Archival collections are an excellent resource for primary sources. Primary sources are objects produced by the topic being studied, rather than something written about the topic. An example of a primary source for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s would be letters or a diary written by Martin Luther King Jr. This is different than a secondary source, such as an academic article written about King’s impact on the movement. Listed below are various collections that contain primary resources, as well as a database that allows users to find archives, based on geographic location or subject matter.
Labadie Collection: Housed at Special Collections in the Hatcher Library, the Labadie Collection focuses on providing artifacts and documentation related to social protest movements, ranging from the nineteenth century to the present. The menu on the left-hand side of the page provides more information about the collection and types of materials in the collection; most of the links in the menu supply a listing of the topics covered by a specific aspect of the collection.
Subject Vertical Files:These files, part of the Labadie Collection, are composed of ephemera (objects such as flyers and posters) related to a variety of social protests, including several files on the Civil Rights Movement. This page provides a listing of some subjects available in the file; halfway down the page is a link to a searchable list of file topics that features a listing of all the folders in the collection and links to request specific folders.
Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive: Created from digitized documents and photos from a variety of sources, the Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive is separated into Supreme Court cases, school integration efforts in northern urban areas, school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District, and recent resegregation trends in American schools. While the site’s appearance is somewhat dated, the links provided on the homepage connect with unique local images and information.
Bentley Historical Library WUOM Records: A U of M radio station established in 1948, the WUOM Records collection contains information related to radio broadcasts primarily from the 1940s to the 1960s, including the radio’s documentation of the station’s coverage of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. (see also the Civil Rights History Project record below). While the collection is not digitized, information on the contents of boxes in the collection can be found in the labeled links on the left side of the page.
American Folklife Center: The Civil Rights History Project: A Library of Congress survey of U.S. collections focusing on Civil Rights, this project provides a much more comprehensive list of collections than most commercial options for finding archives, and includes records for very small collections that might not be indexed elsewhere. A brief description of all the collections in this list is available by clicking on the collections’ titles.
Civil Rights Digital Library: Focusing on the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, this digital library provides online access to a variety of primary sources, including news media, libraries, and museums. The guide is searchable or browsable by topic, individual, place, or media type.
ArchiveGrid: ArchiveGrid helps patrons find archives internationally either by subject or by location, and features a user-friendly Google map on the homepage with “pins” indicating the locations of archives in a specific area. In order to access ArchiveGrid, click on the “Try It” link below “ArchiveGrid” and its description in the middle of the page. This will take you to the homepage of ArchiveGrid where you can enter a zip code on the map on the homepage, or enter the topic of your search in the box at the top. Since there is no “Advanced Search” setting, the best way to narrow the number of results is to make your search terms as specific as possible and enclose them in quotation marks whenever possible.