Research Guides: Civil Rights: Primary Resources

Identifying a Primary Resource

Primary sources are the raw material upon which critical, analytic, and historic studies are based. These sources are the evidence left behind by participants or observers. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period. They present original thinking, report a discovery, or share new information. (Note that the definition of a primary source may vary depending upong the discipline or context.)

Examples include:

Artifacts (e.g. coins, plant specimens, fossils, furniture, tools, clothing, all from the time under study)
Audio recordings (e.g. radio programs)
Diaries
Interviews (e.g., oral histories, telephone, e-mail)
Letters
Newspaper articles written at the time
Original Documents (i.e. birth certificate, will, marriage license, trial transcript)
Patents
Photographs
Proceedings of Meetings, conferences and symposia
Records of organizations, government agencies (e.g. annual report, treaty, constitution, government document)
Speeches
Survey Research (e.g., market surveys, public opinion polls)
Video recordings (e.g. television programs)
Works of art, architecture, literature, and music (e.g., paintings, sculptures, musical scores, buildings, novels, poems)

Goucher College Civil Rights Materials

The Civil Rights Past/Present/Future Theme Semester Spring 2015 showcases civil rights materials from Goucher College’s Special Collections & Archives curated by Nakpangi Ali ’17, Micah Connor ’16, Yabsera Faris ’17 and Nicole Wise ’16 under the supervision of professor James Dator and Goucher College Library staff.

Browse the Exhibit

Primary Sources on the Internet

Behind The Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South
A selection of 410 recorded oral history interviews chronicling African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s.
Civil Rights Resource Guide
This guide compiles links to civil-rights resources throughout the Library of Congress Web site. In addition, it provides links to external Web sites focusing on civil rights and a bibliography containing selections for both general and younger readers.
Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights
Since its inception in 1957, the United States Commission on Civil Rights has been at the forefront of efforts by the Federal Government and state governments to examine and resolve issues related to race, ethnicity, religion and, more recently, sexual orientation. The Thurgood Marshall Law Library offers scholars an opportunity to examine the efforts of the Commission more closely.
Library of Congress American Memory- Civil Rights Era
Few other institutions can present the African American mosaic of life and culture as completely as the Library of Congress. The Library's photographs, film footage, newspapers, magazines, manuscripts, and music holdings chronicle this period better than any other collection in existence. In addition to the NAACP and NUL papers, the Library also holds papers of civil rights activists such as Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Patricia Roberts Harris, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Mary Church Terrell, Robert Terrell, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and others.
National Archives Civil Rights Records
Explore the nation's history through documents, photographs, and letters.
Civil Rights Digital Library
The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.