Research Guides: Civil Rights Movement: Organizational Papers

What can I find in Organizational Papers?

Collections of papers, such as those listed here, frequently include items such as personal and professional correspondence, newspaper clippings, financial records, memos, and diaries. Papers from organizations may also have items such as meeting minutes and membership rolls. Because much of this information comes from "behind closed doors," collections of papers can frequently provide a different perspective than what is present in the speeches and press releases of the time.

While the majority of these collections come from prominent African American groups, sets dealing with the KKK and other right wing organizations are included to provide context from the opposition to the civil rights movement.

Organizational Papers

History Vault: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle This link opens in a new window
The History Vault database includes the papers of the following civil rights organizations:
- American Committee on Africa, 1952-1985
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1925-1969
- National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, 1895-1992
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954-1970
- Revolutionary Action Movement, 1962-1992
- League of Revolutionary Black Workers, 1965-1976
Abbreviation: hvcrbfs
Vendor: ProQuest
Subjects: African-American Studies, Communication, History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources

American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912–1990 This link opens in a new window
American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990, spans most of the 20th century. it focuses on civil rights, civil liberties, race, gender, and issues relating to the U.S. Supreme Court. American Civil Liberties Union Papers, Part II: Southern Regional Office is comprised of never-before-digitized materials documenting the ACLU’s legal battle to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in thirteen Southern states. FSU Libraries owns access to Parts I and II of this collection.
Also available on microfilm. Film 4116, 96 reels. Guide: Micr E 185.61 .C596
Abbreviation: aclupap
Vendor: Gale
Coverage: 1912-1990
Subjects: African-American Studies, Communication, History, Law, Political Science
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Reports

Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching papers, 1930-1942
Call Number: Film 8726, 8 reels
Guide: Micr E 185.61 C596
Founded by Jessie Daniel Ames in Atlanta, Georgia in November 1930, to lobby and campaign against the lynching of African Americans.
Image: ASWPL founder, Jessie Daniel Ames, Williamson County (Texas)
Historical Commission
Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1925
Call Number: Film 8680, 25 reels
Guide: Micr E 185.8 S35 1985
Includes federal government surveys, reports, and case files documenting the living and working conditions of early twentieth-century African Americans.
Image: An African-American family leaves Florida for the North during the Great Depression, Smithsonian Magazine.
Commission on Interracial Cooperation papers, 1919-1944
Call Number: Film 8725, 55 reels
Guide: Micr E 185.61 .C596
Formed primarily by liberal white Southerners in response to the increasing unrest amongst black Americans during the post World War I period.
Image: The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) papers, 1941-1967
Call Number: Film 5243, 74 reels
Guide: Micr Z 1361 .N39 M46 1980
CORE specialized in non-violent action to combat discrimination, organizing sit-in demonstrations, "freedom rides," voter registration efforts, and protests.
Image: CORE members carry picket signs outside Columbia University's John Jay Hall in support of employee demands for union representation. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
International Labor Defense papers, 1925-1947
Call Number: Film 9194
Guide: Micr KF4749.A2 S35 1987
A legal advocacy organization affiliated with the Communist International that was active in the active in anti-lynching and civil rights movements.
Image: Cover of Labor Defender, the ILD magazine.

National Negro Business League, 1901-1928
Founded in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, the National Negro Business League sought "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro."
Image: National Negro Business League Executive Committee, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
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This collection comprises the National Negro Business League files in Part III of the Booker T. Washington Papers in the possession of the Library of Congress.

Non Partisan Voters League records, 1956-1987
Call Number: Film 9618, 29 reels
Guide: Micr E 185.93 .A3 B35 1996
The NPVL carried on the local civil rights struggle in Mobile, Alabama, during the eight years that the NAACP was outlawed there, and continued to function long after.
Image: Voter registration in Mobile, Encyclopedia of Alabama
Operation Dixie: the CIO Organizing Committee papers, 1946-1953
Call Number: Film 8752, 75 reels
Guide: Micr Z 1361 .N39 M46 1980
Documents from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) attempt to unionize textile workers in the US South.
Right Wing Collection of the University of Iowa Libraries, 1918-1977
Call Number: Film 5914, 177 reels
Guide: Micr Z 7163 R53 1978
Publications and ephemera from racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, and other right wing groups. The bulk of materials are from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Southern Tenant Farmers' Union papers, 1934-1970
Call Number: Film 8739, 60 reels
Supplement: Film 8753, 17 reels
Guide: Micr Z 5075 U6 S663 1971
Originally set up during the Great Depression, the STFU was founded to help sharecroppers and tenant farmers get better arrangements from landowners.
Supplementary reels include the papers of prominent leaders, including founder Howard Leland Mitchell.
Image: An early union meeting, Southern Tenant Farmers' Museum, Tyronza, Arkansas.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee papers, 1959-1972
Call Number: Film 8690, 73 reels
Guide: Micr Z 1361 N39 S88
SNCC played a seminal role in the freedom rides, the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Selma campaigns, and may be best known for its community organizing, including voter registration, freedom schools, and localized direct action all over the country, but especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Image: Pin-back button from SNCC, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture