Introduction to Primary Sources on the Civil Rights Movement |
Memoirs, autobiographies, and oral histories are the most useful primary sources when researching the Civil Rights Movement. While each of these narratives focuses on different aspects of the Movement, a careful reading (as opposed to a cursory look at the book's index) will uncover passages that reveal the author's thoughts on the major themes of the Movement. (Examples would be music in the movement, non-violence vs. self-defense, ideological differences between SNCC, SCLC, CORE, etc.) Even if you do find a topic listed in the book's index, that topic is very likely to show up on many more pages than are listed in that index.
The goal is to train you to be thorough in your reading of primary sources. You will be given a memoir or autobiography and asked to find passages on certain topics within that book. You will also be asked to look for passages on that topic in other primary sources, including document collections, which are books that bring together previously published articles, essays, interviews, oral histories in one volume. Finally, you will be asked to look for clues in the narratives that will lead you to other primary sources that shed light on the same topic or present an opposing point of view.
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Research Session #1 September 14: Turabian
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WHAT WE ARE DOING IN THIS SESSION AND WHY: As historians-in-training, you are part of the scholarly community. You must learn the conventions and systems used by scholars to acknowledge the work of others. It is crucial that you make clear distunctions in your text between the words of other researchers that you are quoting, your paraphrasing of others' words, and your own ideas. Then, in your footnotes and bibliography, you must provide... READ MORE ABOUT TODAY'S SESSION
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Research Tools:
Kate Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Termpapers, Theses, and Dissertations
Examples
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Research Session #2 October 3: GLOCAT and WorldCat (Primary vs. secondary sources)
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| The primary sources that you used last session can all be located using library catalogs (databases), but there are various pitfalls you will encounter when using these databases. Just as an index to a book can't possibly tell you all the topics covered in it, an entry in a library database can't possibly tell you what is really covered in a book!READ MORE ABOUT TODAY'S SESSION. |
Research Tools:
GLOCAT and WorldCat
Examples, *
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| Research Session #3 October 12: Finding Newspaper and Magazine Articles from 1954-1965 |
Newspaper and magazine articles can be extremely important primary sources. Many journalists traveled to the south to report on what they observed, to interview participants in an event, and to take photographs. Other articles are more like editorials or commentaries in that they can reveal what people in different parts of the country were feeling about an event, person, or issue. Following an event from the beginning through the weeks after it happened by reading the daily newspaper articles is also a good way to get a sense of the uncertainty and confusion arrounding these events. ...... READ MORE ABOUT TODAY'S SESSION.
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Research Tools:
New York Times Index
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
Various magazines
Periodicals Search Page
New York Times Article Archive
Examples
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Research Session #4 October 24: Congressional Record and Congressional Hearings
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In addition to proposed civil rights legislation, the U.S. Congress often discussed general civil rights issues and events during the Movement years. These discussions are recorded in a set of government documents called Congressional Record. Additionally, subcommittees of Congress who were considering legislation held hearings so that witnesses could give testimony about how civil rights violations were affecting their lives. Many of these hearings are published as government documents...... READ MORE ABOUT TODAY'S SESSION. available in GLOCAT and WorldCat.
Students will look through the index volumes of Congressional Record to find congressional debates on a given topic. When possible, they will retrieve the appropriate CR volume and page to read the entry.
Students will use WorldCat and GLOCAT to identify congressional hearings on the civil rights movement.
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Research Tools:
Congressional Record and Hearings
GLOCAT
WorldCat
Examples |
| Research Session #5 November 7: Online Oral Histories, Interviews, Archival Web Pages |
Students will examine a series of web pages that have primary sources or that describe archives. Students will search for similar web pages, using broad subject headings instead of narrow ones, and checking the authenticity of the information.
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Research Tools:
Online Oral Histories
Google!
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