Library Resources on Historical Racial Disparities, Inequities, and Protest Movements - College of Charleston Libraries

On Fridays, we have been trying to highlight electronic resources from the College Libraries collection for users to explore during e-learning, and today, we are sharing databases and books on historical racial disparities, inequities, and protest movements. Educate yourself using resources recommended by Aaisha Haykal, Manager of Archival Services at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture.

Databases:

• NAACP Paper – Collection 3
  • The NAACP’s Major Campaigns—Scottsboro, Anti-Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation and Discrimination Complaints and Responses.
• We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death, Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
  • Details the Freedom Rides, which began May 5, 1961, to challenge the status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation.
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records
  • The political side of the freedom movement, the role of civil rights organizations in pushing for civil rights legislation, and the interaction between African Americans and the federal government in the 20th century.
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 1
  • Branches out to cover other aspects of African American life in the 20th century, like religion, sports, education, fraternal organizations, and even the field of entertainment.
• PolicyMap
  • Leverage thousands of U.S. data indicators to perform demographic and socioeconomic analysis, from a neighborhood census block up to the national level. Also users can create customized data and searches for their research and studies.

Books (mostly full-text ebooks):

• Beitel, K. (2012). Local protest, global movements: Capital, community, and state in San Francisco. Temple University Press.
• Brooks, M. (2020). Fannie Lou Hamer: America’s freedom fighting woman. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
• Camp, J. (2016). Incarcerating the crisis: Freedom struggles and the rise of the neoliberal state (1st ed., Vol. 43). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/j.ctt1b3t8fn
• Campbell, C. (1997). Civil rights chronicle letters from the South. University Press of Mississippi.
• Mortensen, M., Neumayer, C., & Poell, T. (2019). Social media materialities and protest: Critical reflections. Routledge.
• Ruiz, P. (2014). Articulating dissent: Protest and the public sphere. Pluto Press.

The Avery Research Center’s digital collections may be viewed via the Lowcountry Digital Library, and their Statement of Solidarity can be read on all of their social media accounts, including their Facebook page. You may also wish to explore resources on the CofC Race and Social Justice Initiative website, specifically The State of Racial Disparities in Charleston County, South Carolina 2000-2015.