Gale Archives Unbound: American Studies

Date Range: 1901-1928 Assorted documents of The National Negro Business League. Founded by Booker T. Washington to enhance the economic prosperity of the African American community.

Date Range: 1989-1991 (small amount of material from 1981-1989) This collection contains materials on civil rights, the development of civil rights policy, and the debate over civil rights legislation during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and during his tenure as vice president. Contents of this collection includes memoranda, talking points, correspondence, legal briefs, transcripts, news summaries, draft legislation, statements of administration policy (SAP’s), case histories, legislative histories and news-clippings covering a broad range of civil rights issues.

Materials in this collection document the work of the most significant figure in the struggle for black equality in Mobile, Alabama, John L. LeFlore. Records of the Non-Partisan Voters League, 1956-1987.

This collection consists of James Dombrowski's correspondence and papers as leader of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1941-1948, and executive director of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, 1948-1966. 

This archive, from the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, documents the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) which was established in 1946 to, among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against…labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities."

Archival material from the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY, for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement. The collection material concerns the issues of lynching, segregation, race riots, and employment discrimination.

Materials from 1981-1993 related to the planning and organization of the October 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, focused on U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian relations and in Middle Eastern affairs more generally, sourced from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

The General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches voted to create the Council for Social Action in 1934. The Council worked to focus on continuing Christian concern for service, international relations, citizenship, rural life, and legislative, industrial and cultural relations.

This collection details Operation OAK TREE, the U.S. Army's codename for the plans to intervene in Alabama in the event of civil disturbances related to school integration in May 1963, and its successor, Operation PALM TREE. These records cover Governor Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door," the Birmingham church bombing, and the National Guard deployment to the area.

This series consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by the United States' diplomatic post in Liberia. The topics covered by these records include all aspects of relations with Liberia, and interactions of American citizens with the Liberian government and people.

Date Range: 1940-1978

Date Range: 1969-1974

From the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University. Transcriptions of interviews conducted between 1967 - 1973 with influential individuals from the Civil Rights Movement.

The Written Rastafari Archives Project (WRAP) involves an exclusive collection of the most well-known Rastafari ephemerals – newsletters, magazines, newspapers, booklets, statements, letters, articles and assorted literature - written and published by a number of Rastafari Mansions, organizations, groups and individuals over the past four decades.

Bush White House Office of Records Management (WHORM) Subject Files and the Staff and Office Files, 1990-1991, on the United States military and diplomatic response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, sourced from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

Covers the Congo (Zaire between 1965 and 1971; presently called Democratic Republic of the Congo) following independence, during the Congo crisis of the 1960s, when there was a threat of the Cold War spilling over into Central Africa.

This collection of U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relating to internal affairs contains a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats, including special reports on political and military affairs; studies and statistics on socioeconomic matters; interviews and minutes of meetings with foreign government officials; full texts of important letters, instructions, and cables sent and received by U.S. diplomatic personnel; reports and translations from foreign journals and newspapers; translations of high-level foreign government documents, including speeches, memoranda, official reports, and transcripts of political meetings and assemblies.

Covers the period after Nigeria became an independent nation in 1960. In October 1963, Nigeria altered its relationship with the United Kingdom by proclaiming itself a federal republic and promulgating a new constitution.

Includes American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments in French Africa, and various materials from U.S. diplomats, including: special reports on political and military affairs; studies and statistics on socioeconomic matters; interviews and minutes of meetings with foreign government officials; full texts of letters, instructions, and cables sent and received; reports and translations from foreign newspapers; and high-level foreign government documents.

This collection consists of selected portions of the records of attorney Vernon Z. Crawford (1919–1986) and the Blacksher, Menefee and Stein law firm whose work represents a significant contribution to the shape of the civil rights movement in 20th century Alabama. Documents include legal documentation, complaints, petitions, requests, depositions, handwritten notes, correspondence, exhibits (maps, plans of school buildings, population diagrams), and surveys.

Includes records of the New York State Supreme Court, which include a full testimony of all witnesses, including the two who spoke in secrecy to hide their identities; preliminary motions, summations, the court's charge, the verdicts, and the sentences; and a confession made years after the trial by one of the men convicted.

Materials from 1981-1993 related to the planning and organization of the October 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, focused on U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian relations and in Middle Eastern affairs more generally, sourced from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

This collection is from the Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations (ODCSOPS) relating to the use of Federal marshals, U.S. Troops, and the federalized National Guard in Oxford, Mississippi, 1962-1963, on the occasion of James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi. The records cover events such as the riots of September 30 and Governor Barnett’s efforts to obstruct Federal marshals, as well as daily events on campus and Meredith’s progress under integration. The files detail the extensive Federal involvement, including preparations for the military operation, Executive Orders, after action reports on the costs and lessons of Federal involvement, congressional correspondence on the military’s involvement, and effects on the media, public, and in particular, students and staff at Ole Miss.

This publication covers President Eisenhower's use of Federal troops and the Arkansas National Guard in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957 -1958. The operation is detailed from the planning for intervention prior to deployment, up to the withdrawal of troops at the end of the school year. Records include a journal of events, an Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations & Plans summary of the operation, a historical report prepared by the Office of the Chief of Military History, papers on Governor Faubus' actions with regard to integration, press reports and observations by Army officers on the reaction of the community, and congressional correspondence.

This collection reveals details of the Federal Government's plans to militarily intervene in the 1963 March on Washington (codenamed Operation "Steep Hill") in the event the march became disorderly. The records include army staff communications and memos, intelligence reports and estimates, congressional correspondence, press articles, and maps planning the route of the March.

Date Range: 1980-1992

Digitized version of the Primary Source Media microfilm collection entitled Records of U.S. Foreign Assistance Agencies, 1948-1961: U.S. Operations Mission in Iraq, 1950-1958, comprised of documents of the Point Four program in Iraq during the early Cold War period, sourced from the U.S. National Archives.

Documents from the FBI chronicle the civil rights activists that left Washington on May 4, 1961, bound for New Orleans.