ‘It Happened: June 19,’ Milwaukee Star (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), June 27, 1974 (p.5)
5. Editorial, Afro-Hawai'i News (published as Afro-Hawaii News) (Honolulu, Hawaii), July 31, 1991 (p.3)
6. Young, Kevin, ‘Opinion: Juneteenth Is a National Holiday Now. Can It Still Be Black?,’ New York Times, June 18, 2021 (accessed online)
04 June 2020
Hell You Talmbout
On 25 May in Minneapolis, an unarmed man was murdered by police officers while being arrested for suspicion of “passing counterfeit currency” ($20).
George Floyd. Say his name.
His is the latest to join a long roster of black men and women who have died under police custody in the United States. The country has now experienced a week of protests, some have involved the destruction of property and others have been violently suppressed, with many cities under curfews. Protestors have taken up the phrase 'I Can't Breathe' as a rallying call, in reference to Floyd's pleas for help. 'Black Lives Matter' solidarity marches have also taken place globally and citizens of many countries including the United Kingdom are reflecting on how the US situation is mirrored in their national contexts.
The historian of the Reconstruction era, Eric Foner, has influentially argued that that most overused of concepts, 'freedom', is "the subject of persistent conflict and debate in American history." The debates revolve around three things "the meaning or definition of freedom, the social conditions that make freedom possible, and the boundaries of freedom, who, that is, is entitled to enjoy it." While the Constitution outlines some of these, it is the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and the judicial interpretations of these that have been instrumental in keeping this conversation active.
Invariably, as these three amendments relate to the rights of former slaves, the conversation about freedom has continued to be integrally connected to the conversation about race. Now, when the rallying call of a protest movement is 'I Can't Breathe', and the President is threatening to deploy armed forces against protestors, it seems to this curator that we should not shy away from calling this what it is: an urgent public conversation about freedom in the US, and beyond.
The significance of the word freedom was not lost upon the activists of the Civil Rights Movement who used it rhetorically to evoke hope amongst African Americans who were risking their lives for the cause, but also to engage the support of sympathetic middle-class whites. During this last week, many people have called on the memory of Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. whose leadership and advocacy of non-violent protest were a key component of the successes of the Movement. While Dr King is often invoked during public race relations debates, in this instance the rioting and protests are directly comparable to the circumstances that followed his assassination.
In a two-part blog posts, I will reflect on the similarities and difference between these two historic moments and consider what useful lessons might be drawn. I shall also highlight some collection items and other online resources that may be of interest to readers. This post takes a closer look at the national campaign that Dr King was working on at the time of his murder, and the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. The second post will focus on Dr King’s assassination, the rioting that followed, and the response to this in the UK.
A list of resources for researchers, teachers and families can be found at the bottom of this post.
Looking closer at non-violence and the Memphis sanitation workers' strike
Dr King’s son, Martin Luther King III has remarked in the last week that his father used to say that "violence is the language of the unheard." His position of non-violent protest was thus not a superficial glossing over of the anger begot from the deep inequities of segregation and institutional racism, rather Dr King tried to speak directly to the grief and pain of African American communities by offering an organising tactic that empowered protestors by asserting their innate dignity when faced with violence.
Dr King's non-violence must be understood within the framework of the Christian (Baptist) theology he preached, and alongside the many local activists and organisations who worked tirelessly to instil change in their communities. These were the unions and church leaders and educators who would teach basic literacy to adults to enable them to enact their constitutional right to vote, or would document transgressions by local law enforcement, organised local boycotts and many other such activities. King relied on these grassroots activists, many of whom were women, to help decipher local politics, to do the minutiae of civil rights' work, and in return he brought a national platform to their local causes.
It was while he was supporting such a local cause – the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike – that Dr King was assassinated. It will perhaps not come as a surprise that the strike was triggered by the death of two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker. In the segregated city, black sanitation workers walked alongside refuse collection trucks while white workers drove them. When it rained, the only shelter afforded black workers was inside the compactor and horrifically, Cole and Walker were crushed to death by a faulty mechanism during a rainstorm.
Echol Cole. Say his name.
Robert Walker. Say his name.
The subsequent strike was supported by the local and national unions, and the striking workers would march daily to downtown Memphis. They faced regular assault from police, including tear gas and mace. In response to this, the strikers made pickets with the now iconic slogan “I AM A MAN”.
It is a remarkably simple and effective banner, a vehement declaration of the fundamental humanity and dignity of Black men (workers). While separated by half a century, the logo of the Black Lives Matter movement directly recalls the banners the sanitation workers carried.
Dr King and others from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) arrived in Memphis towards the end of March, several weeks into the strike. The concerns raised by the strikers resonated with the SCLC’s ‘Poor People’s Campaign’, which directly tried to address the dire poverty and social issues such as poor housing that many African Americans lived with. Amongst other things, the campaign called for a guaranteed basic income, a radical proposal for its time.
In later years, King’s political understanding of the causes of racism and inequality had developed considerably. He was particularly influenced by the continuing presence of the US military in Vietnam, and the high deployment of African Americans in frontline combat positions. He eventually came to the position that he had to speak out against the Vietnam war. In a key speech titled Beyond Vietnam he connected the war with the economic injustice in the United States, criticising the increase in the country’s militarisation, stating that "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
King’s vision of non-violence, then, was radical, complex and informed by geopolitics as well as a detailed understanding of the problems that afflicted African American communities. This position proved to be seriously damaging to his reputation, including among African Americans many of whom felt that he risked damaging the Civil Rights Movement by complicating the discussion, and alienating sympathetic whites who were an important donor base with ‘radical’ views. The sanitation workers’ strike would prove to be a difficult campaign for King, but it was also a perfect example of the domestic challenges that the SCLC was battling in the PPC and both King and SCLC were in need of a ‘win’.
It is sobering to see that many of the concerns raised by the Poor People’s Campaign and in Memphis in 1968 are shared by contemporary protestors. In a collection of essays about miscarriages of justice against black people, the author and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal asks the question “Have black lives ever mattered?” stating that if the question seems provocative, the answer “no matter how damning, [is] far more provocative. And yet who dares answer but any way other than the negative?” Abu Jamal has spent thirty-eight years in prison, twenty-nine of which on death row, and regularly comments on matters related to the US criminal justice system.
Within the current debate it is important to remember that policing in the United States mostly takes place at the state, district, and city levels. Nationally, there are over eighteen-thousand police departments, each of which is governed by a different set of powers. Additionally, police officials at various levels are regularly subject to public elections. Changing policing strategy, already a complex problem, is thus further complicated by the lack of geographic and temporal continuity. Another complicating factor, as detailed in this article by Mother Jones, is that the Trump administration released police departments from federal oversight. This included the use of consent decrees which imposed reform on police departments that consistently misuse force in a discriminatory way. Many departments, such as in Chicago, that had lost the trust of their local communities had benefited from such intervention, and the Obama administration also actively pursued over seventy cases against police officers. Some gains were being made, albeit it slowly.
Without continued federal oversight and leadership on this issue, harnessing change once again becomes the remit of local activism. In this respect, there is much to be hopeful about. Local people are often the best placed to identify problems and concerns in their communities, and to organise for elections. The Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, which married grassroots activism with a national campaign, provides an inspiring historic precedent of an African American community standing up for the civil rights of Black men to be recognised and respected.
Clearly today’s changed communication channels have substantially influenced the nature of activism, facilitating devolved organisation and the rapid spread of support. However, it remains the case that a grassroots presence of individuals and organisations is essential to the success of a movement.
This can currently be seen by the work being done by local churches in dispersing aid packages and sheltering peaceful protesters from the effects of tear gas, and the calls for financial assistance for organisations such as United Families and Friends Campaign which supports those directly affected by the deaths of Black and minority ethnic people in institutional settings, and Green and Black Cross who have provided legal support to those arrested at protests. We also know that George Floyd was involved in local community programmes, through his church in Houston's Third Ward, and had moved to Minneapolis to fill a similar role helping youth through a church programme.
These community-based institutions have long histories of supporting activists and organising at times of crisis, and much can be learnt from reflecting on historic precedents to the current scenario. The night before his assassination, Dr King preached to a packed church hall in Memphis. He spoke of the local injustice experienced by the sanitation workers, linking it to the need for national political change: “All we say to America is be true to what you say on paper.” He spoke of the need of the community to stay strong and united in the face of continued adversity and resistance to change by white officials. He outlined continued protest strategy including non-violent protest, economic boycotts of locally produced products and businesses. Finally, he went on to deliver one of his most rousing sermons in which he speaks of the sacrifice that he and, by proxy, Black activists might have to make.
In it he evokes a different kind of freedom, that of Christian redemption. Dr King was assassinated the following morning. His funeral, attended by over 100,000 people, was televised nationally. During the ceremony at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he and his father were senior preachers, a recording of his final sermon at the church, ‘the Drum Major Instinct’, was played. His body was then carried by a mule cart to Morehouse College where he studied, followed by the crowd. He was subsequently buried at South View cemetery which was established by slaves beneath an inscription that reads “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty, I’m Free at last.”
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Say his name.
Electronic Library Resources
For researchers the following electronic resources that the British Library subscribes to may be useful. Please note that while the Library remains closed to readers during the Covid19 lockdown, reference services staff are assisting with requests for electronic research materials that are not available to readers remotely:
African American Newspapers: 1827-1998 parts 1 & 2 (available to registered British Library readers from home). This invaluable resource brings full access to hundreds of local, regional, and national African American newspapers.
US Congressional Serial Set (available to registered British Library readers from home). Reports, documents and journals of the US Senate and House of Representatives in full text, 1817-1994. Includes congressional reports on the 1968 riots, as well as broader records of discussions about the Civil Rights Movement.
The Black Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century: Organisational Records and Personal Papers, parts one and two (reading room access only). Includes the organisational papers of the Southern Christian Leadership Congress, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and the Revolutionary Action Movement. They also include the personal papers of Bayard Rustin, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Robert F. Williams.
Race Relations in America, 1943 - 1970 (reading room access only). The Race Relations Department, based at Fisk University, was a highly influential think tank offering a forum for discussion and research on racial topics. The work of the Department highlighted topics such as poverty and inequality, class, housing, employment, education and government policy. Its programme attracted many well-known figures in the Civil Rights Movement, including Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Charles Houston, and Marguerite Cartwright.
Further materials can be found online at the following links:
The Civil Rights Digital Library
Digital SNCC Gateway https://snccdigital.org/
Educational Resources
For any parents who are struggling to find a way to talk with their children about race and racism, the following online resources may be useful.
Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust resources page
Black Cultural Archives
Black Lives Matter toolkits
National Museum of African American History "Talking about Race"
New York Times article "First Encounters with Race and Racism: Teaching Ideas for Classroom Conversations"
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Education and Research Institute online resources
US National Archives: Civil Rights in America
Civil Rights Teaching: https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/
Finally, this conversation on twitter has a long lists of children’s books about race and racism: https://twitter.com/antisocialbritt/status/1267617830872154113
References
Eric Foner, “The Contested History of American Freedom”, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol.137, No. 1 (January 2013), pp.13-31.
Joan Turner Beifuss, At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 strike, and Martin Luther King. Memphis: B&W Books, 1985. Document Supply 86/09202
At the River I Stand (film). 1994. Dirs. David Appleby, Allison Graham, Steven Ross. http://newsreel.org/video/AT-THE-RIVER-I-STAND
Americas and Oceania Collections blog recent posts
Archives
Tags
- Official Publications
- #AnimalTales
- #EcclesFellows
- 1812
- Africa
- American Revolution
- Americas
- Animal Tales
- Arctic
- Artists' Books
- Australasia
- Australia
- Beats
- Bibliography
- Black & Asian Britain
- Business
- Canada
- Captain Cook
- Caribbean
- Civil War
- Classics
- Collections
- Comics-Unmasked
- Conferences
- Contemporary Britain
- Curation
- Current Affairs
- Decolonising
- Digital scholarship
- Digitisation project
- East Asia
- Eccles Centre
- Eccles Fellows
- Eccles Photographs
- Eccles Writer in Residence
- Emancipation Proclamation
- Endangered languages
- eResources
- Events
- Exhibitions
- Fashion
- Film
- Fine Press
- Food and Drink
- Franklin Fridays
- Geography
- Government publications
- Guides
- Haiti
- Hemingway
- History
- Humanities
- International
- Latin America
- Law
- Legal deposit
- LGBTQ+
- Literature
- Manuscripts
- Maps
- Medieval history
- Mexico
- Middle East
- Modern history
- Museums
- Music
- New Zealand
- Newsroom
- North America
- Oceania
- Oil
- Online resources
- Pacific Islands
- Philatelic
- Photography
- Poetry
- Polar
- Politics
- Publishing
- Rare books
- Religion
- Research
- Research collaboration
- Romance languages
- Russian Revolution
- Science
- Slavonic
- Social Sciences
- sound and vision
- South Asia
- South East Asia
- Sports
- Television
- Travel
- Unfinished Business
- USA
- Visual Arts
- Web/Tech
- Weblogs
- West Africa
- Women's histories
- World War One
- Writing